How to interview a VP of Engineering

25 questions I've been asked in previous interviews

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One of my interviewing habits is to write down questions I was asked alongside my responses to them. I do this as a way to self debrief and reflect on how well I think I did. Over the years, I have collected quite a few questions from interviewing for VP of Engineering positions. This post will offer some insight into some of the more salient questions. However, before diving into the questions, it might be worth describing the structure of a VP of Engineering interview. The following is entirely based on my personal experience and is not necessarily indicative of a trend or pattern. 

In my experience,  the structure of a VPE interview is ~60 minute sessions with each of the following: CEO, CTO, CPO, Head of People and either the Head of Sales or Marketing. I have also been interviewed numerous times by members of the Board. Additionally, most of my interviews included me presenting to a panel which is typically the entire leadership team. The panel interview is often-times me presenting about one or more topics shared ahead of time.

The below outlines some of the common or interesting questions that I have encountered. I group them by the persona asking them. While I do not make an attempt to answer the questions, I will try and dive a bit deeper into one question per section. 

CTO & CPO 

These two interviews are arguably the most important to do well on. As an incoming VPE you are expected to work extremely close to the CTO and the CPO. Additionally, it has been my experience that the CTO is almost always a co-founder and would have been up to the point of hiring a VPE managing the engineering team. As such, they have a very strong interest in ensuring that the right person takes over the reins from them.

1. If someone on your team were to guess what it is you do on any given day, what would they say? 

2. How do you structure engineering teams? How does PM fit into this structure?

3. What is the reasonable interaction between PM and Engineering? What do you need from a PM organization?

4. What are some of the friction points between Product & Engineering and how do you handle them?

5. What is your biggest accomplishment leading an engineering team?

The “guess what Karim is doing” is a very interesting question. It’s one I was asked once, and to be frank it stomped me (I did get the job). It’s not that I do not know what it is I do, it is that I do not know what the interviewer, in this case the CTO is trying to assess from my response. It turns out that they were trying to find out the overlap between what I do versus what the team needs. For example, had I mentioned things like design reviews, code reviews and coding whilst the team needs more of a manager persona, then that would be indicative of a poor fit.

I won’t summarize my answer here, but it’s not that much different than what I outline in my article on  “What does VP of Engineering do”

CEO

CEO interviews tended to be either at the very beginning of the process or the very end. If they are at the very end, they’ll usually spend more time talking about the business and trying to close you. CEOs are almost always interested in hearing your story, what led you to them today.

1. How do you increase your team’s throughput?

2. Why did they ultimately leave their company for the next role?

3. If I called your previous CEO, how would they describe you

4. Tell me your story?

I’ve been asked the “throughput” question twice, both times using the exact word. I’ll be honest, I dislike the question. Not because I cannot answer it, but because it offers a narrow view of an engineering team; a conveyor belt of features that should move as fast as possible. While I do understand the intent behind the question, the word throughput triggers me. That could also be a result of ~7yrs working in the file-systems space.