The Engineering Manager Interview

Michael seemed perfect on paper. Ten years of management experience. Led a team of ten, managed managers before. His recruiter screen went well. Now it was my turn—the behavioral interview.

"Tell me about your approach to performance management," I said.

He paused. Started talking about annual reviews. Then quarterly check-ins. Then mentioned he "keeps tabs on things." Five minutes later, I realized he'd described a calendar of events, not a philosophy. I tried again.

"How do you know when someone on your team is struggling before they tell you?"

Another pause. "I... I guess I just know? Like, you can tell when something's off."

I made a note. Thanked him for his time. Sent my feedback: pass.

The thing is, Michael probably wasn't a bad manager. But he couldn't explain how he worked, which meant I couldn't tell if he'd work here.

The Patterns You Start Seeing

After your fiftieth manager interview, something shifts. You start hearing the same non-answers in different words. The candidate who says they "give feedback regularly" but can't describe what that looks like. The one who "empowers their team" but has no stories about how. The person who's been managing for eight years but sounds like they're guessing.

The mistakes aren't random. They cluster.

The performance management mystery. Ask ten managers how they handle performance, and seven will describe their company's review cycle back to you. They'll tell you about the rating scale or when feedback is "due." What they won't tell you is how they actually think about someone's performance day-to-day, how they spot patterns, how they decide when to intervene. They've memorized the ceremony but missed the substance.

I interviewed someone last year—call her Casey—who managed a team of ten. When I asked how she tracks performance, she said, "We do reviews twice a year and I take notes in our one-on-ones." I asked what she does with the notes. She said she reviews them before the reviews. It's like managing your health by going to the doctor annually and writing down your symptoms in between.

The feedback collection that never happens. The best managers I know are mildly paranoid. They're always checking: How's the team feeling? What's not working? What am I missing? They ask in one-on-ones, they read between the lines in standups, they talk to stakeholders.

Most candidates wait for feedback to arrive. They mention the 360 review. They're reactive, not investigative. Which tells me that by the time they find out something's wrong, it's been wrong for months.

The reactive posture. When I ask candidates to walk me through a normal week, some of them describe their week as being constantly derailed by fire drills and unexpected demands. A reorg happened, so they adapted. Priorities shifted, so they shifted. Their director wanted something, so they did it. Everything is in response to something else.

Adapting to what the organization needs is part of the job. But when someone can't point to a single time they pushed back, or shaped the direction, or protected the team from something, it tells me they see management as executing orders rather than making judgment calls.

What Actually Helps If You're Preparing

Standard interview advice is only somewhat useful. "Review the job description." "Prepare your STAR stories." "Research the company." Fine. Do that. But it won't fix the core problem, which is that you probably haven't articulated your management approach to yourself, let alone to someone else.

Here's what works better.

Write down the messy situations. Not your wins. Not the time you hit a goal or launched a thing. The complicated, uncomfortable situations where you weren't sure what to do. The performance conversation that went sideways. The team conflict that felt unsolvable. The time you disagreed with your director about a decision. The reorg that made no sense. The person you had to manage out.

Write them down in detail. What happened, what you did, what you wish you'd done differently, what you learned. This exercise is uncomfortable, which is how you know it's working. You'll discover things you did that you can't defend. You'll realize you made the right call for reasons you never articulated. You'll find patterns in how you handle pressure.

Practice with an AI interviewer. This sounds a bit ridiculous until you try it. Set up Claude (or another AI) to interview you. Give it context—what role you're interviewing for, what kind of company, what you want to practice. Then actually answer the questions out loud or in writing. Ask it for feedback. Do another round.

The advantage here is that you can be terrible in private. Your first answer to "tell me about your management philosophy" will probably meander for three paragraphs and not actually answer the question. Good. Now you know. Try again. Ask if you're rambling. Ask if you actually answered what it asked. Practice the questions you're dreading: "Tell me about a time you failed as a manager" or "What would your team say is frustrating about working with you?"

You'll feel a bit silly at first. Do it anyway. By the fifth round, your answers will tighten up. You'll catch yourself starting to ramble and course-correct. You'll learn which stories work and which don't. Unlike practicing with a friend—who will get bored after the second run-through—AI will keep going until you're done.

For a long time, I thought manager interviews were about filtering for competence. Can this person do the job? Do they have the skills? Will they not be a disaster?

Now I think they're about something different. They're about whether someone has done enough reflection that they can explain their work. Because if you can't explain how you manage, you probably can't improve how you manage. And if you can't improve, you'll keep making the same mistakes with different teams.

The managers who interview well aren't necessarily the best managers. But they've done the work of understanding their own approach. They've noticed patterns. They've thought about what works and why. They can tell you a story about a time they messed up and what it taught them.

Michael—the candidate from the beginning—probably could have been great. Maybe he was already great. But he hadn't built the muscle of reflection and articulation, so in the interview, all I got was vague generalities. He couldn't show me his thinking, so I couldn't trust it.

If you're interviewing managers, listen for the thinking. If you're being interviewed, show your work.