Management Keywords

  • proactive, impact, evolving requirements, thoughtful, foster, launch/roll-out, growth mindset, experimental velocity, decision making

What is your team’s composition?

  • Applied Scientists (model building), Data Scientists (data pre-processing and evaluation pipelines), Deep Learning architects (productionizing models), and 1x Manager and 1x in training
  • Overall: 16x (11 reports incl. managers + 8 model training + 4 productionization)

Growth

Can you give a specific example of helping a senior engineer grow?

  • Grow a new skill-set (grow laterally/horizontally):
    • Situation:
      • A senior engineer in my team at AWS, who was responsible for building infrastructure for productionizing models, wanted to transition to AI modeling.
      • The engineer wanted to understand the process of training models, looking to gain more exposure and competency in machine learning. However, the challenge here was that this was an area where they had no theoretical or practical experience.
    • Task:
      • My role, as their manager, was to support them in their career goals by matching them with the right opportunities or even creating relevant opportunities if needed, thus enabling their transition from an infrastructure-focused role to an AI modeling role.
      • The next step was to come up with a structured approach to ensure the successful growth of the engineer while ensuring alignment with both their personal career goals and business objectives.
    • Action:
      • After assessing the engineer’s current strengths and identifying the gap between their existing skill-set and their goal of becoming proficient in AI modeling, I developed a 6-month structured plan/program with the OKR framework, having two key parts: fundamental/theoretical and hands-on/practical. The fundamental/theoretical component was designed to ensure the engineer was well-versed with the necessary AI foundations, while the hands-on/practical component focused on real-world projects where the engineer could apply the theoretical knowledge gained. This blend of theory and practice was critical for them to pick up the necessary skills, with regular check-ins along the way to assess progress and provide guidance, creating a feedback loop at every step. Ultimately, this created a strong support system for the engineer, ensuring a smooth transition into their new role.
      • To lay a strong theoretical foundation, I provided the engineer with some of my AI primers on aman.ai, covering topics like supervised/self-supervised/unsupervised learning, Transformer architecture, training and fine-tuning LLMs, and model evaluation.
      • I also offered them a list of curated ML resources, including key research papers, online courses, and tutorials to deepen their understanding.
      • To build a strong practical skill-set on top of their theoretical foundations, I paired the engineer with an applied scientist working on training LLMs, during which they spent 20% of their time shadowing ML projects. To accommodate this shift in focus, I worked with the engineer to reshuffle their workload and deprioritize less critical tasks on the infrastructure side.
      • The engineer then transitioned from shadowing to hands-on contributions, gradually increasing their bandwidth to 80% on ML tasks, while retaining 20% in their original role. At this stage, I facilitated a gradual knowledge transfer process, ensuring their responsibilities were reassigned to other team members, allowing the engineer to fully commit to their new role.
      • Throughout the process, I ensured regular check-ins in our 1x1s to provide ongoing coaching and ensure a feedback loop to monitor their progress and course-correct their development path, ensuring they stayed on course to achieve their goals.
      • To finalize the transition, I initiated a round of 360-degree feedback with team members and XF network/stakeholders/partners who collaborated with the engineer, gathering input from the team to ensure everyone was aligned and supported the transition.
    • Result:
      • Once this process concluded, the engineer successfully acquired AI modeling skills, including model training, fine-tuning, and evaluation.
      • As a great by-product, they built a strong working relationship with the applied scientist on the team and other team members.
      • This structured process not only helped this engineer but paved the pathway for future transitions on the team.
    • Reflection:
      • In retrospect/hindsight, this experience highlighted/underscored/reinforced the importance of (i) playing my part as a manager to support my people in their career growth, and (ii) having a structured yet flexible process that combined theoretical and hands-on experience with regular feedback loops to ensure success.
  • Grow into the next level (grow vertically):
    • Situation:
      • An engineer on my team at AWS expressed a desire to move to the next level. They were a senior engineer and wanted to grow towards a staff engineer role, motivated by the challenge of tackling XF problems with a broader scope both within the team and across the org.
      • My role, as their manager, was to create a structured approach/process/pathway to address these skill gaps and enable their growth into a staff-level engineer role.
    • Task:
      • I worked backwards from their gaps to the next level and identified key areas of improvement. Specifically, they needed to develop/gain more XF experience with projects of a larger scope, improve communication with both technical and non-technical XF partners, gain goal-setting experience/demonstrate project leadership by setting goals and owning status reporting, etc. to succeed at the next level.
      • Based on their aspirations and current skill set, the next step was to create a tailored plan to provide them with opportunities to work on larger XF projects, set project goals and own status reporting, to gain the XF experience necessary for the next level.
    • Action: <!– - After assessing the engineer’s current strengths and identifying the gaps to the next level, I chalked out a structured plan/program for them with OKRs that spanned 3 quarters, focusing on advancing their technical skills, leadership competencies, and strategic project leadership.
      • I assigned them to lead complex XF projects with a large-scope to build their experience in managing higher-stakes technical deliverables and influencing cross-functionally. –>
      • Over the next 3 quarters, I matched them to opportunities for large-scope XF collaboration and communication with both technical and non-technical teams including product managers, designers, etc. This exposure helped them build influence across teams and improve their communication with a variety of stakeholders. As part of this process, they also learned to utilize tools like the AIM framework to articulate project impact and strategy more effectively, especially with non-technical stakeholders.
      • To help them develop project leadership skills, I matched them to projects that required strategically aligning broader business goals to technical solutions. This also involved setting and managing project goals via the OKR framework, including identifying key metrics and performance thresholds. This gave them the opportunity to think beyond immediate execution and consider the long-term impact of their decisions.
      • Throughout the process, I ensured regular check-ins in our 1x1s to provide ongoing coaching and ensure a feedback loop to monitor their progress and course-correct their development path, ensuring they stayed on course to achieve their goals.
    • Result:
      • As a result, the engineer successfully demonstrated increased XF influence, tailored communication based on stakeholders, and project leadership, ultimately positioning themselves for a promotion to the staff engineer role.
      • As a great by-product, their growth not only advanced their own career but also strengthened the team’s overall performance, helping to deliver key project milestones more effectively.
    • Reflection:
      • In retrospect/hindsight, this experience highlighted/underscored/reinforced the importance of playing my part as a manager to support my people in their career growth by matching individuals to the right opportunities that align with their strengths and goals. Lastly, addressing specific gaps through structured plans and establishing feedback loops at every stage, forged an effective partnership to achieve the team’s growth goals.

Can you give a specific example of helping a team lead grow into management? (Can you give a specific example of helping an engineer grow into a team lead role?)

  • Situation:
    • A team lead/senior engineer on my team at AWS expressed a desire to move into management/team lead.
    • Although they had strong technical skills, they lacked experience with people leadership, goal-setting, hiring/talent acquisition, and XF communication, particularly with non-technical partner teams—which are essential traits for success in management roles.
    • As a manager dedicated to supporting and growing my reports, I aimed to create a structured pathway to develop their leadership skills and address their gaps.
  • Task:
    • The senior engineer had already led a small team of junior engineers and managed deliverables for a couple of projects. I had a good understanding of their strengths, but my task was to understand their motivation for leadership and identify gaps to create a growth path. It was essential to determine whether a managerial path or growth along a technical leadership path (e.g., principal engineer) was a better fit. Through discussions, it became clear they were motivated to lead by enabling others, supporting and growing their team members, and setting goals aligned with broader business objectives.
    • Based on their strengths and aspirations for people leadership, I aimed to provide the right opportunities working backwards from their gaps and create a tailored, structured plan to address these gaps.
  • Action:
    • I gave a heads-up to leadership about our plans and chalked out a “IC2M” development plan that spanned 3 months. As part of this plan, they managed 3 direct reports while focusing on leadership competencies such as goal-setting, hiring/talent acquisition, XF planning and communication, effective 1x1s, being effective (i.e., driving results) through their team—addressing the specific areas they needed to improve to succeed in management. I facilitated a gradual knowledge transfer process, ensuring their technical responsibilities were reassigned to other team members, allowing the engineer to fully commit to their new role.
    • (For senior engineer) I assigned them as a team lead to gain project management skills by leading a small team of 3 junior engineers and charting technical strategy for team-wide projects.
    • I matched them to opportunities for XF collaboration and communication with other engineering teams, product managers, UX designers, etc. This helped them build leadership experience with both technical and non-technical stakeholders/partners/XFN. Additionally, they also learned to adapt communication based on the audience using tools like the AIM framework to articulate project plans, impact, and strategy more effectively.
    • To develop goal-setting skills, I matched them to opportunities that required strategically aligning broader business goals to technical solutions. This involved setting and managing project goals via the OKR framework, including identifying key metrics and performance thresholds. This gave them the opportunity to think beyond immediate execution and consider the long-term impact of their decisions.
    • To help them build experience in talent acquisition, I got them enrolled for a mandatory training program that the company requires every interviewer to go through. I then got them to shadow the resume shortlisting process, giving them insights into identifying key signals for strong candidates. I then had them shadow and reverse-shadow five interviews to understand how to conduct effective interviews.
    • I provided ongoing coaching and feedback throughout the process to monitor their progress and course-correct as necessary. I focused on key managerial traits like empathy and communication, which are crucial for long-term success in management.
  • Result:
    • (For senior engineer) The engineer successfully transitioned into a team lead role, gaining experience in project management and XF leadership.
    • Over the quarter, they executed the plan and built a solid foundation for stepping into a management role. In 3-4 weeks from then on, they officially moved to a managerial role after the necessary approvals. They now oversee a small team of five reports and have contributed significantly to the team’s success. Monthly connection scores for leadership performance that offer a pulse-check for the team, have indicated that they have been an effective manager.
  • Reflection:
    • In retrospect, this experience underscored the importance of playing my part as a manager to support my people in their career growth by matching them to the right opportunities that align with their strengths and goals. Lastly, addressing specific gaps through structured plans and establishing feedback loops at every stage, forged an effective partnership to achieve the team’s growth goals.

