These are some questions I've had written down as we looked for a manager a while ago. Not an exhaustive list or the top 10. Just some questions worth thinking about. Hope this helps.
Motivation
- Why management?
- What do you do to learn more about management?
- What is the most important thing for a team?
Maker Mindset
- Tell me about how you balance team outcomes vs individuals having autonomy to make decisions and drive work forward?
- Tell me about a time you chose to remove a process in the team and simplified? Why? Outcome?
Feedback
- Tell me about a time you had to give someone bad feedback.
- You’ve just been told that one of your directs are not doing a good job in their squad. They are not getting their cards done and often not available for group discussions. What would you do?
- Your direct tells you that you haven’t been doing a good job in managing him. He feels neglected and hasn’t been able to get the opportunities they want in their career. What would you say to them?
Conflict Resolution
- Your direct tells you that they had a conversation with your manager. She found your manager to be rude and condescending. How would you go about acting upon this feedback?
- Tell me about a time you had to resolve a conflict between 2 parties.
- Jane, a mid-level engineer who has been at our company for multiple years, is regularly ignoring coding guidelines, even though they are part of software engineering expectations. When you bring up this issue, she shares that she feels pressured to complete her projects quickly, even hinting that other leaders push her to cut corners. What actions would you take?
Mentorship
- You have a backend direct who wants to learn to be a frontend engineer. How would you go about helping them achieve this?
- Alice is not feeling productive recently. They are getting randomised and pulled in all directions to help with various projects and prod support issues. They are not getting much done for their squad. How would you help them?
Technology
- You have a conversation with a principal engineer, who suggests you should be using pure JS for your experience APIs. How would you go about working through that?
Morale
- You see a direct in low demeanour recently. Little sad. When you question him, he tells you that they are having a tough time in their home. What do you do?
Prioritisation
- Tell me about a time where you had to take on a “big bet” work item for the team. How did you tackle the problem? How did you manage risk?
- How do you prioritise work in the current team? How do you choose what things to invest on at which point in time? (Tech debt vs features)