What Is Your Work Day Like And How Do You Manage Your Time And Emails Since You Mentioned Time Management As A Big Challenge
Natasha: Yeah, thats a good question. I have a to-do list, Im pretty big on to-do lists. I have a weekly to-do list thats digital, and then I do written, actually, handwritten daily to-do lists. I remember things better when I write them down, so I tend to use a pencil and actually write things down.
I try to start the day by having three items I want to focus on in the day on the to-do list. Things will definitely come up and I just write them down and then after I finish one, I quickly look at my list to see if anything urgent comes up. But really try to focus on those three items.
I used to try different digital tools for the to-do lists, but I ended up focusing too much on finding the best tool versus actually focus on what Im trying to get done, so Ive switched back to just doing a handwritten daily to-do lists.
Another technique I use is blocking off time on my calendar. Theres this concept about makers time versus managers time, I think thats Paul Grahams concept.
Vidal: Yes.
Vidal: Thats really great. You said you had a weekly to-do list and you have the daily to-dos. Is it different what you put on the weekly to-do list? Is it like a checklist for the week, or what is the difference?
What Is A Personal Habit That Contributes To Your Success
Flexibility. I adjust to different situations and different people I work with. I tend to be open to new ideas, take them, try them and iterate on them. I believe every person in the team is different and I take this opportunity to learn from everyone and adjust to what the team needs. Being flexible is the habit I rely on a lot.
Networking. Im pretty big on networking. I like to share experiences and learn from others. I still keep in touch with a lot of people I used to work with, my peers, sponsors, mentors, engineers I worked with and managers I had. I share my experience and learn from theirs. I think those conversations provide an environment of being able to get a different perspective on situations from people you are not directly working with. I find it very valuable.
Early morning running. It is important to have personal time in our busy lives so that you have a chance to reset or figure out what to focus on. I usually work out or run early in the mornings and prepare myself for my day and it gives me a good way to clear my head and start the day strong.
How Do You Ensure A Project Stays On Schedule
Interviewers are interested in finding out how candidates respond to obstacles and challenges, as well as how they conceptualize software development. Using this question, the interviewer finds out how well the candidate prepares their team and projects for success, as well as what management style they engage in.
Tips:
- Emphasize the importance of reviewing the project’s progress daily or weekly. Adjustments are best made this way.
- Furthermore, you can discuss breaking down the project into smaller tasks that can be completed daily and/or weekly in order to avoid being overwhelmed.
- You can discuss using an online virtual workspace for team collaboration and file sharing both remotely and in the office.
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How Do You Help Your Team Members To Improve
An engineer manager is a leader. They need to help everyone on their team to improve their productivity and efficiency. With this question, the goal is to assess if the candidate has practical strategies that they can use to help your engineers to get better at their day-to-day tasks. You should also determine if their suggestions can be applied in your companys current setup.
Fundamentals Of An Em Interview
Engineering Managers in most tech companies are expected to play this intersectional role between People, Tech, and Product/Business. They are entrepreneurs for their own little startups and are held accountable for its success. The real question every company wants to answer is Can this person drive sustainable, long-term success for this area of the business? So they model the interview process to capture signals that can give them reasonable confidence about the candidates ability to drive that sustainable, long-term success. Obviously, it is impossible to categorically determine that, so companies resort to reasonable proxies. The proxies that Ive seen end up falling into these categories:
- Technical Domain Experience
Lets look at each of these in detail and see how they manifest in various interview formats across different companies:
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What Was A Difficult Decision You Had To Make In Your Past Role
Managers in any industry must sometimes make difficult decisions, and the interviewer will likely want to know how you approach the decision-making process. Demonstrate your ability to evaluate information, form conclusions and make choices.
Example:”In my last role, I had to make the choice of whether to keep a gifted engineer on my team or to let them go. They continuously demonstrated negativity on the team, even though their work was exceptional. Ultimately, I kept them on the team by compromising with them to work independently most of the time. This was a difficult, but necessary decision as this particular team member continued to produce amazing outcomes for the company.”
How To Crack Facebooks Data Engineering Manager Interview
Data Engineering manager interviews at Meta are truly challenging. They are thoughtfully structured with clear objectives for each round.
Three years ago, I was being interviewed for Data Engineering Manager and I didnt make it. I got a chance to apply for the same role again this year, and I nailed it. This article is to share my preparation and personal experience.