How do you recognize leadership potential? / How do you identify candidates to become managers?

  • This question is about how the interviewee identifies candidates on their team to become managers.
    • Good: Checks motivations, empathy, leadership/naturally helping others on the team, solid communication, can provide specific examples.
    • Bad: Picks the best ICs, fails to mention checking for motivations.

  • If a team member demonstrates an interest to take on a leadership role, it is important to understand their motivation and look for specific signals corresponding to core qualities such as:

    • Strong communication skills, which should encompass the ability to articulate complex concepts clearly and concisely while adapting the message based on the audience, specifically their level of technical depth (technical/less-technical/non-technical) and their success metrics.
    • Empathy, which involves understanding and relating to the needs, concerns, and motivations of their team, fostering trust and engagement.
    • Being effective (i.e., driving results) through others by inspiring and empowering team members, unblocking people by facilitating connections with other teams, supporting and growing people, etc.
    • Ability to thrive in a XF setting by effectively collaborating with various teams across different orgs/functions to align on goals, manage dependencies, and drive initiatives forward by establishing consensus.
    • Ability to match/align/map team-mates with suitable opportunities by aligning their strengths, interests/aspirations/career goals with tasks and roles that maximize both their personal growth as well as impact within the org.
  • A leader should possess a comprehensive understanding of both the broader, high-level vision and the intricate, low-level details, with the ability to shift focus depending on the audience.
  • Based on the individual’s motivation, it is important to determine if technical leadership would be more suitable, particularly if they exhibit strong technical expertise but have limited interest or experience in people management. Not all leaders pursue a managerial path; some may develop into technical leaders, such as a principal engineer.
  • If the candidate aligns with these expectations, I typically implement a three-month IC2M plan to assess and grow their managerial capabilities and address any gaps to ensure success as a manager. This plan includes supervising a few (3) direct reports and focusing on key areas such as goal and direction setting, effective communication, talent acquisition, and driving results through their team. This process ensures a smooth and meaningful transition for the employee rather than having them gate-crashing into their new role.

What is the difference between career support needed by a junior vs. senior engineer?

  • The amount of autonomy to be given should match/be proportional to the their competency level/skill-set.

  • Compared to senior engineers, junior engineers require more hand-holding, regular check-ins, hands-on mentorship, unblocking support – especially for XF dependencies, etc.

  • Level of Autonomy: At a high level, the amount of autonomy given to an engineer should match their competency level and experience. Junior engineers often need more structured guidance and oversight, while senior engineers thrive with greater independence, managing complex tasks with minimal supervision.

  • Skill Development: In terms of skill development, junior engineers typically need more hands-on mentorship, focusing on developing core technical skills, understanding best practices (the dos/don’ts), and building confidence in solving technical problems independently. They benefit from a regular feedback loop such as feedback during 1x1s, code reviews, etc., and opportunities for learning through collaborative tasks such as pair programming with senior team members. Senior engineers, on the other hand, focus more on deepening their technical expertise, improving their ability to lead projects end-to-end, and expanding their ability to mentor junior engineers.

  • Problem-Solving Support: When it comes to problem-solving support, junior engineers may require more frequent check-ins and assistance with problem-solving, especially when dealing with XF dependencies or navigating unfamiliar parts of the codebase. Senior engineers generally excel at solving problems autonomously/independently, but may still need support in complex system design, decision-making, or prioritizing technical debt.

  • Career Growth: For career growth, junior engineers often need guidance, including advice on how to align their efforts with the broader strategic vision and extend their influence cross-functionally. Senior engineers often need support on leadership skills, mentorship of others, or stepping into more strategic roles such as leading large-scope XF initiatives.

  • Stakeholder Management: Regarding stakeholder management, junior engineers usually focus more on delivering individual work, while senior engineers might need coaching on managing XF stakeholders, communicating across teams – especially with less-technical or non-technical teams, and making decisions that align with business objectives.

(M2) Can you give me a specific example of helping a manager grow? / How do you grow managers?

  • Identify and play to their strengths, coaching, align with opportunities, can provide specific examples.

  • Story 1:
    • Situation:
      • In my current role managing a team of managers at AWS, I’m responsible for monitoring organizational health through a variety of feedback mechanisms, ensuring continuous awareness of team dynamics and performance.
      • Through regular 1x1s with my direct reports, I proactively collect feedback on team dynamics, discussing individual challenges and obstacles.
      • We also undergo daily polling of anonymous connection scores to assess team dynamics along several dimensions, such as inclusion, job satisfaction, manager effectiveness, manager’s technical skills, team’s adherence to company culture, etc. These scores indicated a drop in morale and manager effectiveness that hadn’t surfaced in direct conversations.
      • Feedback from XF partners highlighted frustrations with delayed deliverables, despite the manager agreeing to timelines and scope.
      • While this manager was excellent at setting technical direction and long-term strategy with clear strengths in these areas, the 360 feedback—from 1x1s, team scores, and from XF partners—helped me identify that the manager was struggling to prioritize, which led to an overwhelmed team and expectations that were not delivered on with XF partners.
    • Task:
      • My responsibility here was to help the manager develop better prioritization skills to manage workload effectively.
      • I also needed to assist the manager in enhancing communication with XF partners, ensuring clearer alignment on project expectations and delivery timelines.
    • Action:
      • I introduced the RICE framework (Reach, Impact, Confidence, and Effort) to help the manager evaluate and prioritize projects more systematically. This method allowed the manager to weigh the business impact against the team’s capacity, and align the workload with the company’s objectives.
      • Using the RICE framework, we reviewed the manager’s existing commitments and categorized them based on their score, identifying which projects to prioritize and which to renegotiate, postpone, or decline.
      • I coached the manager on how to set clear boundaries with XF partners, politely pushing back on low-priority projects that exceeded the team’s capacity, while maintaining strong relationships.
      • I provided regular and direct feedback to the manager, reinforcing the importance of early issue detection and making adjustments proactively to avoid future problems.
    • Result:
      • The manager became more effective at prioritizing tasks, using the RICE framework to make better decisions on where to allocate resources.
      • Clearer communication with XF partners led to realistic timelines and a stronger sense of collaboration, resulting in improved deliverables and reduced friction.
      • With clearer priorities and more structured delegation, team morale improved, and productivity increased, as the team was no longer overwhelmed due to an overflow of workload demands.
      • A positive shift was seen in their anonymous feedback scores, with a particular increase in manager effectiveness ratings as they grew more confident in managing XF requests.
    • Reflection:
      • This experience reinforced the importance of coaching and targeted development, while still identifying and playing to people’s strengths.
      • By proactively seeking feedback and coaching the manager on prioritization and communication, I helped this manager become more effective by improving both team dynamics and external relationships and grow into a confident and effective leader.
  • Story 2:
    • Situation:
      • Monitoring Team Dynamics Through Feedback: In my current role managing a team of managers at AWS, I’m responsible for monitoring organizational health through a variety of feedback mechanisms, to ensure I have my finder on the pulse as far as team dynamics and performance is concerned.
      • Proactive 1x1s to Identify Challenges: Through regular 1x1s with my direct reports, I proactively collect feedback on team dynamics, discussing individual challenges and obstacles. In one specific sub-team, led by a new manager, this feedback revealed a decline in manager communication and job satisfaction.
      • Anonymous Feedback for Deeper Insights: We also gather anonymous connection scores to assess several dimensions of team dynamics, such as inclusion, job satisfaction, manager effectiveness, manager’s technical skills, team’s adherence to company culture, etc. These scores indicated a drop in manager effectiveness that hadn’t surfaced in direct conversations.
      • XF Feedback Frustration: Feedback from XF partners highlighted frustrations with delayed deliverables, despite the manager agreeing to timelines and scope.
      • Early Signs of Declining Team Morale from 360 Feedback: This combined feedback—personal, anonymous, and from XF partners—helped me identify that the manager was struggling to prioritize, which led to an overwhelmed team and unmet expectations with external partners.
      • Insights from Reports: Through monthly team-wide connection reports gathered daily from everyone on the team, I gain deep insights into organizational health across several dimensions, including inclusion, job satisfaction, manager effectiveness, manager’s technical skills, and team’s adherence to company culture. The reports indicated that, while the manager was technically strong, they needed support in delegating effectively, providing clear and constructive feedback, and managing XF team dynamics to effectively communicate project status and expectations.
    • Task:
      • Develop Leadership Skills: My objective was to help this manager develop essential leadership skills. This included improving their ability to delegate effectively, provide clear and constructive feedback, and manage XF team dynamics to effectively communicate project status and expectations.
    • Action:
      • Identify Strengths and Weaknesses:
      • Coaching and Feedback Practice: I worked closely with the manager to develop their delegation skills. We discussed how to assign tasks that played to team members’ strengths and career growth interests, while empowering them to take ownership of the work.
      • Coaching and Feedback Practice: To build their confidence in giving feedback, I conducted mock feedback sessions, simulating real scenarios where they had to provide constructive, supportive feedback to team members. This allowed them to practice making their feedback clear, direct, and actionable, improving both team performance and individual development.
      • XF Leadership Opportunities: I also provided opportunities for them to lead XF projects, where they had to manage communication and expectations not only with their direct team but also with stakeholders from other departments. This helped them practice influencing and leading beyond their immediate team and build credibility across the organization.
    • Result:
      • Confidence and Delegation: Over time, the manager became significantly more confident in their role. They learned to delegate effectively, empowering their team members to take on more responsibility, which in turn freed up the manager’s time to focus on higher-impact work, such as long-term strategy and technical leadership.
      • Improved Feedback and Team Performance: The manager also improved in providing clear and constructive feedback. Their ability to give timely, actionable advice resulted in better team performance and enhanced employee development, as team members began to understand how to improve and grow based on more specific and actionable guidance.
      • Broader Influence and Leadership: Their leadership on XF projects helped them extend their influence across teams, resulting in better collaboration and alignment between departments. This increased their visibility within the organization and helped them build a reputation as a well-rounded and effective leader, both within their direct team and in XF efforts.
    • Reflection:
      • Targeted Development Success: This experience reinforced the importance of coaching and targeted development, while still identifying and playing to people’s strengths. By using insights from organizational health reports and focusing on specific, actionable feedback and real-world opportunities, I helped this manager become more effective and grow into a confident and effective leader.

