Stripe Engineering Manager Interview Guide

The initial call with a recruiter at Stripe starts with a resume review where you get questions aimed at understanding your background and experiences in management. You can expect those standard "get-to-know-you" questions, which are designed to delve into your managerial skills and style. 

Competency-based questions related to engineering management also come up. For instance, how you handle team dynamics or prioritise tasks. In addition to this, situational questions such as "tell me about a time when..." are asked. For instance, “tell me about a time when you had to make a tough decision.”

Here, make sure you think of specific examples from your past experiences that highlight your people management and leadership abilities.

1. Tell me about yourself
2. Tell me about a challenging situation you had to deal with.
3. Why Stripe?
4. Describe a project where you successfully led a team through a complex technical problem. What strategies did you employ?
5. How do you handle conflicts within your team, and can you provide an example of a resolution you facilitated?
6. Discuss a situation where you had to balance competing priorities and how you managed to meet project deadlines.

The Mini-Onsite round is the second phase of the interview process, consisting of two one-hour interviews with Hiring Managers. 

• In the first interview, be prepared for people management questions, where they'll likely ask you to share experiences using the "Tell me about a time when..." format. Think ahead and narrow down a couple of stories that showcase your leadership skills, teamwork, and problem-solving abilities. Be open about challenges and failures you've encountered, and  emphasise what you learned from these experiences and how you've grown.
• The second interview is more technical, covering coding and system design, along with architecture-related questions. Make sure your foundational knowledge of data structures and algorithms is strong; brush up on common problems and practice coding exercises for this. Next, practice designing scalable systems with a focus on explaining trade-offs, your design decisions, and so on.

The onsite interview is a comprehensive process lasting 4 hours, consisting of four distinct interviews:

• System Design with Tech Lead
• Manager Interview with other EMs
• Manager "Role-play”
• Technical Presentation + Discussion

Let's discuss each round in further detail:

System Design with Tech Lead

In this round, you're essentially being evaluated for your ability to design a system that solves a specific problem, always with the eventual scale in mind. You're expected to be well-versed in all the major components that contribute to the architecture of a high-performing technical system, understanding the tradeoffs involved in each option. 

We have four tips specifically for this section:

• First, ensure you thoroughly understand the problem. This can't be stressed enough—many candidates make the common mistake of jumping straight into solution mode. This is wrong. You need to begin by clarifying the details, defining the scope, articulating your goals, and then, explaining your approach. This allows the interviewer to guide you in the desired direction.
• Secondly —listen carefully for feedback from your interviewer. They understand the scope is vast, and they have a list of themes they'd like to cover in the interview. You'll often receive hints, such as "let's assume xyz isn't a constraint"—take this as your cue to move on to the next theme. For example, they might ask something like, "How about if this is accessed multiple times daily by our global pool of users" — this is again an indication to perhaps discuss scaling geographically and optimising performance through caching—these are just examples.
• Thirdly—you'll constantly be proposing multiple ideas or, at the very least, you should be. Just make sure you mention them succinctly, explain the tradeoffs, and then make a deliberate decision by selecting one.
• Finally, there will be times when you get stuck or don't fully grasp what the interviewer wants. That's okay; it happens to everyone. The only correct action here is to admit that you don't know. Offer to explore through guesswork if the interviewer desires, but don't attempt to bluff your way through.

Manager Interview with other EMs

This interview revolves around your managerial skills. You'll engage with other Engineering Managers to discuss your approach to people management, leadership, and your ability to collaborate within a team.

• For this interview, share stories that bring out your knack for managing people, leading teams, and navigating situations head-on. So, this means shedding light on work experiences that you perhaps consider to be most interesting or challenging. Or situations where you worked cross-functionally to lead your teams through a tight deadline while addressing interpersonal conflicts. And so on.
• Shed light on your coaching and mentorship skills, how you approach  team-building and talent acquisition.
• Reflect on both successes and failures to provide a comprehensive view of your abilities. Talk about moments where things didn't go as planned, what you learned, and how you bounced back stronger.

Manager "Role-play” (Navigating a situation with a Direct Report)

The "Manager Role-play" is a unique aspect, involving simulating scenarios to assess your practical leadership skills in a real-world context. 

Essentially, the question presents a scenario where you, as a manager, need to navigate a conversation with a direct report.

For instance, the situation presented could be something like, “You need to persuade your team to transition to a new project, switching them from their current work that they deeply care about. Walk through the conversation with them.” Here, you would be expected to talk about the steps you would take to address the situation. For example, how you might first acknowledge the importance of their current project and their passion towards it. Then, clearly communicate why the new project is critical and how it impacts the org. Following that, talk about how the project contributes to their professional development. And so on. 

Another example scenario could be, say a “new employee not meeting standards and how would identify performance gaps, discuss expectations, provide constructive feedback, and outline a plan for improvement which could include additional support or training.”

Additional Scenarios:

• Your individual contributor (IC) is invested in a high-visibility project they are passionate about, aiming for promotion. You have a crucial but unpleasant project that requires the expertise of this IC, and you need to discuss shifting their focus. Walk through the conversation with them.
• Two engineers are fighting over adding new functionality vs hitting customer data. What resolution strategy would you propose?

Technical Presentation + Discussion

This round is again unique to Stripe; you will be asked to prepare a1000-word long technical presentation of 20 minutes, following which there will be an in-depth discussion. 

You will be provided the topic well ahead in time (typically covers a subject related to your field of expertise), so make sure you prepare well and are well-versed in your subject matter.

System Design

• Design a system that aggregates and consumes analytics events. (Following this, you may be asked some basic product analytics questions based on your architecture and data model.)
• How to build a simple ledger service that would record all transactions sent to it in a reliable and durable fashion.
• How would you build a system to collect metrics from a large number of processes?
• In your opinion what is the biggest design flaw with X technology? (substitute X with one of your technical skill areas.)

Manager Interview Questions

• How do you promote diversity in your teams?
• Can you share a time when you had to deal with conflict while in a position of authority?
• Tell me about a time when you had to address an underperforming employee.
• Can you elaborate on a difficult decision you had to make?
• Share a time when you made a bad decision, and what did you learn from it?
• Discuss the biggest challenges you faced during your time as a manager.
• How do you approach recruiting for a key role?
• Share an experience of managing a low performer.
• What was the toughest project you've worked on?
• Why did you choose Engineering Manager as a career path?
• Can you provide insights into your team size and structure?
• In your view, what is essential to being a good manager?
• Any advice for someone stepping into a managerial role for the first time?
• Walk me through your professional journey and experiences.
• How do you formulate and execute a vision for your team?
• Briefly share your background and overall experience.
• How do you prioritise and plan engineering investments?
• Describe a complex project that you led.

Technical Presentation

• Pick a project that you played a major part in and understand intimately. Describe the technical challenges you faced, how you overcame them, and the business outcomes. Then prepare a 20 minute presentation on that project and be prepared for in-depth Q&A from individuals that have read your document.
• Select a project where you were a key player in overcoming technical obstacles. Elaborate on the hurdles faced, the strategies you employed to address them, and the resulting positive outcomes for the project. Following this, create a comprehensive 20-minute presentation highlighting the technical intricacies, and brace yourself for in-depth questions from interviewers who have reviewed your case.