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Engineering Manager

  • How do you assess and improve the health of an engineering team?
  • What signals tell you burnout risk is increasing, and how do you respond?
  • How do you set clear expectations for engineers at different levels?
  • Describe how you handled an ongoing underperformance situation.
  • How do you build growth plans that balance business needs and individual goals?
  • What is your approach to coaching engineers toward promotion readiness?
  • How do you run planning for a team with both roadmap and unplanned operational work?
  • How do you decide which projects to delay when capacity is constrained?
  • How do you resolve conflicts between product urgency and technical debt work?
  • Describe a time you reset priorities mid-quarter and kept delivery predictable.
  • How do you track commitments without creating micromanagement?
  • What do you do when a team repeatedly misses deadlines?
  • How involved should an Engineering Manager be in technical design decisions?
  • How do you support high technical standards if you are not the deepest domain expert?
  • How do you work with Product and Design to shape scope before implementation starts?
  • How do you handle disagreements with Product about timelines or feasibility?
  • How do you ensure reliability, security, and quality are built into delivery plans?
  • What KPIs do you track to evaluate engineering effectiveness beyond velocity?
  • How do you communicate risk and delivery confidence to senior leadership?
  • What information belongs in weekly updates to maximize trust and clarity?
  • How do you manage dependencies with other teams that have different priorities?
  • Describe a time you had to escalate a cross-team blocker.
  • What role do you play during high-severity incidents?
  • How do you ensure incidents turn into durable process or system improvements?
  • Tell me about a difficult leadership decision you made with incomplete information.
  • Describe a conflict between two strong engineers and how you resolved it.
  • Share a management mistake you made and what changed afterward.
  • How has your management style evolved over time?
  • What do you need from your manager and peers to succeed in this role?
  • How do you define a successful first 90 days as an Engineering Manager?
  • What questions do you have about team culture, leadership expectations, or product direction?