What do you look for when hiring ICs?

  • Here are some key considerations I look for when hiring Individual Contributors (ICs):
    • Technical competence: This is a fundamental requirement, especially for technical roles, and serves as a critical gating factor.
    • Passion/excitement for the role and the company: While enthusiasm may not always be readily apparent, particularly among individuals with more reserved personalities or due to their cultural backgrounds, thoughtful responses during the interview process could be an indicator of genuine interest and commitment to the position.
    • Communication style: Whether the candidate communicates in a structured or unstructured manner is an important consideration.
    • Ability to work/thrive cross-functionally: Evaluate the candidate’s ability to collaborate effectively with other teams and stakeholders, ensuring they can navigate dependencies and contribute to broader organizational goals.
    • Cultural alignment: Assess whether the candidate would fit within the team’s culture, including factors such as a focus on delivery and an openness to bidirectional feedback.

How do you determine in an interview that the candidate possesses those desired qualities?

  • Technical expertise is typically the most straightforward to assess, as it is based on objective criteria such as technical questions, coding exercises, or specific problem-solving tasks. The candidate’s ability to demonstrate relevant skills and effectively apply them to practical scenarios can provide a clear indication of their technical competence.

  • Enthusiasm for the role and the company, while somewhat subjective, can often be discerned by observing the candidate’s engagement during the conversation and their understanding of the company’s mission and values. Even candidates with more reserved personalities or from different cultural backgrounds may still demonstrate enthusiasm through thoughtful responses and a genuine interest in the company’s long-term goals.

  • Communication skills can be evaluated through the candidate’s ability to articulate their thoughts clearly and concisely. This includes whether they can explain complex ideas in a structured manner, respond to questions in a coherent way, and adapt/tailor their communication style based on the flow of the conversation or the needs of the audience.

  • Ability to thrive/work cross-functionally can be assessed by asking the candidate about their experiences collaborating with other teams or functions/orgs. Evaluate how they navigate dependencies, communicate across different orgs/functions, and align their work with broader organizational goals. Additionally, assess whether they demonstrate a team-player mindset by discussing how they contribute to shared goals, support colleagues, and foster collaboration across teams. Their ability to describe how they’ve worked with diverse teams and contributed to XF projects is a strong indicator of their potential to succeed in this area.

  • Cultural fit is often assessed by exploring the candidate’s alignment with the team’s values and working style. Questions about past experiences, such as their openness to bidirectional feedback or how they collaborate within a team, provides insights into their ability to thrive in a collaborative, feedback-driven environment. Additionally, discussing prior situations where they demonstrated teamwork and successfully managed project delivery helps gauge whether their work ethic and interpersonal approach align with the company’s culture.

How do you build a team of stellar/(Netflix: stunning) colleagues? (Use building a professional sports team as a metaphor).

  • Building a team of stellar colleagues/teammates is much like assembling a championship-winning professional sports team. In both cases, success depends on recognizing individual strengths, fostering collaboration, and committing to constant improvement. Here are some key points to consider:

    1. Diverse Roles for a Balanced Team: Just as a football team needs a star quarterback, agile wide receivers, and a rock-solid defender, a high-performing team requires people with varied skill sets. Each role is critical, and everyone must play their part for the team to succeed. A blend of strategists, executors, communicators, and innovators ensures a balance team that is adaptable.

    2. Demand for Excellence in Every Position: Professional sports teams prioritize having the best talent in every role—no compromises. Similarly, a high-talent-density team seeks the best fit for each position, understanding that a single weak link can impact overall performance. Recruiting and retaining top performers creates a culture of excellence.

    3. Commitment to Training and Development: Athletes don’t rest on their laurels; they train daily to sharpen their skills. Similarly, a stellar team thrives on growth, with members embracing continuous feedback and coaching. They’re not afraid to challenge one another constructively, well-aware that candid input is key to leveling up individually and collectively.

    4. Shared Vision and Strategy: A sports team unites around a clear goal, whether it’s winning the championship or breaking a record. Likewise, a successful team aligns on shared objectives and strategies. Every member understands how their specific contribution advances the larger mission, creating a sense of purpose, extraordinary ownership, and unusual accountability.

    5. Resilience and Adaptability: Just as a sports team adjusts its playbook mid-game, a stellar team must pivot in response to challenges. The ability to adapt quickly while staying focused on the end goal separates good teams from great ones. Every member is ready to step up and take ownership when needed.

  • This metaphor underscores how building a high-performing team is a dynamic process that requires vision, discipline, and a shared commitment to success.

(M2) What do you look for when hiring managers?

  • This question is about how the interviewee identifies candidates on their team to become managers.
    • Good: Checks motivations, empathy, leadership/naturally helping others on the team, solid communication, can provide specific examples.
    • Bad: Picks the best ICs, fails to mention checking for motivations.

  • If a team member demonstrates an interest to take on a leadership role, it is important to understand their motivation and look for specific signals corresponding to core qualities such as:

    • Strong communication skills, which should encompass the ability to articulate complex concepts clearly and concisely while adapting the message based on the audience, specifically their level of technical depth (technical/less-technical/non-technical) and their success metrics.
    • Empathy, which involves understanding and relating to the needs, concerns, and motivations of their team, fostering trust and engagement.
    • Being effective (i.e., driving results) through others by inspiring and empowering team members, unblocking people by facilitating connections with other teams, supporting and growing people, etc.
    • Ability to thrive in a XF setting by effectively collaborating with various teams across different orgs/functions to align on goals, manage dependencies, and drive initiatives forward by establishing consensus.
    • Ability to match/align/map team-mates with suitable opportunities by aligning their strengths, interests/aspirations/career goals with tasks and roles that maximize both their personal growth as well as impact within the org.
  • A leader should possess a comprehensive understanding of both the broader, high-level vision and the intricate, low-level details, with the ability to shift focus depending on the audience.
  • Based on the individual’s motivation, it is important to determine if technical leadership would be more suitable, particularly if they exhibit strong technical expertise but have limited interest or experience in people management. Not all leaders pursue a managerial path; some may develop into technical leaders, such as a principal engineer.
  • If the candidate aligns with these expectations, I typically implement a three-month IC2M plan to assess and grow their managerial capabilities and address any gaps to ensure success as a manager. This plan includes supervising a few (3) direct reports and focusing on key areas such as goal and direction setting, effective communication, talent acquisition, and driving results through their team. This process ensures a smooth and meaningful transition for the employee rather than having them gate-crashing into their new role.

How do you determine in an interview that the candidate possesses those desired qualities?

  • By probing into past experiences and understanding a candidate’s management style and philosophy, you can determine whether the candidate possesses the qualities necessary for effective management.

  • Communication skills can be assessed by how well the candidate articulates complex concepts clearly and concisely while adapting their communication to different audiences – both technical and non-technical – during the interview. Look for their ability to explain complex topics clearly and adjust their depth based on the technical understanding of the interviewer. Evaluate if they can convey their points succinctly and persuasively while demonstrating active listening.

  • Empathy can be observed through questions that explore how they support their team members and approach difficult conversations. Ask about situations where they had to balance team needs with organizational goals, and assess how they understand and address the concerns of their team, especially during challenging times.

  • Being effective (i.e., driving results) through others can be evaluated by asking the candidate to describe how they’ve empowered their team to achieve results. Look for examples where they unblocked team members, mapped them to growth opportunities, or facilitated cross-team collaboration, demonstrating their ability to lead indirectly through their team’s success.

  • Ability to thrive in a XF environment (drive XF projects) can be assessed by asking the candidate to describe specific projects they’ve led that required collaboration across multiple teams or departments. Evaluate how they handled dependencies, aligned goals, and established consensus among stakeholders to drive the project/initiative forward (i.e., drive the project/initiative to success), particularly their ability to balance conflicting priorities.

  • Aligning team-mates with suitable opportunities can be gauged by asking about their approach to career growth/development. Inquire how they’ve matched team members’ strengths and aspirations with the right tasks and roles, ensuring both personal growth and impact on the organization. Look for evidence that they take a proactive role in identifying and nurturing talent within their teams.

1x1s

What is your approach to 1x1s? What constitutes a typical 1x1?

