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Whether you’re a seasoned pro looking for a new employer or a junior-level engineer hoping to step up to the next level in your current workplace, thoroughly preparing for an interview at the management level will help you ace any question and impress the interviewer.
Because this is a managerial position, you can expect a wide array of interview questions that will test your leadership qualities, management style, and communication skills in addition to your engineering knowledge.
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The primary responsibilities of an engineer manager are to ensure that key project and engineering duties are fulfilled in a timely and efficient manner. The manager is also responsible for solving any engineering issues that may arise in a project and threaten to cause delays.
Engineering managers are also expected to answer technical questions, train new employees, propose project budgets, work cohesively with other departments, and prepare progress reports.
Usually, an engineering manager is expected to have a bachelor’s degree in engineering and at least five years of experience on the job. Problem solving and delegation are two critical skills needed for this type of work.
Below are some of the critical questions you can expect from a thorough interviewer, whether in a one-on-one exchange or a panel interview. These open-ended questions are designed to gauge your management style and assess whether you will be a good fit within the company’s culture.
Provide specific examples of how you support your team with a project. This question tests your skills as a mentor, coach, and leader. Are you the kind of manager who is willing to roll up your sleeves and jump into the trenches when your team is struggling?
Your answer will shed light on your teamwork skills and indicate whether you’ll be a good fit for the company culture.
Example Answer:
“I like to touch base with regular group check-ins but also with periodic, one-on-one conversations in case individuals would prefer to discuss any issues privately. If someone is falling behind schedule, I’ll dig deeper to find out if the issue is related to a skill deficiency, lack of necessary resources, unreasonably heavy workload, or a personal issue and then use that information to evaluate the best course of action.”
What methods do you have in mind to integrate team-building into the workplace? Strong, successful teams rarely happen by accident; it’s usually credited to leaders finding ways to engage their employees and develop teamwork with collaboration activities or team-building exercises.
Give examples of how you’ve created employee improvement plans, organized team events, or incorporated collaboration activities into a regular part of the work schedule. If you haven’t been in a position to organize these types of events or activities, brainstorm some ideas before the interview so you’re prepared to discuss a few possibilities.
Example Answer:
“Having a cohesive team is a high priority for me. I like to plan small outings and schedule periodic team lunches. At my previous job, I scheduled one large team-building event per quarter.
“The last one we did was an inflatable obstacle course in the parking lot where teams were broken up into smaller groups and had to combine their times for the best overall run, so everyone was cheering and rooting for their teammate running the course. It was a lot of fun, and it was also a much-needed break after a stressful deadline had taken a toll on morale.”
Have you ever coached an engineer into a management role? The ideal answer would be yes, but many times, that isn’t the case.
If you haven’t coached someone into a management role yet, focus on the coaching that you have done and what kind of impact that had on performance. How did you help your colleague, and how did your guidance affect the developer and the company?
Example Answer:
“I haven’t had the pleasure of officially promoting anyone on my past team, but I did personally mentor one motivated, high-performing engineer during my last few months. I feel confident that I was able to give him the skills and resources to fill my role after I left.”
What was a difficult decision you had to make in your past role? When considering an appropriate example to use, make sure your answer will demonstrate your ability to evaluate a situation, examine the pros and cons, form a conclusion, and decisively act on your choice.
Then, justify that your decision was the correct one that had the most positive outcome for the company and/or the team.
Example Answer:
“At my previous job, I had to decide whether to keep a talented but disruptive engineer on the team or let him go. He was consistently tardy and had a negative attitude, but he was a gifted engineer who did exceptional work.
“In the end, I decided to compromise with him by allowing him to work on independent projects most of the time. The work he did was invaluable, and losing him would have severely impacted the company’s deliverables, so I believe I made the right decision by allowing him to stay.”
Provide specific examples to show in what ways you have upgraded the skills of your team. Upskilling employees goes beyond just the basic training, and this question is designed to reveal if you’re just a general manager or a true leader who cares about the team’s growth, development, and efficiency.
You should not, under any circumstances, brush off this question by saying you didn’t have time to upgrade the skills of your team. Not only does this indicate that you aren’t a genuine leader, but it also shows that you don’t possess prioritization and time management skills to invest in your teammates.
A strong engineering manager candidate should care about helping the team learn new skills, improve knowledge, and become more confident and efficient in their roles.
Example Answer:
“In my previous position, I created a mentorship program that paired experienced senior developers with entry-level beginners. This gave senior employees who were interested in becoming managers opportunities to take on a leadership role, while the new developers had personalized instruction with more complicated assignments to help them bond with their teammates and learn new skills and methods on the job.”
