During my time at Factorial, we tried to centralize and normalize our engineering hiring process. We created a Slack channel (#engineering-bar-raisers) where the name said it all. The challenge was getting as many people as possible to share the same concepts: how to hire and evaluate candidates, why someone is good and others aren't... In the end, it was about having the same message, the same expectations, and the same ways of evaluating. And it worked. But the reality is that the process had tradeoffs we needed to improve.
Hiring is one of the most powerful tools in terms of culture. It's the place where you share the company vision, the way of working, the way of doing things. Where you make candidates fall in love, but also where you get feedback from others, different ways of working, etc.
The complete process is more complex, but I'm going to focus on the manager interview - the gateway to everything else.
The Manager Interview
It's easy to think about this process with the mindset of "We are hiring someone." This makes us start our interviews from a position of strength. I honestly think this approach isn't ideal. We're hiring someone, but at the same time, they're hiring us as well. I saw great candidates say no because they had a different offer. We need to win this battle from the beginning.
What should happen in an interview?
Here are some points I found valid during the first interviews:
Being humble
Being clear about expectations. During the first interviews, I usually wanted to answer two things:
How deep is their knowledge? Technically, but also from a management perspective (if applicable)
Do I want to work with them?
I also tried to make them answer with a strong yes to the second question, regardless of the result: "Wow, working here would be cool."
Paint the company and product space with detail
People don't know anything about you. They're usually intrigued, but cautious about questions. This can be deactivated if we work on the first point. If we talk about "conversation" instead of "interview," and we create the right climate, questions will arise, and conversations will occur organically, which is great because you can gather more info and be more confident about your intuition if people show up as they are. But you know what's even better? Answering their questions without them asking.
Talk about the company. Mission, vision, size...
Talk about Product. How many are we? How are we distributed (Domains)? How are teams defined? What's their way of working?
Talk about Challenges. Quarter by quarter. Ownership. Deliveries...
Talk about the engineering process. Continuous delivery, Release trains, challenges we're facing, stack. This is usually the easiest part. We know it deeply.
Talk about role expectations. Usually, the concept of Product Engineer worked well at Factorial. We were far away from the 'tickets engineer' profile. It was a great space to talk about craft, about caring for the whole...
Then, pass the mic. We need to check if our expectations will be covered.
What do we expect from a candidate?
We only have 1 hour for the manager interview, and you've already consumed 10 minutes. Knowing that we want to have space for them to ask questions, we only have 30-35 minutes for this. Is it enough? Well, it depends on how we manage it.
Giving them the mic means they deliver what's in their head. This can be okay (or not!), but it's important to kindly warn them that we're going to stop them constantly because we want to dig into some of the topics they're telling us. Because if not, we won't have the answers we need.
There's no script here, but some situations usually appear. We can categorize these situations into one of the following areas.
Soft Skills
Imagine you know someone who has been working with the candidate in the past. The best indicator will be a strong yes to the question: "Do you genuinely want to work with them again?"
However, this situation doesn't happen often, so we're the ones who need to answer this question. Think about teams you've been part of. The ones that worked amazingly well. What made them special? Usually, it comes down to the people. That's exactly what we're looking for here.
So you need to be paying attention during the entire conversation. This isn't the kind of thing you need to ask directly. Some of them appear organically in the conversation. You can get this information by reading between the lines of what the candidate is telling you.
Some key points are:
Shows authenticity. You can feel it when someone is being genuine during the conversation. Are they sharing real experiences or just buzzwords? Do they talk about failures with honesty? Great candidates make you feel like you're having coffee with a colleague.
Listens actively. It's not just about waiting for their turn to speak. Do they build upon your comments? Do they ask thoughtful follow-up questions? This shows how they'll interact with the team daily.
Brings positive energy. Not in a fake way, but in how they approach challenges. When they talk about hard situations, do they focus on solutions? Do they show enthusiasm when discussing potential improvements?
The goal here isn't to tick boxes. It's about imagining this person on your team tomorrow. Would they make the team better? Would others enjoy working with them? Would you?
Remember: your gut feeling matters. If something feels off, dig deeper. The best candidates might not have perfect answers, but they'll make you excited about working together.
Hard Skills
Don't forget. We're interviewing technical people. They usually go through their experience in a very superficial way, mentioning some technologies, migrations, or similar stuff. Here, we need to stop:
"Wow, that migration sounds hard. What was the main challenge? How did you make the change? Was there a moment when both technologies lived together? How did you achieve that?"
"Why did you choose NextJS? I understand the reasoning behind this, but how does this scale? How many concurrent users do you have? With this amount, have you thought about an alternative? If so, which one? And why did you finally go through this path? Is there something you would change now that this is already done?"
The main challenge here isn't to understand if they know about something specific but, more importantly, to understand how they think. Do they have great reasoning behind their decisions?
One thing I tested in my last interviews (and it worked quite well) was asking them to share their screen and show us some code. It helps a lot and gives you a clear picture away from theory and buzzwords, helping you dig a bit better into how they work.
Management Skills (only for EMs)
An Engineering Manager is a profile that can differ depending on where you ask. Some companies only need 'People Managers,' others need fully hands-on managers (more of a Tech Lead profile). In my experience at Factorial, the profile that suited us best was one with a great mix of assets: great on the technical side but equally great on the people side.
Even if we wanted to, I didn't see an Engineering Manager doing full features. I saw them working closely with their team, going deep, helping to make decisions, challenging them, evaluating progress, solving bugs, fixing tiny things, pushing the last mile... ensuring in the end that things happened in a timely manner and covered business needs properly.
So, for sure, we needed to measure the technical side. That's the Engineering part of the title, but what does 'Manager' mean in this context?
A good manager:
Coaches individuals on career growth and skill development
Gives clear and actionable feedback
Creates learning opportunities through project allocation
Translates complex technical concepts for different audiences
Sets clear expectations and goals
Maintains transparency about decisions and changes
Practices active listening and empathy in 1:1s
Excels in prioritization and resource allocation
Anticipates risks and mitigates them as soon as possible
Makes data-driven decisions
Builds trust through consistent actions
And many more. So we needed to get as much as we could from these topics. Spoiler: With the time we had, you can't. So, you need to build a set of three or four questions that cover as much as possible. Some examples would be:
"Tell me about a time you helped a team member grow into a more senior role. What was your approach?"
"Describe a situation where you had to deliver difficult feedback. How did you handle it?"
"Describe your approach to 1:1s. What makes them effective?"
"How do you prioritize competing projects with limited resources?"
"Share an example where you identified and mitigated a significant project risk."
"What metrics do you track to measure team health and performance?"
"You notice declining code quality but increasing velocity. How do you address this?"
The most important thing is to train your intuition. Sometimes, "checks" aren't enough. You should be thrilled to work with this person because if you are, engineers will fall in love with them.
Bringing It All Together
The manager interview isn't just a filter, it's our opportunity to set the tone for the entire hiring process. It's where we establish mutual respect, showcase our culture, and make that crucial first assessment.
Remember these key points:
Approach the interview as a two-way conversation, not an interrogation
Be transparent about who you are and what you expect
Look beyond technical skills to find authenticity and cultural alignment
Trust your instincts:u the best candidates make you excited about working together
Getting this phase right pays dividends throughout the entire hiring process. It helps ensure we're bringing in not just skilled professionals, but people who will thrive in our environment and help us build something exceptional together.
The technical evaluation comes next, but without this solid foundation, we risk missing out on the human elements that truly make teams great.