  • 1x1s serve as a valuable opportunity to gauge the overall health of the team and have a pulse on the team’s day-to-day functioning. These meetings serve as regular touch-points to (i) check-in on project status (non-Meta, non-senior employees) and (ii) career development: coach and grow people, build strong rapport (or foster strong working relationships), and offer and receive (i.e., bidirectional) constructive/productive and actionable feedback (using the 4A framework) in a private setting, when necessary.
  • Coaching/Growth: During 1x1s, I focus on understanding each employee’s strengths and career aspirations. I use this time to map their interests to opportunities that support their development. If there are gaps between their current skills and their professional goals, I work collaboratively with them to come up with a structured development plan. This involves analyzing gaps to where they want to be in their career, then working backwards from the gaps to identify the steps needed to get there. For employees aiming to prepare for next-level growth or grow into a management role (or develop new technical skills), I utilize this time to coach and support their development by ensuring they have access to the right resources, mentorship, and opportunities to bridge those gaps effectively. For example, if an engineer is looking to expand their XF impact for next-level growth, I identify or create opportunities that provide exposure/visibility to relevant teams and projects, enabling them to grow/broaden/expand their XF influence within the org. I also typically schedule dedicated sessions focused on career development for each engineer, especially if additional follow-up is required.
    • Guidance during these sessions is aimed at aligning the individual’s work output with broader organizational goals, while also ensuring a connection between their deliverables and their career development goals/aspirations.
  • Rapport Building: It is also important to check in on their personal well-being. Understanding how they are doing on a personal level helps build stronger rapport. Leading with empathy, compassion, and emotional intelligence (EQ) is essential for effective management and can foster long-term loyalty and trust.
  • Bidirectional Feedback: Lastly, 1x1 meetings are an opportunity not just to provide constructive and actionable feedback but also for me to proactively solicit feedback to understand what I can do differently to foster my own growth and development.
  • (No) need for a 1x1: We don’t need 1:1s at senior levels if there is autonomy in decision making and adequate level of clarity and alignment. When that doesn’t exist, there is a need for ongoing sync up and bidirectional communication.

What mechanisms do you use to detect any org-wide morale/health issues and how do you work through them? How do you have a pulse on your team’s health?

  • Pulse on Org Health via 360 (1x1, Anonymous Surveys, and XF) Feedback: The first step to detect any org-wide morale issues is to proactively collect feedback from the team via regular 1x1s. In case of attrition, gather feedback through exit interviews. This helps surface individual challenges and hurdles, ensuring that I understand what might be affecting their job satisfaction and productivity. In addition to these 1x1/personal check-ins, I utilize anonymous connection scores/surveys, gathered daily from everyone on the team, to gain deeper insights into my team’s/organizational health over several dimensions of team dynamics (inclusion, job satisfaction, manager effectiveness, manager’s technical skills, team’s adherence to company culture, etc.). This is especially useful to understand team morale and potential issues that may not surface in direct conversations. Project retrospective meetings also play a key role in identifying team morale issues by offering a space for candid discussions about what went well, what didn’t, and any underlying challenges. Another layer of feedback from XF partners helps put together a 360 view of the team’s culture, performance, and interpersonal dynamics. This combination of personal, anonymous, and XF feedback helps identify patterns or underlying issues such as cultural gaps, lack of growth opportunities, poor work-life balance, or inter- and intra-team dynamics, allowing me to nip issues in the bud (address problems) before they lead to attrition.

  • Comprehensive Health Checks through Data Analysis: The anonymous survey/questionnaire results provide a detailed breakdown of various aspects of organizational health. By reviewing these metrics, I can identify which areas require immediate attention, with a focus on those with the lowest scores. This data-driven approach ensures that efforts to improve morale are intentional/targeted and strategic, addressing the most pressing concerns first.

  • Acknowledging Team Success through Data: While it is good to address the negatives, it is also important to recognize and celebrate positive results. For instance, I often share with others, “I wish my team members could convey this themselves, but we are in the 99th percentile for our satisfaction score in certain areas.” This kind of transparency helps reinforce morale by highlighting strengths and celebrating wins, which is crucial for maintaining high engagement.

  • Direct communication with ICs Closest to Critical Projects: For reports under managers reporting to me – beyond relying solely on data, I like to obtain a qualitative view of the team’s health by engaging with team members who are the closest to our core projects rather than managers reporting to me. This offers valuable qualitative insights into potential issues that might not always surface through 1x1s with the IC’s managers and team surveys. Correlating/triangulating observations from 1x1s with direct reports, surveys, as well as 1x1s with project DRIs, ensures a holistic understanding of team morale (and fosters a culture of openness and trust across the org).

  • Moving Quickly on giving Hard Feedback to Avoid Issues Festering: Addressing morale issues promptly is crucial. When hard feedback is needed, I believe in moving quickly to deliver it to the relevant people. Timely, direct communication helps nip issues in the bud and prevent small problems from exacerbating (i.e., growing into larger org-wide issues). This approach ensures that concerns are addressed in real time, reducing the chance for negative feelings to linger or worsen, and fosters a culture of accountability and continuous improvement.

Managing Low Performers

Can you tell me about a time you dealt with a performance “dip” or a low performer?

  • Background:
    • An efficient team is like a well-oiled machine – everyone should be pulling their own weight, if one person is holding the team back (being the team’s weakest link), its time for a discussion.
    • Criticize in private and praise in public.
  • Instance (successful scenario; Engineer $\rightarrow$ PM):
    • Situation:
      • In my prior team at Amazon Alexa, where I led the query understanding and personalization team, one of the flagship projects we worked on was to introduce a year-end recap experience, highlighting the music and movies users had enjoyed throughout the year and suggesting what to listen to or watch next. Given that we were on a tight year-end deadline, every team member’s contribution was crucial. However, over a couple of back-to-back sessions of sprint review, we noticed that one of the engineers responsible for a crucial part of the project (building the RAG pipeline infrastructure for the LLM) began consistently missing deadlines for their allocated tasks.
      • Meeting the deadline for this deliverable was crucial as it directly impacted several other dependent tasks, both within the team and with XF partners. As such, the delay had a ripple effect on the rest of the projecy, blocking other team members and XF partners and ultimately, putting the project at risk of missing the final deadline.
    • Task:
      • As an immediate next step, I had to root-cause the underlying reasons behind their lack of motivation and work backwards from it to provide a supportive path forward.
    • Action:
      • I setup a 1x1 with the employee to understand the reasons behind their performance issues. I led with empathy, asking about personal or work-related obstacles. The employee shared that, after two years in a technical role, they no longer felt motivated by engineering work and wanted to transition to AI modeling from building infrastructure for productionizing models.
      • The engineer wanted to understand the process of training models, looking to gain more exposure and competency in machine learning. However, the challenge here was that this was an area where they had no theoretical or practical experience. At this point, my role was to ensure that I offer the right support to the employee while ensuring that our current deliverables didn’t lose track.
      • After assessing the engineer’s current strengths and identifying the gap between their existing skill-set and their goal of becoming proficient in AI modeling, I developed a 6-month structured plan/program with the OKR framework, having two key parts: theoretical and practical. The theoretical component was designed to ensure the engineer was well-versed with the necessary AI foundations, while the practical component focused on real-world projects where the engineer could apply the theoretical knowledge gained. This blend of theory and practice was critical for them to pick up the necessary skills, with regular check-ins along the way to assess progress and provide guidance, creating a feedback loop at every step. Ultimately, this created a strong support system for the engineer, ensuring a smooth transition into their new role.
      • To lay a strong theoretical foundation, I provided the engineer with some of my AI primers on aman.ai, covering topics like supervised/self-supervised/unsupervised learning, Transformer architecture, training and fine-tuning LLMs, and model evaluation.
      • I also offered them a list of curated ML resources, including key research papers, online courses, and tutorials to deepen their understanding.
      • To build a strong practical skill-set on top of their theoretical foundations, I paired the engineer with an applied scientist working on training LLMs, during which they spent 20% of their time shadowing ML projects. To accommodate this shift in focus, I worked with the engineer to reshuffle their workload and deprioritize less critical tasks on the infrastructure side.
      • The engineer then transitioned from shadowing to hands-on contributions, gradually increasing their bandwidth to 80% on ML tasks, while retaining 20% in their original role. At this stage, I facilitated a gradual knowledge transfer process, ensuring their responsibilities were reassigned to other team members, allowing the engineer to fully commit to their new role.
      • Throughout the process, I ensured regular check-ins in our 1x1s to provide ongoing coaching and ensure a feedback loop to monitor their progress and course-correct their development path, ensuring they stayed on course to achieve their goals.
      • To finalize the transition, I initiated a round of 360-degree feedback with team members and XF network/stakeholders/partners who collaborated with the engineer, gathering input from the team to ensure everyone was aligned and supported the transition.
    • Result:
      • Once this process concluded, the engineer successfully acquired AI modeling skills, including model training, fine-tuning, and evaluation.
      • As a great by-product, they built a strong working relationship with the applied scientist on the team and other team members.
      • This structured process not only helped this engineer but paved the pathway for future transitions on the team.
    • Reflection:
      • In retrospect/hindsight, this experience highlighted/underscored/reinforced the importance of (i) playing my part as a manager to support my people in their career growth, and (ii) having a structured yet flexible process that combined theoretical and hands-on experience with regular feedback loops to ensure success.
  • Instance (successful scenario; Engineer $\rightarrow$ PM):
    • Situation:
      • In my prior team at Amazon Alexa, where I led the query understanding and personalization team, one of the flagship projects we worked on was to introduce a year-end recap experience, highlighting the music and movies users had enjoyed throughout the year and suggesting what to listen to or watch next. Given that we were on a tight year-end deadline, every team member’s contribution was crucial. However, over a couple of back-to-back sessions of sprint review, we noticed that one of the engineers responsible for a crucial part of the project (building a RAG pipeline for the LLM) began consistently missing deadlines for their allocated tasks.
      • Meeting the deadline for this deliverable was crucial as it directly impacted several other dependent tasks, both within the team and with XF partners. As such, the delay had a ripple effect on the rest of the projecy, blocking other team members and XF partners and ultimately, putting the project at risk of missing the final deadline.
    • Task:
      • As an immediate next step, I had to root-cause the underlying reasons behind their lack of motivation and work backwards from it to provide a supportive path forward.
    • Action:
      • I setup a 1x1 with the employee to understand the reasons behind their performance issues. I led with empathy, asking about personal or work-related obstacles. The employee shared that, after two years in a technical role, they no longer felt motivated by engineering work and believed that transitioning to a Program Manager (PM) role would better align with their skills and interests. At this point, my role was to ensure that I offer the right support to the employee while ensuring that our current deliverables didn’t lose track.
      • After assessing the engineer’s current strengths and identifying the gap between their existing skill-set and their goal of becoming proficient in program management, I developed a structured development program with clear OKRs that spanned 3 quarters. This program had two key parts: theoretical and practical. The theoretical component ensured the engineer gained the necessary knowledge in program management concepts, including project scoping, stakeholder management, and risk mitigation/contingency. The practical component involved building some hands-on skills on real-world projects by shadowing other PMs, before formally taking over the role. I held regular bi-weekly check-ins to assess progress/discuss challenges and course-correct when necessary which create a continuous feedback loop, ensuring the engineer stayed on track towards their goal. This structure provided a solid support system for the engineer, which ultimately enabled a smooth transition into their new role.
      • To establish a strong theoretical foundation, I recommended key PM resources such as “The Lean Startup” by Eric Ries and “Agile Project Management with Scrum” by Ken Schwaber. These resources helped them understand critical PM frameworks. We focused on topics like stakeholder management, risk assessment, and agile methodologies to ensure they had a comprehensive understanding of core program management principles.
      • To build practical experience, I paired the engineer with a PM from a parallel org, where they spent 20% of their time shadowing key projects over the next quarter and building real-world program management skills. To accommodate this shift in focus, I worked with the engineer to reshuffle their workload and deprioritize less critical tasks on their plate.
      • After the initial shadowing phase, the engineer transitioned to hands-on contributions by ramping up to 80% on PM tasks, while still retaining 20% of their time in their original technical role to ensure a smooth transition. At this stage, I facilitated a knowledge transfer process, ensuring their technical responsibilities were reassigned to other team members, allowing the engineer to fully commit to their new PM role.
      • To finalize the transition, I initiated a 360-degree feedback process, gathering input from the parallel team, their new manager, and stakeholders involved in the projects they had worked on.
    • Result:
      • A few months later after the transition, I checked in with the employee and learned they were thriving in their new PM role. The transition had resolved their performance issues, and they were contributing successfully in a position that aligned better with their skills and aspirations.
    • Reflection:
      • This experience reinforced the importance of viewing challenges as opportunities, leading with empathy, and lastly playing my part as a manager to support my people by matching them to the right opportunities.

