# 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

> - Good pace of communication. However, try to pick words from original question in your answer.  
> - Good story selection. However, see if you can add some technical aspects to your story more.

**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...