Note: No questions are shared because of Non-Disclosure Agreement with the company.
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Know Your Choice Company
Tech companies have a wide range of criteria and distinct leveling factors for evaluating candidates, inevitably evolving with changing times. Therefore, it is important to gather as much information as possible about a company, its values, vision, evaluating attributes, and hiring process. This will help you prepare accordingly to a companyâs expectations from you.
For instance, Google seeks candidates who can contribute progressively to their vision which is centered on innovation. Furthermore, their interview process is highly technical, and candidates are expected to solve complex coding problems.
Generally, interview processes at FAANG companies are focused on testing your knowledge of Data Structures and System Design apart from getting a sense of your coding skills. Interview rounds typically involve a phone call with a recruiter, a technical phone interview, and onsite interviews.
Google Interview Questions For Software Engineers
The Google interview questions for software engineers are based on topics such as:
- Algorithms
- Sorting Algorithms â Quicksort, Merge Sort, Heap Sort, etc.
Below are sample coding and algorithm questions asked at the Google software engineer on-site interview.
Google Interview Questions on Queues
Google Interview Questions on Binary Trees
Here are some popular Google interview questions for software engineers on Binary Trees:
Google Interview Questions on Dynamic Programming
These are some common Google interview questions for software engineers on Dynamic Programming:
Google Interview Question on Matrices
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Top Engineering Manager Interview Questions
Related: Top 6 Common Interview Questions and Answers
Jenn, an Indeed Career Coach, breaks down the intentions behind employer’s questions and shares strategies for crafting strong responses.
A software engineering manager is a tech professional who has worked as a software engineer and advanced to a management role. If you’re interviewing for this technical role, there are a variety of interview questions you may encounter, including questions about your management style and technical experience.
In this article, we cover the top engineering manager interview questions with several example answers to help you prepare so you have the best chances of succeeding in your interview.
Do You Have Any Experience Managing Remote Engineers
Remote work has become a mainstream practice for many companies, so their engineering managers are expected to manage staff remotely. A tough transition can be faced by engineering managers when they are responsible for not only their own tasks but also for managing and supporting their teams.
Tips:
- Even if you do not have experience with remote teams, emphasize the importance of communication, documentation, and project management tools.
- It is also a good idea to mention “Keep up the pace and energy of the meeting. Consider making a lighthearted joke about the situation during any pauses or silences”.
- Also, you can mention “If someone on your team is having trouble adjusting to working from home, remind them that this is temporary, and working together will enable them to succeed.”
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Who This Course Is For:
- Anyone preparing for a manager interview/ aspiring to be a engineering manager or non-tech manager
- Any manager wanting to grow/ overcome challenges
- Any employee wanting to better understand/ work with your manager
- 4.2 Instructor Rating
- 615 Students
- 3 Courses
A director, engineer, PM, TPM, architect, interviewer, researcher, hacker. Shipped external & internal products, for enterprise & consumer customers, at top tech companies such as Microsoft, Salesforce. With my industrial experience and knowledge in managing, recruiting, hiring and interviewing, western & asian cultural dexterity, care about details and spirit to serve, I will help you succeed in your job hunting as well as career development.
What Can You Do To Resolve Tech Debt
Technical debt refers to the implicit cost of additional rework caused by choosing a faster and easier approach over a more efficient one in software development. It is inevitable that every project will suffer from tech debt at some point during the development cycle. It should, however, be managed and minimized. Test, refactoring, proper documentation, and engineer training are all ways to deal with tech debt in engineering.
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How Do You Break Down Large Complex Projects For Your Team
Software development projects can be very large in scope, and the interviewer will want to get an idea of how you start projects and direct your team to completion. Describe your process for delegating tasks, scheduling timelines and budgeting costs for development projects.
Example:”I first analyze the project outline, which tells me what the customer wants at completion. Then I assess what resources and tools my team will need to complete the project. After assessing the budget, I break down large tasks into smaller, weekly objectives that I then delegate to the team to start working on. During each phase, I check in with my team to measure our progress, check for ongoing quality and eliminate potential problems.”
When It Comes To Hiring Top Engineers What Are The Best Practices
You will be responsible for recruiting new talent for your engineering team as an engineering manager. How you find talent and test its quality are the most important questions.
- For finding talent: Use personal network, referrals from current engineers, hiring/promoting internally, visiting industry job boards, connecting on LinkedIn, or contacting recruiters.