  • Instance (failed scenario):
    • Situation:
      • Performance dip in a high-performing team: In my prior team at Amazon Alexa, where I led the query understanding and personalization team, one of the flagship projects we worked on was to introduce a year-end recap experience, highlighting the music and movies users had enjoyed throughout the year and suggesting what to listen to or watch next. Given that we were on a tight year-end deadline, every team member’s contribution was crucial. However, over a couple of back-to-back sessions of sprint review, we noticed that one of the engineers responsible for a crucial part of the project (building a RAG pipeline for the LLM) began consistently missing deadlines for their allocated tasks.
      • Impact on team productivity: Meeting the deadline for this deliverable was crucial as it directly impacted several other dependent tasks, both within the team and with XF partners. As such, the delay had a ripple effect on the rest of the team, blocking other team members and XF partners and ultimately, putting the project at risk of missing the final deadline.
    • Task:
      • Identify Performance Bottlenecks: My responsibility was to identify the root cause of the employee’s underperformance and take appropriate actions to address it, while ensuring our deliverables don’t lose track.
      • Ensure Accountability: It was also critical to ensure accountability and support the employee through coaching and performance plans if necessary.
    • Action:
      • Initial Conversation (Empathy): I setup a 1x1 with the employee to understand the reasons behind their performance issues. I led with empathy, asking about personal or work-related obstacles.
      • Skill Gap Identified: During our discussion, the employee mentioned that while they were comfortable with fine-tuning LLM models, they lacked exposure to building RAG pipelines, which made them feel less confident in that area.
      • Shuffling Tasks to Maintain Project Progress: To ensure that immediate project deliverables stayed on track, I redistributed the employee’s critical tasks to other team members to avoid further delays. Additionally, I de-prioritized low-priority tasks and streamlined the workload for other engineers so the overall project timeline was protected while giving the employee room to focus on development.
      • Structured Development Plan: To bridge the skill gap, I implemented a structured development plan that spanned 6 weeks and included two key components: theoretical learning and hands-on practical experience. The theoretical component involved pointers to learning resources on RAG pipelines and relevant engineering concepts, while the practical component included tasks where the employee could apply their new knowledge under guidance.
      • Senior Engineer Mentorship: Additionally, I connected the employee with a senior engineer who had experience with RAG pipelines. The senior engineer acted as a mentor, providing guidance on the engineering practices specific to RAG pipelines and shadowing opportunities to help the employee improve their skills.
        • Hands-On Mentorship: The senior engineer reviewed their code, helped refine the architecture, and provided debugging techniques for pipeline-related issues. They collaborated on specific tasks, giving the employee real-time exposure to RAG pipeline development.
        • Regular Check-Ins: The employee and the senior engineer had meetings twice a week to ensure continuous learning and address any technical challenges. While I connected with the engineer weekly, the senior engineer also provided weekly feedback to me on the employee’s progress.
      • PIP Plan: Unfortunately, despite the structured development and support offered, the employee’s performance did not improve. I implemented a performance improvement plan (PIP) with 3 key milestones over 30 days, each tied to deliverables with clear, measurable expectations.
      • Frequent Check-ins: I conducted weekly check-ins to track progress, provide support, and adjust intermediate goals as needed.
    • Result:
      • Missed Milestones: Despite the structured coaching plan, the employee missed 2 out of 3 deliverables and did not meet the performance improvement goals.
      • Role Transition: Ultimately, we had to make the difficult decision to move the employee out of the role to maintain the team’s performance and project timelines.
    • Reflection / Lessons Learned:
      • Empathy & Accountability Balance: This experience reinforced the importance of support my people as a manager, but at the same time balancing leading with empathy with clear accountability to ensure that the team and project goals are met.

How did this person end up on your team in the first place?

  • I inherited them after moving in to this team after the previous manager left to a different team.

(M2) Can you tell me about a time when a team was underperforming? How did you know?

  • Pulse on Org Health via Personal and Anonymous feedback: The first step to detect any org-wide issues is to proactively collect feedback from employees. I achieve this by having regular 1x1s where I discuss individual challenges and hurdles with my engineers, ensuring that I understand what might be affecting their job satisfaction and productivity. In addition to these personal check-ins, I utilize anonymous connection scores, gathered daily from everyone on the team, to gain deeper insights into organizational health over several dimensions of team dynamics (inclusion, job satisfaction, manager effectiveness, manager’s technical skills, team’s adherence to company culture, etc.). This is especially useful to understand team morale and potential issues that may not surface in direct conversations. Another layer of feedback from XF partners offers an external view of the team’s culture, performance, and interpersonal dynamics. This combination of personal, anonymous, and XF feedback puts together a 360 view and helps identify patterns or underlying issues such as cultural gaps, lack of growth opportunities, poor work-life balance, or inter- and intra-team dynamics, allowing allowing for a proactive approach to morale management.

  • Direct communication with all levels of the org: Beyond relying solely on data, I place significant emphasis on engaging with employees at all levels, especially ICs who are often closest to the core operations. Speaking with both leaders and individual contributors offers valuable qualitative insights into potential issues that might not always surface through surveys. This ensures a holistic understanding of morale and fosters a culture of openness and trust across the org.

  • Moving quickly on giving hard feedback to avoid issues festering: Lastly, when hard feedback is needed, I believe in moving quickly to deliver it to the relevant people. Timely, direct communication helps prevent small problems from growing into larger organizational issues. This approach ensures that concerns are addressed in real time, reducing the chance for negative feelings to linger or worsen, and fosters a culture of accountability and continuous improvement.

