Top Interview Questions to ask Engineering Managers

Top Interview Questions to ask Engineering Managers

In the technology world, engineering management interviews are the most difficult one. You have to prove your professional competence and expertise in building complex systems and your soft talents in managing individual people as well. Here, let’s know some Top Interview Questions to ask Engineering Managers.

All interviews and experiences are different. Regrettably, some interviews with engineering managers may sometimes be vague. The questions for Engineering Manager interviews might be of a variety of topics, and you have to prepare for something that is typically imprecise.

Nevertheless, we will guide you thoroughly so you can make an impeccable impression for your interview. 

First, you have to precisely understand the duties of this role. What do you understand by the Engineering Manager? What are the day-to-day responsibilities of an Engineering Manager? 

An engineering manager is someone who supervises the production and maintenance of goods and services by people, projects, and procedures.

A typical day-to-day duty of an Engineering manager contains a lot of important things that steer the organization.

  • Talent management: hiring, firing, and promoting engineers.
  • Training engineers to perform better.
  • Managing budgets.
  • Project management: selection, prioritization, and supervision.
  • Leading projects.
  • Product development, infrastructure maintenance.
  • Connecting multiple departments within the company.

While you will be preparing for the interview make sure to dress up completely formally. Remember, when you enter the room or the video chat, the first impression you make will always determine how the rest of the interview might go. Leave no room for the way you dress up for the purpose. If have you have a beard, remember to shave or trim that off neatly. Tie/comb your hair neatly. Don’t wear too much bright colors. Be simple and neat. 

Let’s get you to the guidelines of an engineering manager’s interview.

Most of the companies’ first steps for selecting your application will start with screening your resume.   

Make sure to follow these rules while creating a flawless resume.

1) Don’t ever lie in your resume. The recruiter team would immediately be able to catch the lies. Be honest with your resume. 

2) Check the resume several times to avoid any spelling mistakes. Even a slight error in your resume can pull you out of the competition. 

3) Highlight only those skills thoroughly that are required by the company. Highlight your experiences and projects in those skills

4)Don’t exaggerate too much. Create your resume in a sharp and to-the-point language. 

After the complete screening of your resume, you will get a notification from the recruiter team of the company inviting you for an interview. 

The recruiter screening round is basically about everything that you’ve said in your resume. You’ll be asked questions based on your resume. It is normally 30-45 minutes of the round where you will also be evaluated lightly on your technical abilities from your domain. Be ready for some behavioral questions as well. While attending this round be authentic and genuine. Poor response to these questions might not favor you. 

To help you with that, here are some common questions that’ll help you to be prepared

Q1.Why should you be hired?

Q2. How do you manage conflicts?

Q3. What do you consider in an engineer when you are hiring one?

Q4. How would you support/assist one of your engineers when they are grappling with their work?

Q5. How will you handle multiple prioritized projects?

Q6. How do tech lead and engineering managers work hand in hand?

Q7. How would you fire someone if you need to? Also, tell me about the ultimate reasons that you might consider while firing someone.

Q8. What are the qualities that you would consider while promoting someone?

Q9. Tell me about a time where you’ve managed conflicts within the team. 

Q10. Tell me about a time where you were overwhelmed with work pressure. How did you cope up with that?

Q11. How much will you rate yourself on your managerial skills?

Q12. How do you guide a tech lead?

Q13. How do we organize your 1:1s?

Q14. If there is no one in your team, how would you build tech leads?

Q15. When was the last time you tried something new?

Technical Screening

After getting past the barrier of the first round of interviews, you would be called for the second round with the hiring manager. 

Here you will be completely evaluated based on your technical skills. We can also call this Technical Round. Be ready to flaunt your skills and expertise in your domain to show the interviewer how you are one of the best candidates and how you would prove to be an asset to the firm. Interviews on the ground vary but maintain a consistent framework. For engineering manager applicants, the most challenging task is the onsite interview. You will have 5 or 6-hour of interviews with a break for lunch in the middle of this session.   You will be interviewed mostly by existing managers of engineering. You may also have interviews with an HR representative, a senior executive, or, possibly, a junior engineer, depending on the firm, job, and circumstances.

Here are some sample technical questions that will help you get an idea of what kind of questions are to be thrown at you.

1) What coding language do you feel most at ease with, and why?

2) Tell me about the newest technologies with which you have been working.

3) Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of working in an Agile environment.

4) Distinguish between REST and SOAP web services.

5) What features would you include in a ticketing platform?

6) How do you handle increased volume calls between clients and REST API services?

7) Return the decoded string of an encoded string.

8) You may remove no more than one character from a non-empty string s. Judge if it may be a palindrome.

9) Return the sum of the values of all nodes in a binary search tree with values between L and R, given the root node (inclusive)

10)Tell me about the architecture of a recent project in which you were engaged.

11) Create a short URL system.

12) Design a website memory cache.