- For testing talent: Use phone screenings, culture fit analyses, whiteboard or computer-based problems, testing technical skills through sample projects, and structured interviews.
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How Do You Choose The Best Technology To Handle A Given Problem
Handling projects in your company will often require your engineer manager, together with his team, to decide on the best technology they can use to effectively do the project. This question will help you know if the candidate has ever faced a situation where they had to choose the right technology to handle it.
Leadership Skills Behavioral Skills And Cultural Fit
Google conducts behavioral interviews during the on-site stage of its software engineer interview process.
During these interviews, youâll be evaluated based on certain psychological traits to determine if youâll be a good cultural fit.
Google interview questions for software engineers in the behavioral rounds will focus on:
- Your past relationships with colleagues and superiors
- Challenges you faced in past projects
- Your conflict management skills
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Faqs On Google Interview Questions For Software Engineers
Some popular questions asked about Google interview questions for software engineers:
Q1. What questions are asked in Google interviews for software engineers?
Some topics you should be familiar with to solve Google interview questions for software engineers are â recursion, trees and graphs, dynamic programming, hash tables and queues, arrays, strings, and so on.
Q2. How can I prepare for Google interview questions for software engineers?
When preparing for Google interview questions for software engineers, first brush up on your fundamentals. Follow it up by practicing coding questions on a whiteboard and after doing your research, come up with a list of technical topics to cover. Start preparing at least 8 weeks before the interview.
Q3. Is Google software engineer interview hard?
Google interview questions for software engineers are pretty challenging. So try to practice with ex-interviewers from Google and cover a range of topics.
Q4. How long is the Google interview process?
The entire interview process for software engineers at Google can take anywhere between a couple of weeks to a couple of months to complete.
Q5. How many rounds are there in Google interview?
The Google interview process can be divided into three stages â Online Assessment, Technical Phone Screen , and the Onsite interview .
What Interviewers Are Looking For
We are not simply looking for engineers to solve the problems they already know the answers to we are interested in engineers who can work out the answers to questions they had not come across before.
The above thing is the most important thing the interviewer will be looking for also read the below points
- Interviewer have generally a mindset while taking the interview that if he/she can work along with the candidate in his/her daily to a job or not so do not show signs of arrogance or ego while giving the interviews.
- Interviewers will check whether youve used the suitable data structures and algorithms while implementing the code or not.
- Interviewers will notice the approach that how you optimized the solution, your knowledge about the choice of programming language, your coding speed, any corner cases that you missed and how you analyzed time and space complexity.
- They will check how you communicated your thought process to solve a specific problem in a logical way. They will also check if you were able to catch the hint and was able to proceed with the solution or not.
- If the candidate was open to new ideas? if the candidate was flexible in his/her solutions?
Tips:
Helpful Links:
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Best Engineering Manager Interview Questions
If you are running a company with several software engineers, you probably need an engineer manager. While interviewing the candidates, you should ask specific engineer manager interview questions to get the best candidate out of the lot.
Candidates are often confident that they are an excellent fit for the role but forget about this important aspect: can they manage teams? You not only want someone who is an extraordinary software engineer and has an impressive professional trajectory.
You also want someone who knows how to deal with teams and assumes all the responsibilities of this role from management style to personality traits.
How Do You Handle Team Members That Are More Talented Than You
Some of the most challenging people to manage are those that are more talented than you in some technical aspects. Your engineer manager needs to have the charisma to command respect from everyone on the team, including those who are better than them in some aspects. Your goal is to determine if the candidate has experience handling such people and how they were able to do it.
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What Is A Behavioral Interview At Google
Google uses behavioral interviews to assess job candidates based on their past experiences. These questions typically start with Tell me about a time you and focus on soft skills such as: leadership, communication, teamwork, problem solving, etc.
To round out your preparation, we’ve also included some resume, HR, and hypothetical questions such as “what are your strengths and weaknesses?” or “how would you…?” in this article. As these are real questions that have been reported by past candidates, we want to make sure you’re ready for anything.
These questions will appear at every step of the and Google Cloud Platform, from the initial recruiter screen all the way through to the onsite interviews. They may even appear as icebreaker or transition questions during technical screens. The frequency and type of behavioral questions will vary per role, but be prepared for many.
For more information on the process for a specific role, consult one of our comprehensive interview guides below:
Now, what will your interviewers be looking out for?