  • Situation:
    • Monitoring Team Dynamics Through Feedback: In my current role managing a team of managers at AWS, I’m responsible for monitoring organizational health through a variety of feedback mechanisms, ensuring continuous awareness of team dynamics and performance.
    • Proactive 1x1s to Identify Challenges: Through regular 1x1s with my direct reports, I proactively collect feedback on team dynamics, discussing individual challenges and obstacles. In one specific sub-team, led by a new manager, this feedback revealed a decline in job satisfaction and productivity.
    • Anonymous Feedback for Deeper Insights: We also gather anonymous connection scores to assess several dimensions of team dynamics, such as inclusion, satisfaction, manager effectiveness, technical skills, and adherence to company culture. These scores indicated a drop in morale and manager effectiveness that hadn’t surfaced in direct conversations.
    • XF Feedback Frustration: Feedback from XF partners highlighted frustrations with delayed deliverables, despite the manager agreeing to timelines and scope.
    • Early Signs of Declining Team Morale from 360 Feedback: While this manager was excellent at setting technical direction and long-term strategy with clear strengths in these areas, the 360 feedback—personal, anonymous, and from XF partners—helped me identify that the manager was struggling to prioritize, which led to an overwhelmed team and unmet expectations with external partners.
  • Task:
    • Teaching Prioritization Skills: My responsibility here was to help the manager develop better prioritization skills to manage workload effectively.
    • Improving XF Communication: I also needed to assist the manager in enhancing communication with XF partners, ensuring clearer alignment on project expectations and delivery timelines.
  • Action:
    1. Coaching on Prioritization Using the RICE Framework: I introduced the RICE framework (Reach, Impact, Confidence, and Effort) to help the manager evaluate and prioritize projects more systematically. This method allowed the manager to quantify the business impact, assess the team’s capacity, and align the workload with the company’s objectives.
    2. Categorizing and Filtering Projects: Using the RICE framework, we reviewed the manager’s existing commitments and categorized them based on their score, identifying which projects to prioritize and which to renegotiate, postpone, or decline.
    3. Setting Boundaries with XF Teams: I coached the manager on how to set clear boundaries with XF partners, politely pushing back on low-priority projects that exceeded the team’s capacity, while maintaining strong relationships.
    4. Facilitating Realignment with Stakeholders: I assisted the manager in realigning with XF stakeholders by communicating the team’s bandwidth and refocusing on delivering high-priority work, ensuring all parties were on the same page.
    5. Timely Feedback for Continuous Improvement: I provided regular and direct feedback to the manager, reinforcing the importance of early issue detection and making adjustments proactively to avoid future problems.
  • Result:
    • Improved Prioritization and Team Focus: The manager became more effective at prioritizing tasks, using the RICE framework to make better decisions on where to allocate resources.
    • Better XF Relationships: Clearer communication with XF partners led to realistic timelines and a stronger sense of collaboration, resulting in improved deliverables and reduced friction.
    • Enhanced Team Morale and Productivity: With clearer priorities and more structured delegation, team morale improved, and productivity increased, as the team was no longer overwhelmed by conflicting demands.
    • Better Manager Effectiveness: A positive shift was seen in their anonymous feedback scores, with a particular increase in manager effectiveness ratings as they grew more confident in managing workload and XF requests.
  • Reflection:
    • Importance of Proactive Feedback: This experience reinforced the importance of coaching and targeted development, while still identifying and playing to people’s strengths.
    • Significance of Coaching on Prioritization: By proactively seeking feedback and coaching the manager on prioritization and communication, I helped this manager become more effective by improving both team dynamics and external relationships and grow into a confident and effective leader.

(M2) Can you tell me about a time you had a manager who was underperforming?

  • I have monthly skip level meetings
  • more with newer folks
  • all said he was accidentally micromanaging
  • helped him find his managerial style while striking a balance in the technical aspect
  • did this via BPM

  • SHADOWING

  • Typical problems stem from someone who has been recently moved into management and shouldn’t have been, a legacy bad manager they inherited, a good manager going through a rough patch for various reasons, incorrect assessment of the problem (manager is fine, something else is broken) etc. Separating concerns and then having an example of how to deal with it is key.
  • Good:
    • Generally: Pattern matching into frameworks that allow the candidate to scale
    • Specifically: Doing 360 feedback to identify and understand what’s going on; Moving quickly on giving hard feedback; Making situational adjustments.

Attrition

How do you deal with attrition?

  • Understand Root Causes via 360 (Personal, Anonymous, and XF) Feedback: The first step in dealing with attrition is to analyze the root causes by gathering direct feedback through exit interviews and proactively collecting feedback from current employees. I connect with my team via regular 1x1s where I discuss individual challenges and hurdles with my engineers, ensuring that I understand what might be affecting their job satisfaction and productivity. In addition to these personal check-ins, I utilize anonymous connection scores, gathered daily from everyone on the team, to gain deeper insights into organizational health over several dimensions of team dynamics (inclusion, job satisfaction, manager effectiveness, manager’s technical skills, team’s adherence to company culture, etc.). This is especially useful to understand team morale and potential issues that may not surface in direct conversations. Another layer of feedback from XF partners offers an external view of the team’s culture, performance, and even interpersonal dynamics. This combination of personal, anonymous, and XF feedback puts together a 360 view and helps identify patterns or underlying issues such as cultural gaps, lack of growth opportunities, poor work-life balance, or inter- and intra-team dynamics, allowing allowing for a proactive approach to morale management.

  • Fostering a Culture of Openness: I focus on fostering a culture where every team member feels heard and valued. This starts with open communication channels, such as regular team meetings and anonymous feedback, which allow employees to share their thoughts and concerns freely. I also encourage team members to take ownership of projects and recognize their contributions publicly, which fosters a sense of accomplishment and belonging. To further boost engagement, I initiate team-building activities and opportunities for XF collaboration, so employees feel invested not only in their work but in the broader success of the organization. This is all based on the idea that engaged employees are more likely to stay with the company because they see their work as meaningful and appreciated.

  • Career Growth Opportunities: I use 1x1s for regular check-ins to discuss individual goals, challenges, and areas for development. These ongoing conversations provide a platform for me to offer real-time feedback and support, ensuring that employees feel empowered and guided in their roles. Additionally, I conduct quarterly career growth conversations to focus on long-term career aspirations, skill development, and potential advancement opportunities within the organization. By aligning their personal career goals with the company’s objectives, I help employees visualize a clear path for growth, which increases motivation and retention.

  • Promote Work-Life Balance: I prioritize flexible work arrangements such as adjustable hours and remote options to accommodate personal needs. I encourage employees to set boundaries between work and personal time, respecting their time off and avoiding after-hours communication. I also ensure managers regularly assess workloads to prevent overload and load-balance accordingly, fostering a culture that values well-being over burnout. Ultimately, a balanced environment helps employees stay satisfied and reduces attrition.

  • Foster Team Relationships: Building strong team relationships and a sense of community is crucial to creating a supportive environment where employees thrive. I encourage collaboration through peer mentorship programs and XF projects, which help employees build trust and learn from each other. I also organize regular team-building events—both virtual and in-person—such as team fairs, offsites, hackathons, and lunches/dinners, where team members can connect outside of formal work settings. These activities foster camaraderie and a deeper connection within the team, making employees feel more integrated and valued. When employees feel a strong bond with their colleagues and a sense of community, they are less likely to leave, as they value the relationships they’ve built within the team.

  • Moving quickly on giving hard feedback to avoid issues festering: I ensure that constructive feedback is delivered promptly to address performance or morale issues before they escalate. This helps in resolving conflicts early, maintaining a healthy team dynamic, and demonstrating that concerns are taken seriously. Tackling problems head-on prevents them from becoming larger issues that could contribute to attrition.

  • Ultimately, the approach I use focuses on addressing both the causes of attrition and fostering an environment that encourages retention.

Conflict Resolution

  • {Inter, Intra}-team conflict x {Meet-in-the-middle, You Changed, They Changed}

Inter-team conflict x Meet-in-the-middle

  • Situation:
    • At Amazon Alexa, where I supported the query understanding and personalization team, Alexa’s “Let’s Chat” mode was one of our flagship projects. To set some context, Alexa’s Let’s Chat mode was powered by an LLM under-the-hood and allowed users to engage in open-ended, natural conversations with Alexa. The vision for this feature was to broaden the range of topics Alexa could handle, offering more intuitive and context-aware responses, with the ultimate goal of improving customer engagement as a key business metric. While offline testing revealed great performance, feedback during dogfooding was that the model showed gaps in performance for certain low-resource languages such as Farsi, Tamil, and Malayalam. Root-causing the issue by digging into some samples, the data scientists on my team noticed that the model exhibited hallucinations which were evident based on signals such as when users pointed out errors in Alexa’s responses, asked follow-up questions like “are you sure?”, or even interrupted Alexa mid-way through a response. The primary issue was that the existing model was not grounded in a sufficiently large corpus of customer dialogues encompassing a variety of intents, languages, and multi-turn dialogue contexts.
    • As a way forward, I proposed deploying a larger LLM which was fine-tuned on a more diverse and expansive dataset that covered a broader range of low-resource languages across various real-world intents and dialogue contexts. While this model offered a significant lift in performance compared to the existing model based on initial experimentation, the challenge was this model was 25% larger. This resulted in the new model being 7% beyond the maximal permissible latency.
    • Since the LLM’s output would be passed as input to a text-to-speech (TTS) model for generating the final speech response, I encountered pushback from the TTS team since this additional latency would eat into their latency budget, which would impact the overall user experience. This brought our launch to a standstill, requiring immediate resolution to move forward.
  • Task:
    • My next step was to come up with a plan that satisfied both conflicting objectives: (i) improve the performance of Alexa’s Let’s Chat mode by deploying a larger model trained on more diverse data, and (ii) simultaneously address the latency concerns raised by the TTS team to ensure an optimal user experience.
  • Action:
    • I worked closely with the TTS team to collaboratively find a point on the performance vs. latency graph that was acceptable to both teams. As part of this discussion, I communicated the importance of accuracy for the end-user experience by showing examples of critical failure scenarios, while also acknowledging their concerns about latency. To figure out an acceptable trade-off point, I proposed that we explore model compression techniques—-such as pruning, knowledge distillation, and quantization similar to those used in training smaller models like Llama 3.2 1B and 3B–to reduce latency while maintaining as much performance as possible.
    • However, given our packed slate of deliverables, we had to figure out bandwidth and resourcing for this task to accommodate the additional effort required. Using the RICE framework for prioritization, I worked with my PM to re-do sprint planning by identifying low-priority tasks that could be deferred to future sprints as well as tasks that could be moved to our tech debt/backlog.
  • Result:
    • The end result was that we identified a middle ground to balance the competing priorities of performance and latency by deploying a model with a reduced footprint and minimal performance trade-off that fixed the original issue of hallucinations.
  • Reflection:
    • Looking back, this experience highlighted the importance of finding a middle ground to transform a challenging situation into a win-win.
    • As a great by-product, it also led to us strengthening our relationship with the TTS team.
  • Story 2:
    • Faced pushback on a XF project
    • My approach was to parallelize the work on both teams, any components that we could and get to dependencies later
    • Pushback was from other team, they did not have bandwidth and wanted to wait for our entire task to finish to then take it over

    • Found a middle ground, had them working 30% of time and gave knowledge transfer to our folks for rest

    • Situation:
      Conflict between teams over infrastructure delays: In one project, we depended on a XF team for infrastructure updates, but they deprioritized our requests, causing frustration within my team and delaying key milestones.

