Tips for Answering Engineering Manager Interview Questions

Engineering Manager interviews can be tricky as there are not much resources out there. Here are few things to consider for the EM interview

• Think, why are they actually answering this question.
• What are the possible behaviors, qualities, situations, tradeoffs this situation is trying to cover
• Depending on how I answer, what are the possible followups
• Emphasize your accomplishment and impact in relative light so that the interviewer can benchmark it. Always think how would your director/VP weigh your team's impact against another team. 
• You did 30 interviews last half to hire a team of 10. Put that in light of org average, how many does an average manager hire? 
• Your team got 10% metric win, is it easy/hard with a team of x? Put it in relative light of another team. 
• Also caveat answers saying that the EM job is to solve business and product problem. Different products and businesses have different problems, so you may not employ the same tactics there. You will calibrate the need and devise the right strategy. This answer is just representative of how you have solved certain problems only. 
• Dont go into unnecessary details. That will beg more questions and lead to distraction not giving the interviewer enough signal. Revise your answers and keep them crisp. 
• Behavioral questions can be explained using STAR(Situations, Tasks, Actions, Results) methodology.
• ABS - Always be selling, but you need to come across as authentic. You need to have the technology, infra, scaling USP(Unique Selling Point) on your resume to justify your engineering complexity that you solved as an EM
• If you dont have a story, dont say you dont know. Say that this is what you have seen other managers go through, and if you were in that situation, this is what you do based on those observations. This is an opportunity for you to demonstrate, how you would handle a unique situation that you havent faced as a manager before. 

If you are a manager who just finished interviewing, would like to hear about your experience in the comments.