Technical

What are some important engineering skills you've been working on improving over the past year?

Engineering Manager

Wealthsimple

PayPal

Ironclad

Impala

Disney

Zetwerk

Did you come across this question in an interview?

Answers

Expert Answer

Anonymous

4 months ago
4.4Exceptional
Over the past year, I've been deliberately focusing on developing both technical and leadership skills that I believe are crucial for modern engineering management. Let me share the key areas:
System Design and Architecture
  • I've been deepening my knowledge of distributed systems and microservices architecture
  • Completed several courses on cloud-native architectures and AWS solutions
  • Actively participated in architecture review boards for major projects
  • This helps me better guide my team's technical decisions and mentor senior engineers (5 senior engineers) and interacted with Sr PEs and distinguished engineers.
Data-Driven Decision Making - Give example of Alexa dashboard to reduce latency and make specific callouts on how to use data to transform and understand how leaders think
  • Enhanced my skills in data analytics and metrics interpretation
  • Implemented better tracking systems for team performance and project health
  • Learned to use data visualization tools more effectively
  • This helps me make more informed decisions about resource allocation and project prioritization
Modern Engineering Practices
  • Strengthened my understanding of DevOps practices and tools
  • Improved my knowledge of CI/CD pipelines and infrastructure as code
  • Studied security best practices and compliance requirements that came up for revised Alexa world
  • This enables me to better guide my team in adopting industry best practices
Leadership and People Management
  • Completed advanced courses in engineering leadership. 8 week leadership course from Dale Carnegie Live Online: Course information for Develop Your Leadership Potential. Learnt about different management and leadership styles. Helped improve diversity in hiring and understood nuances of companies outside Amazon who operate at such a huge scale. Interacted with multiple other managers from healthcare, small scale startups, manufacturing, local businesses, etc etc.,
  • I have also attended Grasshopper conferences in the last two years to learn from other women in technology and made a lot of meaningful connections with other women leaders int he community. I brought back in lot of learnings from the sessions I attended throughout 4 day conference. I kicked off a panel for supporting women in my org and volunteer for the community outside of my job responsibilities.
  • Improved my coaching and mentoring techniques
  • Developed better skills in conflict resolution and difficult conversations
  • Enhanced my ability to build and maintain high-performing remote teams
Project Management, not having a TPM or PMT support enabled me to play a hybrid role that enhanced by PM skills
  • Refined my skills in agile methodologies
  • Improved estimation techniques and risk management
  • Developed better strategies for managing dependencies across teams
  • This helps me better plan and execute complex projects
  • Learnt to write communications to leadership and deliver status updates succinctly and effectively
For example, I recently led a major Alexa project where I applied many of these improved skills:
  • Used my enhanced architecture knowledge to guide the technical approach
  • Applied data-driven decision making to prioritize migration phases
  • Implemented new DevOps practices to streamline the process
  • Successfully coached team members through the challenges
I believe continuous learning is crucial in technology leadership, and I maintain a personal development plan that I review and adjust quarterly. I also encourage my team members to pursue their own learning goals and create an environment that supports knowledge sharing.
  • What are some important engineering skills you've been working on improving over the past year?
  • Can you speak to any specific skills you have focused on improving recently?
  • What areas of engineering do you find the most challenging and how do you work to overcome those challenges?
  • What engineering skill development opportunities have you taken advantage of in the past year?
  • Can you share an example of how you applied a new engineering skill you learned in a recent project?
  • How do you keep your engineering skills up-to-date and relevant?
  • Can you describe a time when you had to learn a new engineering skill quickly? How did you approach the situation?
  • In your opinion, what is the most important engineering skill for success in this field?
  • Have you ever struggled with a specific engineering skill, and if so, how did you work to improve it?
  • How do you measure your progress in terms of engineering skills development?
  • Can you give an example of a time when you had to use multiple engineering skills in a single project, and how you approached it?
Try Our AI Interviewer

Prepare for success with realistic, role-specific interview simulations.

Try AI Interview Now

Interview question asked to Engineering Managers interviewing at Plaid, Wealthsimple, Everbridge and others: What are some important engineering skills you've been working on improving over the past year?.