    • Task:
      Addressing the conflict and unblocking progress: My task was to resolve the conflict and ensure that both teams could work together productively to meet the project’s deadlines.

    • Action:
      Engaging the PM of the other team: I initiated a direct conversation with the PM from the other team to understand their priorities and explain how their delays were affecting our project. Escalating when necessary: When the initial discussions didn’t result in progress, I escalated the issue to their director and suggested a phased integration plan that would allow both teams to make progress without further delays. Maintaining regular syncs: I set up weekly syncs between both teams to ensure ongoing alignment and to address potential blockers early.

    • Result:
      Restoring collaboration and project progress: The conflict was resolved, and the phased integration allowed both teams to meet their objectives. Our project was delivered on time, and the working relationship between the teams improved.

    • Reflection:
      Importance of proactive conflict resolution: Looking back, this experience reinforced the importance of addressing conflicts early and finding compromises that benefit both teams. Structured communication is key: Regular communication helped keep both teams aligned and prevented future conflicts.

Inter-team conflict x You changed / XF dependencies, timeline conflict, we reprioritized using RICE

  • Situation:
    • At Amazon Alexa, where I supported the query understanding and personalization team, Alexa’s “Let’s Chat” mode was one of our flagship projects. To set some context, Alexa’s Let’s Chat mode was powered by an LLM under-the-hood and allowed users to engage in open-ended, natural conversations with Alexa. The vision for this feature was to broaden the range of topics Alexa could handle, offering more intuitive and context-aware responses, with the ultimate goal of improving customer engagement as a key business metric. While offline testing revealed great performance, feedback during dogfooding was that the model showed gaps in performance for certain low-resource languages such as Farsi, Tamil, and Malayalam. Root-causing the issue by digging into some samples, the data scientists on my team noticed that the model exhibited hallucinations which were evident based on signals such as when users pointed out errors in Alexa’s responses, asked follow-up questions like “are you sure?”, or even interrupted Alexa mid-way through a response. The primary issue was that the existing model was not grounded in a sufficiently large corpus of customer dialogues encompassing a variety of intents, languages, and multi-turn dialogue contexts.
    • As a way forward, I proposed deploying a larger LLM which was fine-tuned on a more diverse and expansive dataset that covered a broader range of low-resource languages across various real-world intents and dialogue contexts. While this model offered a significant lift in performance compared to the existing model based on initial experimentation, the challenge was this model was 25% larger. This resulted in the new model being 7% beyond the maximal permissible latency.
    • Since the LLM’s output would be passed as input to a text-to-speech (TTS) model for generating the final speech response, I encountered pushback from the TTS team since this additional latency would eat into their latency budget, which would impact the overall user experience. This brought our launch to a standstill, requiring immediate resolution to move forward.
  • Task:
    • My next step was to come up with a plan that satisfied both conflicting objectives: (i) improve the performance of Alexa’s Let’s Chat mode by deploying a larger model trained on more diverse data, and (ii) simultaneously address the latency concerns raised by the TTS team to ensure an optimal user experience.
  • Action:
    • I worked closely with the TTS team to collaboratively find a point on the performance vs. latency graph that was acceptable to both teams. As part of this discussion, I communicated the importance of accuracy for the end-user experience by showing examples of critical failure scenarios, while also acknowledging their concerns about latency. To figure out an acceptable trade-off point, I proposed that we explore model compression techniques—-such as pruning, knowledge distillation, and quantization similar to those used in training smaller models like Llama 3.2 1B and 3B–to reduce latency while maintaining as much performance as possible.
    • However, given our packed slate of deliverables, we had to figure out bandwidth and resourcing for this task to accommodate the additional effort required. Using the RICE framework for prioritization, I worked with my PM to re-do sprint planning by identifying low-priority tasks that could be deferred to future sprints as well as tasks that could be moved to our tech debt/backlog.
  • Result:
    • The end result was that we identified a middle ground to balance the competing priorities of performance and latency by deploying a model with a reduced footprint and minimal performance trade-off that fixed the original issue of hallucinations.
  • Reflection:
    • Looking back, this experience highlighted the importance of finding a middle ground to transform a challenging situation into a win-win.
    • As a great by-product, it also led to us strengthening our relationship with the TTS team.

Inter-team conflict x They changed / XF dependencies, timeline conflict, they reprioritized using RICE

  • Situation:
    • At Amazon Alexa, where I supported query understanding and personalization, we were leading a critical project to release a multimodal transcription model for the Echo Show, an Alexa device with a built-in display with a camera. The goal was to address performance gaps in query understanding seen with the prior speech-only transcription model while transcribing commands in a noisy environment—for instance, in a busy kitchen with multiple sources of background noise—by integrating both audio and visual signals for more accurate speech transcription. To set some context, query understanding is one of the initial steps in Alexa’s flow, since it maps user commands to a set of over 200 intent APIs and their arguments that control all of the device’s use-cases, from shopping to playing music to setting reminders to controlling smart home devices. However, given that query understanding was a gate for downstream models in Alexa’s flow, errors at this stage can easily snowball/propagate/cascade further to models further on in the query’s lifecycle/flow. As a result, this initiative was strategically important as it directly impacted user experience and retention.
    • While our offline evaluation showed that the multimodal model was able to successfully address the performance gaps compared to the speech-only model, given that this was the first time we were experimenting with multimodal transcription coming from speech-only transcription, we realized that the latency projections that we used for model planning were inaccurate.
    • This led to our latency numbers being ~12% off compared to our initial projections, which exceeded our latency requirements. The challenge here was that these were strict to ensure seamless, real-time user interactions with the device – missing these targets would lead to users waiting inordinately long to get a response back from Alexa, leading to a poor user experience.
    • To address this, we required the Edge AI team’s expertise to hit the necessary latency targets within performance constraints. This involved trying out various model compression techniques such as quantization, pruning, knowledge distillation and figuring out the right trade-offs to make between performance and latency.

    • However, the Edge AI team recently had a reduction in headcount due to org restructuring leading to a packed slate of priorities for the quarter and thus couldn’t allocate resources to support our needs. This jeopardized the launch of the model, which was critical to the success of the Echo Show device.

    • Task:
      • My task was to secure the necessary support from the Edge AI team to help us compress the model and meet the required latency targets to ensure the success of our project.
    • Action:
      • To address the issue, I scheduled a 1x1 with the Edge AI team’s manager to discuss the situation and identify potential ways forward. I approached the conversation with empathy, acknowledging their limited resources and busy slate of priorities. I discussed the business impact of our project and its importance to the overall success of the Echo Show device. While the manager agreed that the project was important, she explained that due to their recent headcount reductions, they were strapped for resources and that their current resources were fully committed to other initiatives, and they couldn’t provide direct support this quarter. Without their help, shipping this project seemed like a distant dream since violating latency requirements was out of question given the real-time nature of the device.
      • To keep the ball rolling on the project, I proposed a middle ground where the Edge AI team would offer (i) knowledge sharing sessions on the infrastructure and best practices for model compression and (ii) help us with code reviews to ensure our implementation was functionally correct and met performance standards, allowing my team to continue making progress.
      • Meeting-in-the-middle enabled us to move forward without further delays while maintaining a positive and collaborative relationship for future projects.
    • Result:
      • Although the project’s success was initially at risk due to the latency issues, meeting-in-the-middle allowed us to meet our latency targets and launch the model on schedule.
      • Despite the challenges, we maintained a positive and cooperative working relationship with the Edge AI team, which was crucial for future collaborations.
    • Reflection:
      • Looking back, this experience taught me the importance of finding a middle ground to turn a challenging situation such as this one into a win-win. Above all, it highlighted that empathy and effective communication are some of the best tools in a manager’s toolbox to build and maintain strong long-lasting relationships.

Intra-team conflict x They changed

  • Situation:
    • A Staff-level engineer recently joined our team from a different company. To ensure a smooth onboarding, I had setup an onboarding plan for him that already included comprehensive documentation, training materials, and pointers to codebases and curated resources to help him gain the necessary background for his new role.
    • The expectation was for him to leverage these effectively by proactively reviewing available documentation and associated codebases, learning independently, and leaning on other engineers for support. Instead, what ended up happening was that he expected daily, hands-on guidance from the junior engineers to help him ramp up on our team’s codebase. He would frequently ask junior engineers to walk him through our documentation and the associated codebases step-by-step.
    • This lack of proactiveness not only created tension in the team but also made his onboarding inefficient, as the junior engineers, who were already managing full workloads, found these demands too time-consuming. They were expecting a more proactive approach, where they could offer support by addressing specific questions rather than being expected to provide continuous, in-depth training.
    • Based on feedback from my 1x1s, I sensed a growing misalignment in expectations led to frustration from both sides: the Staff engineer felt unsupported, while the junior engineers became overwhelmed by the additional demands on their time.
  • Task:
    • As the team’s manager, I was responsible for addressing the misalignment between the Staff engineer’s expectations for training and the junior engineers’ capacity to provide support.
    • My goal was to resolve the growing tension and ensure that both parties could collaborate effectively.