13) How would you go about designing a system that counts the number of times people click on YouTube videos?

14) Develop a method for generating the distributed ID.

15) How would you create a webpage that displays the status of 10 million or more people, including their name, photo, badge, and points?

Here are some tips for you to help you create a positive impact and make you even more confident

  1. You should always include an explanation of your logical thinking and problem-solving approach while you are solving a particular problem. 
  1. You might face a situation where you are unable to understand a particular question. Do not hesitate to request the interviewee if you need more information to answer.
  1. There are times when we don’t have answers to certain questions. If you are in that situation, tell the interviewer that you don’t know or rather ask questions to find out more about the problem. This might enable you to discover the correct response.
  1. Practice brain puzzles and coding tasks on whiteboards.
  1. Tips to help you prepare for the interview.
  1. Communication is the key. Make sure you leave absolutely no room in this category. Practice communicating with your peers, family members, or even better with yourself in front of the mirror. This will make you more confident.
  1.  Research about the company before you go for the interview. It is very important to know about the company culture, the work ethic. You might even face questions based on these. Interviewers will want to know how much you are prepared for the interview, your dedication to this particular interview. Also, research the interview process of the company you are about to attend. 
  1. Prepare for the system design interview questions specifically. As mentioned in the article earlier, an Engineering Manager should be efficiently able to design a system. So be prepared to face a lot of system design questions. Prepare self-formulated assignments and practice them rigorously. Study the error and check the rooms in which you can improve. 

Your interviewer will likely push you to the edge to check how much you can handle pressure. Be confident. 

Check out the following topics that will help you prepare for the system design interview. 

  • Scalability: We can call a system scalable if when designed can take more load and continue to run efficiently. 
  • Reliability: If your system can work as intended, tolerate user errors, is good enough for usage, and prevents unauthorized access or misuse, the system can be said as reliable. 
  • Accessibility: if your system can execute its functions within the total time we can say that the system is available. Reliability and availability are connected, but not identical. Reliability means accessibility, but access does not mean reliability.
  • Efficiency: if your system can accomplish your functions rapidly, the system is efficient. Latency, duration of reaction, and bandwidth are all. 

Does the company want to fill the position quickly or seem in no rush to hire someone?

Getting answers to some of these final questions will help you and the recruiter you will be working with better understand when and how the hiring decision is made. 

  1. How does this role make contributions to the company’s brief period and long time goals? 
  2. What are the next steps in the interview?
  3. How quickly are you trying to get an individual started?
  4. What sort of personalities typically act well inside your team?

By demonstrating you are organized to ask questions during an interview with an engineering executive you put yourself to a higher advantage. You also get a peek at the managerial style of the company, the culture and work ethic of the firm, priorities, its vision, and future goals all at once. By asking these questions, it will help to present your priorities, skill-set, experience in a more confident manner to the interviewer. 

Nevertheless, you should still know what the recruiters want in a Manager. Here are some basic traits that the hiring manager looks for in an engineering manager.

  1. Superior capacity to solve problems
  2. Knowledge of engineering principles
  3. Exceptional mathematics skills
  4. Collaboration and teamwork abilities
  5. Integrity
  6. Capability to comprehend the broader context
  7. Capability to work well as a team
  8. Capability to solve difficult engineering challenges
  9. Capability to work well under pressure and deadlines.
  10. Outstanding cognitive abilities
  11. Engineered judgment
  12. Effective communication skills
  13. A passion for knowledge

Questions That You Shouldn’t Ask Your Interviewer

  1. What will be my remuneration?
  1. What is your bonus strategy?
  1. How do I seek paid holidays?
  1. Is it possible for me to work remotely if I so desire?
  1. What is the average time it takes to advance in this company?
  1. What types of perks do you provide?
  1. Would it Be ok to arrive late for work on occasion?
  1. Will I be subjected to a drug screening if I apply for the job?
  1. Is there anything unique about this job?
  1. Annually, how many paid holidays do I get?
  1. How frequently do individuals in this company get raises? 

Never inquire about benefits, pay, or other incentives during an interview with an engineering manager. Just save the inquiries till after a contract is formed or discussions have begun.

While you’re dealing with an engineering recruiter, you should have them negotiate the salary and benefits package on your behalf because they’ll function as a middleman.

A smart recruiter will structure and negotiate perk package needs in a way that does not insult the company, to get you the best deal possible.

Assembling everything 

While you are attending the interview, make sure you dress up neatly, have your resume corrected thoroughly before submitting it for screening, revise your resume and expect to get questions asked based on that. Answer genuinely to situational/behavioral questions, poor responses could lead you out of the competition, practice your domain knowledge well, prepare various self-formulated assignments and solve it. Most importantly practice effective communications with yourself to gain enough confidence. 

We hope you ace the interview. Best Wishes to you! 

Top Interview Questions to ask Engineering Managers

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Scroll to top