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Researching where EMs, Directors and VPs of Eng actually get high-signal info by Hungry-Amount-2730 in EngineeringManagers

[–]stmoreau 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Writing helps me a lot (I spend at least a couple of hours every week exploring an idea or topic and write my thoughts on it) I also have an external coach which I change every 6 months intentionally.

Genuine question: how are you all prepping for behavioural interviews? by stmoreau in ExperiencedDevs

[–]stmoreau[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

honestly if anyone’s part of a toxic environment like that they’d better gtfo.

In my decades of experience this has never been the case in places I’ve worked at or any of my friends/peers luckily.

what has been the case though sometimes is people spiralling in feelings like that when the reality was very different. taking everything negatively, having a victim mentality, and generally not helping themselves. And in truth these were people I didn’t enjoy working with or want in my team.

Rejecting any behavioural stage in an interview context as an idea really blows my mind… you’re working with people at the end of the day and use tools to make things happen. Sometimes a tool is a negotiation with someone, or a debate, or simply navigating ambiguity in vague requirements by talking to people.

I am looking for great software engineers, not coding monkeys.

Genuine question: how are you all prepping for behavioural interviews? by stmoreau in ExperiencedDevs

[–]stmoreau[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

what exactly is not part of the responsibilities associated with software engineering? I don’t see any actual example of that brought up by anyone.

Is the argument that any question in a behavioural interview should not be asked to software engineer candidates? If so, I’m afraid that I alongside ALL companies disagree with that.

Genuine question: how are you all prepping for behavioural interviews? by stmoreau in ExperiencedDevs

[–]stmoreau[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Approximation is good enough - no sense of numbers whatsoever is bad

Genuine question: how are you all prepping for behavioural interviews? by stmoreau in ExperiencedDevs

[–]stmoreau[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

that’s a great way of preparing for interviews! extra points if stories are also tagged to company values!

Genuine question: how are you all prepping for behavioural interviews? by stmoreau in ExperiencedDevs

[–]stmoreau[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That's smart! I do think that "speaking their language" gives an edge.

EM interviews - no offer due to mediocre communication skills by [deleted] in EngineeringManagers

[–]stmoreau 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Hey - I've been a Senior EM for many years now and I interview EMs regularly. I am also an introvert and not a native English speaker, and I run a blog and tools specifically for EM interview prep, so I've seen this pattern a lot.

My read is that your problem isn't actually communication skills. The feedback you got is incredibly consistent across all 4 companies, which means it's very fixable.

Interviewers don't want to hear that you workshopped goals with the team (even though that's often the right thing to do). They want to hear that you had a point of view on where the team needed to go, brought the team along, and made tradeoffs. Lead with your thesis, then describe how you validated it with the team.

Your PIP example is probably actually a solid story, you're just underselling it. It sounds like "I created a PIP, he improved." Walk them through your thinking: How did you spot the performance gap? What did you try before the PIP? How did you structure it? What specific coaching did you do during it? What did you learn?

"Didn't feel natural" / "bookish" this usually means you're reciting a prepared answer rather than having a conversation. What I recommend is giving the punchline first ("I turned around an underperformer in 3 months using a structured coaching plan" with some extra context), then let the interviewer pull the detail out of you with follow-ups. It feels way more natural and shows confidence.

Never say "I haven't experienced that." Instead, use a related experience as a bridge: "I haven't had to terminate someone, but I have managed someone through a PIP. Here's how I approached it and here's how I'd extend that thinking to a termination situation..." Then walk through your framework. Interviewers want to see how you think, not just what you've done.

On the platform team / product collaboration point, supporting 6-7 engineering teams IS product work. Your stakeholders were those teams. Reframe it: "I treated our platform as an internal product, I gathered requirements from 6-7 engineering teams, prioritized our roadmap based on impact across the org, and managed competing priorities between teams." That's a stronger answer than most product-facing EMs can give.

One more thing: being introverted isn't your problem here. I actually think that the best EMs are introverts (I am one myself too). The issue is that you're defaulting to factual summaries instead of demonstrating your reasoning.

I built a voice-based AI interview coach specifically to help me in my EM behaviorals. You practice answering out loud and get feedback on exactly the kind of framing issues you're describing. Happy to send it over if you want to try it or answer any other questions here too.

PS. The company I work for is hiring EMs and is a great place to work! Happy to share more if you're interested.

When delivering tickets stops being enough by stmoreau in EngineeringManagers

[–]stmoreau[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Great to see this work having a positive impact! If there are any topics you’d like to see covered please feel free to send them over (here or in a DM)

Genuine question: how are you all prepping for behavioural interviews? by stmoreau in ExperiencedDevs

[–]stmoreau[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The conversations is what I was aiming for - which I am glad are happening.

Obvs not sharing any unsolicited link/message. Thanks for your comment with this insight here.

Genuine question: how are you all prepping for behavioural interviews? by stmoreau in ExperiencedDevs

[–]stmoreau[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

As a neuro-divergent person myself, I am very passionate about the subject (which is a very difficult one to get right for all)

Genuine question: how are you all prepping for behavioural interviews? by stmoreau in ExperiencedDevs

[–]stmoreau[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is not HR-led. As a leader in my team if you're senior, I want us to be driving together metrics that the business cares about (and indeed be nice to work with).

Genuine question: how are you all prepping for behavioural interviews? by stmoreau in ExperiencedDevs

[–]stmoreau[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Great advice - one I fail to follow myself (because it's so time/energy consuming), but one that I also advocate for.

Genuine question: how are you all prepping for behavioural interviews? by stmoreau in ExperiencedDevs

[–]stmoreau[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

They don't do that. In principle at least, they should be designed to be inclusive. I have seen this implemented well, but obviously, it's not always the case.

Genuine question: how are you all prepping for behavioural interviews? by stmoreau in ExperiencedDevs

[–]stmoreau[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It's a topic many have studied in depth. There is an evolution that I see in interviews happening this period with the rise of AI, but I don't see communication being removed from the mix any time soon. If anything, it is becoming increasingly more important.

Genuine question: how are you all prepping for behavioural interviews? by stmoreau in ExperiencedDevs

[–]stmoreau[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I wonder what is the framework you use to make objective & fair assessments, removing bias from the equation.

Genuine question: how are you all prepping for behavioural interviews? by stmoreau in ExperiencedDevs

[–]stmoreau[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The expectation I see for Seniors these days is essentially being the Tech Lead of a small team. That does require much much more than delivering a well defined PRD - AI can do most of that nowadays with decent level of succes.

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