Many good points and very good interview. However, 2 important points are missing. Goals have to be 1. SMART ( Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Realistic and Time bound). 2. Goals should be discussed with each team member and should be mutually agreed. These 2 are the core pillars of goals settings. There is an another element that I thought was missing is the periodic review of these goals and making adjustments to the goals themselves if needed.. Goals simply reflect organization and team's priority and as they change, Goals should be modified as well
My notes. How to set goals for your team? Get inputs from the right place: organization; customer; your team, engineers + managers; Example: recent planning cycle. Ask senior leaders; Ask customer (survey); Criteria for priorities: KPIs of the team, data, scalability, reliability, security Is this project delivering KPI? How do you motivate your engineers to work on tech debt? Everyone is smart. People need to know the truth. Be honest. Communicate the truth Balance project interests with career development interests, find project-person fit This is not long term work, if we solve the tech debt this time, there will be less next time Stretch v.s. Goal T shirt size estimate Communicate with the TLs What do you do when you do not meet your goals? Anticipate that early on Weekly check-ins, are we on track? Where did we go wrong? Learn from that, do not make the same mistake again. Honest retrospective, learning Most deadlines are arbitrary. OKRs with multiple teams collaborating and/or major releases are critical. Self reflection Questions are good. Talked too long? Host feedback This is conversational, not just management, but also empathy. Mistakes that you made early on, how do you motivate your engineers? Show growth. Something you did not know before, and know now. Show that you are capable of growth.
Great interview. An EM has to wear many hats in managing upwards, downwards and sidewards. Goals also need to be a combination of expectations and discussion with all three sides. And yes goals should be SMART.
I found some of the Flow Engineering Principle fits largely for roadmap : Start from the end to the current state.. Outcomes, Value of the outcome, Value stream mapping, obstacles, dependencies and capabilities.
Tech debt can be made part of Stability or Consolidation initiative and setting up metrics against it can make it impactful. Mobile App Stability and Overall tech debt consolidation is a primary requirement for scaleability.
Interview tip for leadership roles - Be concise in your response. If the interviewer wants more details they will ask follow up questions. Talk less convey more.
Video's on this channel are really good and these mock interviews help a lot in the preparation. You get a lot of Tips from the experienced people who are already there where you want to reach. 🤘
I hardly encountered such questions in my engineering manager interview experience, most of the questions are - Tell me a time - when you have to let go someone, tell me a time when you faced a failed tech decision and your mitigations/actions on it... I do take EM and SEM interview I am personally more interested in understanding the solution of day to day fundamental challenges like a very basic one - -- How do you deal with module expert in the team challenge , will same type of work always assigned to him/her, what if some day they are sick or wanted to leave the org?
These are the interview questions I'd say big techs would ask. High level questions tend to stay superficial and do not seem to juice much truth from the candidate.
Goal should be set like 60 / 40 60 percent how value added procees oriented. 40. Percent how they strengthen themselves technically how competing course
Fantastic Interview. Tons of information and knowledge sharing. One suggestion - Apart from process to setting up the goals, it would have been nice to hear in brief how would you measure those goals? But overall it was very nicely done.
Completely disagree. If you are the manager, your number 1 priority is people you are leading. The first priority should be their career and personal development. The magic sauce as a manager is that it is your job to align their growth with the company's and teams.
This has little to do with the actual question. The question was about setting team goals and milestones -- a big part of managing a team. It's like people don't understand there is significantly more to engineering management than just the one on one relationships an engineering manager has with their direct reports.
Seems his organisation does not have corporate goal. The Engineering Manager should work /plan to contribute to achieve the corporate goal, thus he has set goals and kpi for his team individuals accordingly.
Good Interview, One question I have, Is it really required to say Good Question, Interesting Question, Excellent question after every question asked. It seems a little over and fake. It Might irritate the interviewer.
Yes, because these questions have to do with team goal setting which is a big part of engineering management: collaborating with product and/or project mgmt in order to set team goals and milestones. Not every aspect of being engineering manager is directly related to individual team members. A lot of it is higher level prod and proj mgmt.