How would you prioritize the following work? Prioritization is one of the most critical skills expected from an engineering manager. Tasks must be assessed, prioritized, and scheduled to ensure the business objectives are met based on the time, effort, labor, and budget of a project.
This interview question is designed to make you think on your feet since you won’t know the examples ahead of time. A sample list of tasks that may be associated with this question include:
Building a new web app interface
Upgrading the database
Fixing a bug in server code concurrency
Repairing JavaScript in front-end code
Fixing a CSS display issue in front-end code
Before answering how you would prioritize those tasks, you should ask a few probing questions about the background of the project and the context of those tasks.
For example, fixing a bug with concurrency in the server code may be important in different contexts; it could be blocking the company’s sales team from demonstrating the product to a client, or it could be negatively impacting thousands of direct customers.
This question walks a fine line, and it’s up to you to read the situation and answer accordingly. On the one hand, if you don’t ask probing questions, you may come across as being inexperienced. But on the other hand, too many probing questions may indicate a lack of confidence and an inability to quickly assess and respond.
It’s important to gather the context you need as quickly as possible and provide an answer.
How would you divide these tasks among the team of developers you are leading? This question is an open invitation for you to ask about the skill levels and domain knowledge of the team you’ll be leading.
A good engineering manager knows how to divide tasks based on these skills and knowledge, but a great manager has a deeper understanding of the team’s dynamic and can spread the workload throughout the team to avoid overloading individual developers with too many expectations.
In addition to asking about the team’s skill levels and domain knowledge, you should also consider discussing the possibility of pairing developers together or talking about what kind of work you would expect to be done to accomplish those tasks.
If you have experience leading a team, this is your moment to bring up past accomplishments and further elaborate on your methodology.
If your project is running behind schedule, how would you communicate this to the other teams you are working with? How would you communicate the delay to the executive team?
It’s not unusual for a project to be running behind schedule in the software development industry. However, the way this delay is communicated to team members is extremely important.
Communication should happen collaboratively. A strong answer to this question would mention that input from other team members during meetings should be considered, discussed, and utilized to formulate action plans that will help to minimize the risk of delays for future projects.
A strong leader would foster an environment where the team feels confident that every step is being taken to complete the project and get the timeline back on track.
When working with product or project managers in the past, have you ever disagreed with task prioritization? If so, how did you resolve this?
There are many factors involved with providing a high-level estimate for how long a project is expected to take, but one of the most important guidelines depends on the prioritization decided by the product or project manager.
The engineering manager is then responsible for assigning the resources and communicating the deadline and other relevant information to the team.
But it’s common for unexpected issues to result in a change of prioritization, whether new bugs are discovered, clients or other stakeholders provide feedback or change the timeline, server administration issues need to be addressed, or any number of unforeseen problems.
It’s up to the engineering manager to reevaluate priorities and properly communicate to everyone involved. The interviewer is looking to see how you balanced the client’s expectations with the obstacles that arose during the project.
How did you communicate with the client? Did you appropriately push back and defend your team against unreasonable expectations? Did you have evidence and a good explanation to support your decisions? How did you communicate the reprioritization with your team?
How do you ensure a project stays on schedule? Start with an analytical point of view and examine the overall scope of the project, the needs of the client, and the thought process behind your decision-making as you determine how you delegate tasks.
Then move into the technical aspect of the question and discuss how you get the job done. This is also a good opportunity to show how you would troubleshoot and make adjustments to your game plan if obstacles arise.
With this open-ended question, the interviewer is testing your knowledge, management style, level of preparation, ability to adapt to changes, and how well you can prepare your team to complete a project on time.
Employers are seeking to retain developers, which means an increasing demand for competent, compassionate managers who can mentor the team and create a positive work environment, all while ensuring quick, efficient project deliveries and good relationships between teams and clients.
While technical skills are certainly important, this job requires strong problem-solving and people skills as well. It’s a good idea to brainstorm different situations before the interview so you’re prepared to give specific examples at a moment’s notice.
When listing your references, try to choose people who can personally attest to your leadership qualities and corroborate your examples. A strong recommendation can have a major impact, especially if you’re seeking a job promotion and that recommendation is coming from a trusted employee within the company.
Thorough research can also help you get a major advantage over your competitors. Make sure you’re knowledgeable about the company’s history and culture beforehand. For example, a common Amazon interview question is, “can you tell me who the CEO is?” Sometimes the simple questions can be the trickiest if you aren’t adequately prepared for them.
In the end, just be your honest self. Focus on your strengths and past experiences, and come prepared with questions for the interviewer to ensure you are satisfied with the fit as well if you’re offered the position.