Interviewing an engineering manager is focussed more about the broader spectrum of the product and the company, which is why we will discuss the company, product, processes, communication, teams, people as well as leadership during the interview.
Ensuring engineering execution is one of their most important jobs.
“Execution” refers to repeated, on-time, high-quality delivery of things the engineering team is tasked to build. The leader should be able to balance offense (e.g., growing the product, building features, improving performance) with defense (e.g., reducing the bug load, rewriting systems to pay off bug debt, improving efficiency, and reducing cost). They should provide critical input into the product planning and development process. VPEs are a thought partner for other executive leaders in the company - the CEO, CPO, Head of Sales. They should have an opinion on relative prioritization and technology investments the company makes.
Communication is a significant part of a VPE’s job.
They must be excellent at communicating upward, downward, and sideways. They need to manage the CEO, so the engineering team doesn’t get thrashed, they need to communicate to the engineering team, to keep them in the loop and aware of everything going on. They need to be able to talk to clients, to the sales team, to the customer support team. They must be a highly versatile communicator, able to juggle a large variety of audiences and contexts.
An engineering manager has taken a look into the products and therefore has probably gathered some first ideas about improvements about the product.
In your last company which initiatives have you taken to be more competitive towards other companies?
The engineering manager can shine here and talk about some projects he has influenced. It will show you what kind if influence the engineering manager had and hw pro-active one is.
They are responsible for the continued growth and development of the engineering team. Senior engineers need hard challenges in the form of ambiguous but critical problems and leadership opportunities. Junior engineers need mentorship and challenging work appropriate to their level. The leader should be able to balance a team with the appropriate seniority mix so that everyone has opportunities to learn and grow. They are responsible for delivering feedback as well as for letting people go when things are not working out.
Hire, hire, hire. If the engineering team is supposed to double or triple over the next 12-24 months, they need to be spending a substantial chunk of their time sourcing, interviewing and closing great talent. They should be able to figure out the organizational structure 12 and 24 months into the future and then hire toward that. They should be able to build up their bench by grooming or hiring the next set of leaders that can take their place.
They must be able to lead the team when times are good and bad. Keeping morale up when things are rough, keeping the team focused on the highest priority deliverables, helping people feel good about doing some of the most challenging, hard, and impactful work they have done - this all falls upon the VPE.
An engineering manager needs to be able to look into the future and have a broad plan about what is to happen. If an engineering manager can not deliver an answer it might be a red flag.
An engineering manager needs to be able to motivate people, define goals, align the goals with the team and give purpose.
It gives you an insight wether the engineering manager has taken time to figure out about one's way of leading. What motivation one has, what strategies the candidate has created and the personality type. You can compare it with what you need and how it would affect the company culture.
An engineering manager is able to be self-reflective and change his behavior.
How do you react when you see a colleague or a member of your team is falsifying numbers and is basically cheating?
We want to see which disciplinary actions a leading manager would take to address this situation.
You will be able to get an insight about how the candidate things and what strategies the candidate will come up with.
Follow up: What are the learnings of the bad decisions?
The engineering manager can weight out the evil from the lesser evil and has a sight on what is best for people, product and company.
The engineering manager can show one's sensitivity and empathy. For a good working environment and company culture we are looking for candidates that are flexible and can show empathy in the right moments, while showing inspiration and motivation in the other moment and take disciplinary actions in again different situation.