As someone who is regularly interviewing folks, it would not. It's just a verbal crutch in order to give yourself a tick to formulate your answer. If you are basing any part of your interpretation of an interview on whether they said, "great question" or "thanks" then your feedback needs to be de-emphasized in the interview loop.
Don't leave your engineering management career to chance. Sign up for Exponent's engineering manager interview course today: bit.ly/3PpPkdx
Many good points and very good interview. However, 2 important points are missing. Goals have to be 1. SMART ( Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Realistic and Time bound). 2. Goals should be discussed with each team member and should be mutually agreed. These 2 are the core pillars of goals settings. There is an another element that I thought was missing is the periodic review of these goals and making adjustments to the goals themselves if needed.. Goals simply reflect organization and team's priority and as they change, Goals should be modified as well
SMART 🙌
I prefer OKRs to SMART, personally.
One more point is goal should be in line with overall strategic objective of organization..
My notes.
How to set goals for your team?
Get inputs from the right place: organization; customer; your team, engineers + managers;
Example: recent planning cycle. Ask senior leaders; Ask customer (survey);
Criteria for priorities:
KPIs of the team, data, scalability, reliability, security
Is this project delivering KPI?
How do you motivate your engineers to work on tech debt?
Everyone is smart. People need to know the truth. Be honest.
Communicate the truth
Balance project interests with career development interests, find project-person fit
This is not long term work, if we solve the tech debt this time, there will be less next time
Stretch v.s. Goal
T shirt size estimate
Communicate with the TLs
What do you do when you do not meet your goals?
Anticipate that early on
Weekly check-ins, are we on track?
Where did we go wrong? Learn from that, do not make the same mistake again.
Honest retrospective, learning
Most deadlines are arbitrary. OKRs with multiple teams collaborating and/or major releases are critical.
Self reflection
Questions are good.
Talked too long?
Host feedback
This is conversational, not just management, but also empathy.
Mistakes that you made early on, how do you motivate your engineers? Show growth. Something you did not know before, and know now. Show that you are capable of growth.
This is a great summary! Do you have more such notes that you could share links to? Very helpful! Much appreciated!
Ppppppppppp
I should have gone through your comments earlier, saves a lot of time.. Thanks man
Awesome buddy.
Excellent point about finding someone that would be excited about tackling tech debt. There will always be someone excited about doing something new.
Great interview. An EM has to wear many hats in managing upwards, downwards and sidewards. Goals also need to be a combination of expectations and discussion with all three sides. And yes goals should be SMART.
I have not come across any other mock interview like this, this one is really best one, awesome!!
I found some of the Flow Engineering Principle fits largely for roadmap : Start from the end to the current state.. Outcomes, Value of the outcome, Value stream mapping, obstacles, dependencies and capabilities.
Only thing I learned from this video .. just say excellent questions before answering 😜😜
Tech debt can be made part of Stability or Consolidation initiative and setting up metrics against it can make it impactful. Mobile App Stability and Overall tech debt consolidation is a primary requirement for scaleability.
Great Mock Interview. Lot of precise, informative questions and responses. Both as an interviewer and candidate.. are excellent.
Very well spoken. This man is headed upward.
Interview tip for leadership roles -
Be concise in your response. If the interviewer wants more details they will ask follow up questions. Talk less convey more.
Thanks for sharing!
Fantastic interview. Sri has tons of experience working on projects and with people- and it really shows!
Thank you Exponent for posting these videos!
Glad you enjoyed it!
Underrated channel. You guys deserve more subscribers.
Did he not know which questions were coming? That was so excellent
Video's on this channel are really good and these mock interviews help a lot in the preparation.
You get a lot of Tips from the experienced people who are already there where you want to reach. 🤘
I hardly encountered such questions in my engineering manager interview experience, most of the questions are -
Tell me a time - when you have to let go someone, tell me a time when you faced a failed tech decision and your mitigations/actions on it...
