Interview with a FAANG engineer.

FAANG Engineering Manager Behavioral Interview

Watch someone solve the faang engineering manager behavioral interview (medium) problem in an interview with a FAANG engineer and see the feedback their interviewer left them. Explore this problem and others in our library of interview replays.

Interview Summary

Problem type
FAANG Engineering Manager Behavioral Interview (Medium)

Interview question
Practice answering behavioral interview questions effectively, focusing on technical decision-making and conflict resolution scenarios. The challenge involves structuring responses using the STAR methodology, selecting appropriate stories that demonstrate technical leadership, and communicating soft skills while highlighting engineering expertise.

Interview Feedback

Feedback about Ice Squab (the interviewee)
Advance this person to the next round?
No
How were their technical skills?
3/4
How was their problem solving ability?
3/4
What about their communication ability?
3/4

Feedback about Hyper Penguin (the interviewer)
Would you want to work with this person?
Yes
How excited would you be to work with them?
4/4
How good were the questions?
4/4
How helpful was your interviewer in guiding you to the solution(s)?
4/4

I learned a lot of really good tips to get better for future interviews, thanks so much!

Interview Transcript

Hyper Penguin: Okay, thank you... So, um, this is a behavioral interview. We have about 1 hour or so...
Ice Squab: Um, yeah, we can do the second one. That sounds good.
Hyper Penguin: Yeah, yeah, I think that sounds good.

Ice Squab: Yeah, I can certainly do that. So I have 6 years of experience as a software engineer...
Hyper Penguin: I see... So you have approximations, you are a full-stack developer.

Ice Squab: Yes, that's correct.

Hyper Penguin: Okay, awesome. And, uh, what are you looking forward to in your next company...?

Ice Squab: ...I think it would be great to try different companies, different tech stacks.

Hyper Penguin: Yeah, I see. Nice, thank you.

Ice Squab: Yeah, I would say maybe I can talk about a project called [REDACTED] Media Feed that I led...
The decision I made here was to separate this out into MVP versus milestones.

Hyper Penguin: So if I got it right, the decision you made was identifying the important features?

Ice Squab: Yeah, exactly.

Hyper Penguin: For example, I'm thinking could the product manager also come up with a recommendation?

Ice Squab: Yeah, I see.
...that should be specific enough to be technical.

Ice Squab: Yeah, let me think.
Yes, I could, I could... I can try to spend more time on the technical aspects.

Hyper Penguin: Let's move to the next mock question...
Tell me about a time when you had a conflict with a team member and how did you handle it, resolve it?

Ice Squab: ...I was leading this project called Information Architecture...
...(LOOKUP) I worked with the product manager to come up with a trade-off of all the different possibilities... So I would say the way I dealt with the conflict was twofold...

Hyper Penguin: Overall, I see that the structure of your answer for this question is better...

Ice Squab: ...I think what I'm getting out of it is like, uh, when an interviewer asks a question, I should pay attention to every word...

Hyper Penguin: Right, so it's really important to answer exactly what they are asking...

Characteristics or Attributes of an Ideal Team Player

Ice Squab: ...there's a few things. So first is just being open. Second thing is just problem-solving ability...
And the final thing is just being very communicative...

Hyper Penguin: ...what Patrick Lencioni is saying in that book is that an ideal team player has to be humble, hungry, and smart...

Conclusion

Overall, my recommendation is that I think you speak well...you should try to use the same words they are using in their questions...