
cracking google engineering manager interview isn’t about strategy decks
most of the rounds were about people. not vision. not leadership slides. just straight-up “what happened when things went wrong.”
one round started with tell me about a time you changed direction mid-project, follow ups were around how i communicated it and what didn’t land. another one asked how i handled a senior dev who pushed back on every change.
they’re not looking for frameworks. they want specifics. what you said, who you involved, what came after.
honestly, if you’re prepping for cracking google engineering manager interview loops, don’t over-index on strategy. they’ll meet you with people problems first.
Talking product sense with Ridhi
9 min AI interview5 questions
engineering manager interview questions are more about whether you’ve actually managed conflict or just delegated it.
got asked how i’d split work between two strong ICs who didn’t want to work together. felt like a trap but it was real
google interview questions engineering manager level feel like therapy sometimes. it’s all edge cases and hard convos
one round asked how i’d rebuild trust with a team that had been burned by previous leadership. no template answer for that
mine was about re-org fallout. had to explain how i re-scoped a roadmap when half the team got pulled mid-quarter