I do take EM and SEM interview I am personally more interested in understanding the solution of day to day fundamental challenges like a very basic one -
-- How do you deal with module expert in the team challenge , will same type of work always assigned to him/her, what if some day they are sick or wanted to leave the org?
These are the interview questions I'd say big techs would ask. High level questions tend to stay superficial and do not seem to juice much truth from the candidate.
It was a really good mock interview. I liked the discussion around Tech debt and Stretch goals. Thanks you
This is is the best interview on this channel. I watched it several times for my preparation.
Goal should be set like 60 / 40
60 percent how value added procees oriented. 40. Percent how they strengthen themselves technically how competing course
Shouldn't goals be taking into account - the individual's personal aspirations? I think people are missing that aspect of Goal setting?
Fantastic interview.
Very real and practical
love this interview, great questions and great insight.
Fantastic Interview. Tons of information and knowledge sharing.
One suggestion - Apart from process to setting up the goals, it would have been nice to hear in brief how would you measure those goals?
But overall it was very nicely done.
How much is his total experience? Is it 8 years and management. This is a rapid growth i must say.
Is saying excellent question, great question necessary?
Great hep for EM interview, very specific.
He is a pro manager 👍
This is usual expectation
Clear thoughts and well put into words on every topic. Thanks for sharing this.
Is it really needed to say "great question" after every question?
Wonderful interview.
Great interview. I would suggest that you don't need to say "Great/Good question" when starting every response.
Fact
I would say this is silly feedback and inconsequential to the interview.
@@itisyerdad Why is it silly? The mock interview is there to show 'how should you answer'. Repeated use of 'great question' will look like a flattery.
Love your videos
Really fantastic, both of you. So much learning for me :)
Mini sundar pitchai! Same soft tone of speech, humble, diplomatic and relaxed, glasses and stubble
This is a great interview. Lots of stuff to learn
Completely disagree. If you are the manager, your number 1 priority is people you are leading. The first priority should be their career and personal development. The magic sauce as a manager is that it is your job to align their growth with the company's and teams.
This has little to do with the actual question. The question was about setting team goals and milestones -- a big part of managing a team.
It's like people don't understand there is significantly more to engineering management than just the one on one relationships an engineering manager has with their direct reports.
True
Will company ask questions relate to their own product or it is random question they would ask ?
Seems his organisation does not have corporate goal. The Engineering Manager should work /plan to contribute to achieve the corporate goal, thus he has set goals and kpi for his team individuals accordingly.
Good interview this. The interviewer forgot to introduce herself ! I guess.
Such a long winded answer i feel
sh asked many question after her last QUESTION..LOL
Very good and funny videos bring a great sense of entertainment!
Is my response supposed to be this long ?
Good Interview, One question I have, Is it really required to say Good Question, Interesting Question, Excellent question after every question asked. It seems a little over and fake. It Might irritate the interviewer.
Hi Manish! Thanks for watching and leaving your feedback! Will take note.
1st question : I can hear a mixture of product and project management in the answer.... not people management.
Yes, because these questions have to do with team goal setting which is a big part of engineering management: collaborating with product and/or project mgmt in order to set team goals and milestones. Not every aspect of being engineering manager is directly related to individual team members. A lot of it is higher level prod and proj mgmt.
I would avoid calling out each question as great question. It may look unreal if we appreciate every question.
As someone who is regularly interviewing folks, it would not. It's just a verbal crutch in order to give yourself a tick to formulate your answer. If you are basing any part of your interpretation of an interview on whether they said, "great question" or "thanks" then your feedback needs to be de-emphasized in the interview loop.
she is gorgeous, whats her name?
Neamah Hussein
Yea she is I could barely focus, great host though
IMHO, answers are too shallow for an Engineering Manager. Does not relect experience of an Engineering Manager.
Now we know why the company env is toxic asf)
Dead boring. No hire.
engineering management is bullshit
Great
Glad you enjoyed it!