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DerpyWaffle
DerpyWaffle
Airtel

Product interview with engineering director. what should I prepare?

Have a interview scheduled for tomorrow.

have already had 2 rounds of interview - one with Chief Product Officer and Principal Product Manager.

Now they have scheduled an interview with Director of Engineering.

Company is US based MNC.

How should I go about preparation?

any tips, suggestions welcome.

13mo ago
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SqueakyQuokka
SqueakyQuokka
Microsoft13mo

Evaluation on 2 aspects:

  1. Understanding tech - are you able to speak the engineer's language? This would involve them asking you questions about how the product you owned previously worked or was architected.

  2. Stakeholder engagement - are you likeable by engineers? How would you be able to partner with the EM. How do you prioritise tech vs product goals? How do you communicate?

DerpyWaffle
DerpyWaffle
Airtel13mo

Thank you.

Loved this part - How do you prioritise tech vs product goals?

Would prepare for this. Really appreciate.

SqueakyQuokka
SqueakyQuokka
Microsoft13mo

Align on a common goal with engg - if you put the customer first or is the focus on business outcomes? What value for the customer would you unlock with that line item?

Or would you make any headway by solving a tech debt now that would allow you disproportionately more space to solve customer problems in the future?

If product function has PNL responsibility, what kind of cost optimisation can be achieved?

QuirkyPotato
QuirkyPotato
Stealth13mo

I guess it will focus heavily on system design concepts if that hasn’t been covered in depth already.

Generally interviews with senior stakeholders in engineering is done to evaluate your understanding of tech (not coding). Do you broadly understand how various systems are designed, what the individual components are in the tech product, how they communicate with each other , can you understand and take decisions regarding trade offs while building a feature and can you align with the engineering stakeholders.

DerpyWaffle
DerpyWaffle
Airtel13mo

Thank you, this is really helpful. Have spent some time refreshing these concepts.

MagicalBanana
MagicalBanana
Ninjacart12mo

Any resources available to prep for this?

QuirkyPotato
QuirkyPotato
Stealth13mo

Refresh your concepts around micro services vs monolith architecture, horizontal vs vertical scaling, caches, APIs. Prepare for some system design questions available on net.

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