  • Action:

    • To avoid the issue from festering, I setup an immediate 1x1 with the Staff engineer and provided feedback that Amazon encourages a self-directed approach, especially for senior employees. This implies that they were expected to dig into the initial pointers provided in the onboarding documentation and resources, and be proactive in their learning process, while reaching out to the team with questions.

    • In response, he clarified that there was a sizable gap in the tools and technology being used in the team compared to his prior roles, leading him to seek regular support from the team to get up to speed, but he understood the autonomy expected from his role and agreed to be more proactive in his approach.

    • As part of my regular 1x1s with the Staff engineer, I ensured his onboarding was progressing as he adapted to the new environment and being supported when he hit a roadblock. I also checked in with the junior engineers to ensure that disruptions to their workflow were at a minimum.
  • Result:
    • The conflict was successfully resolved as the Staff engineer adapted to Amazon’s self-directed culture and made significant progress by using the resources provided and participating in the scheduled Q&A sessions.
    • Overall, team collaboration improved, and the onboarding process for the Staff engineer progressed smoothly without further disruptions to the team’s workflow.
  • Reflection:
    • Lastly, providing timely, actionable, and constructive feedback / candid feedback was key to ensuring alignment within the team and most importantly, ensuring team morale wasn’t hit as part of this instance.

Did this lead to a delay in shipping timelines?

  • Yes, it did. To meet our planned deadlines, my team re-did sprint planning for the next two sprints and deprioritized some of our lower priority tasks to accommodate the effort involved here.

Why is A/B testing necessary despite achieving improved scores in offline evaluation?

  • A/B testing remains critical even after achieving improved scores in offline evaluation because offline tests, while valuable, do not fully capture the complexity of real-world environments. Here’s why:

    1. IID Assumption Doesn’t Hold: Offline evaluation typically relies on the assumption of independent and identically distributed (IID) data. However, this assumption may break when the model is deployed. In a real-world environment, the data is influenced by various factors such as user interactions, changing behaviors, and external influences that don’t appear in offline test data. For example, a new ranking model might alter user behavior, meaning the data seen post-deployment is no longer distributed in the same way as in training.

    2. Unmodeled Interactions / Interactive Effects: In an online setting, there could be interactions between different elements, such as stories/ads or products, that were not accounted for in the offline evaluation. A new model might produce unforeseen effects when deployed, leading to interactions that negatively impact user experience or performance, even though offline metrics improved.

    3. Non-Stationarity / Staleness of Offline Evaluation Data: The data in a real-world environment often changes over time (non-stationarity). User preferences, trends, and behaviors can shift, causing staleness of the data that the model was offline-evaluated on. This, in turn, renders a model that performed well in static, offline tests less effective in a dynamic online environment.

    4. Network Effects / Feedback Loops: When deploying models in an interconnected system like social media or e-commerce, network effects may arise. For instance, the introduction of a new ranking model may lead to a feedback loop where user behavior affects the content that is surfaced or highlighted, which in turn affects user behavior. This complexity isn’t captured in offline evaluations and requires A/B testing to detect and understand.

    5. Data Leakage: Data leakage can occur in multiple ways, leading to an overestimation of the model’s performance during offline evaluation. Two common scenarios are:
      • Training Data Present in Test Data: Data leakage can happen if the training data is inadvertently included in the test set. In this case, the model might be evaluated on data it has already seen during training, artificially boosting its performance metrics. This happens because the model is effectively being tested on known data, rather than unseen data, which inflates its apparent accuracy and generalizability.
      • Model Trained on Test Data: Another form of data leakage occurs when test data is mistakenly included in the training set. This allows the model to learn from the test data before it is evaluated, leading to misleadingly high performance during offline evaluation. In deployment, however, the model will fail to generalize properly to new, unseen data, as it has become reliant on patterns from the test data that would not be available in a real-world scenario.
      • While the model may appear to perform well in offline tests due to these forms of leakage, its true performance may be far worse in a live environment. A/B testing helps uncover these issues by providing a realistic measure of performance without relying on flawed offline evaluations.
    6. Potential Data Issues: There might be hidden issues such as biases in the training and offline evaluation data that don’t manifest until the model is deployed at scale. A/B testing can reveal such problems by comparing real-world performance with expectations derived from offline evaluation.

  • Thus, while offline evaluation is useful for initial model validation, A/B testing in a live environment is essential to fully understand how the model performs in practice. It helps to capture complexities like user interactions, feedback loops, dynamic environments, and potential issues such as data leakage that cannot be simulated effectively in offline tests.

Operational Excellence

How do you manage/handle tech debt/backlog? What is your strategy for tech debt reduction?

  • Managing tech debt at scale is essential for delivering reliable, scalable, and innovative systems. Here’s an expanded approach that incorporates actionable steps for understanding, quantifying, and reducing tech debt and most importantly, using it as an opportunity (i.e., leveraging tech debt as a catalyst for innovation) to modernize and optimize the team’s workflows.

  • Understand the Current State of Tech Debt; Get a Lay of the Land:
    • The first step is to have a clear understanding of the current state of tech debt is essential to create a strategic reduction plan. This can be achieved by creating a dashboard to provide a real-time understanding of debt distribution based on product area/component, source, etc. which helps prioritize efforts based on critical, high-impact areas:
    • Tagging by Type: Maintenance, operational, extensibility, security, architecture, knowledge.
    • Tagging by Source/Product Area: Categorize debt by components such as:
      • Content Delivery Network (CDN): Latency, routing, or caching issues.
      • Recommendation Engine: Personalization and embedding challenges.
      • Content Encoding/Transcoding: Inefficient pipelines or outdated codecs.
      • Playback Systems: Video/audio synchronization or multi-device support.
      • Infrastructure Platform: Microservices or cloud orchestration inefficiencies.
      • Globalization/Localization Systems: Issues with subtitles or regional adaptation.
    • Visualization: Plot issues created vs. resolved to visualize the state of tech debt over time.
  • Quantify Tech Debt:
    • Quantifying tech debt helps in objectively assessing its severity and identifying hotspots. This involves:
      • Establishing a Resource Graph: This involves building a resource graph of the architecture to map dependencies between services, libraries, and components.
      • Computing Tech Debt Scores: Compute tech debt scores recursively based on graph dependencies.
      • Providing Evidence: Supplement scores with supporting data (e.g., metrics from static code analysis tools such as SonarQube which tracks issues such as code complexity or duplication, or operational incident logs).
      • Surfacing Actionable Insights: Generate a ranked list of action items based on tech debt scores, highlighting high-impact areas for immediate attention.
      • If the cumulative tech debt score is alarmingly high, we drill down the tree to pinpoint specific components or dependencies responsible for the majority of the debt.
      • This data-driven approach ensures that efforts are intentional/targeted and strategic, addressing the most pressing concerns first.
  • Categorize and Prioritize:
    • Not all tech debt is equal. I work with my teams to categorize tech debt and prioritize/focus-on debt with high customer impact (degrades performance, reliability, or security), operational costs (requires repetitive manual intervention or hinders deployment velocity), or innovation blocks (or opportunity cost that is blocking key innovation opportunities).
    • Embed/Incorporate Tech Debt in Regular Planning: Thoughtful prioritization is key to tackling tech debt. Prioritize tech debt by triaging and addressing high-severity issues (e.g., security risks) immediately. Operational inefficiencies can be planned in sprint cycles. Innovation blockers are escalated to leadership to obtain resourcing and align with roadmaps.
      • Rather than treating tech debt as an afterthought, make it a first-class citizen in your planning processes:
        • Sprints: Reserve bandwidth for addressing high-priority tech debt items alongside delivering new feature (new feature development).
        • Quarterly Planning: Include long-term tech debt reduction initiatives in roadmap discussions.
        • OKRs: Tie tech debt reduction goals to measurable outcomes like improved deployment speed or reduced incident rates (operational incidents).
      • Schedule regular dedicated “clean-up sprints” to address lingering debt and keep systems maintainable.
  • Create a Culture of Ownership:
    • Tech debt management isn’t a one-time effort; it’s a mindset. I encourage my team to:
      • Document debt as you go: Using tools like Jira, ensure that tech debt is logged alongside new features.
      • Review debt regularly: Project retrospectives and design reviews include explicit discussions of accumulated debt.
      • Own the consequences: A culture of ownership ensures that tech debt isn’t “someone else’s problem” but a shared responsibility.
  • Innovate Through Tech Debt:
    • Lastly, instead of viewing tech debt as a liability, look for opportunities to re-imagine solutions while addressing tech debt (modernize, optimize, automate, refactor):
      • Automate manual processes: What started as a quick workaround can become a fully automated system that improves reliability and scalability.
      • Modernize systems: Refactoring old code is often an opportunity to adopt new technologies or patterns that improve efficiency.
      • Optimize architecture: Addressing architectural tech debt can open doors to new features or better integration with AWS services.
    • For example, to address tech debt in a legacy system, we introduced a serverless architecture that not only reduced operational overhead but also unlocked the ability to scale elastically for new customer use cases.
  • Monitor and Measure Progress:
    • We treat tech debt reduction as a measurable goal. Metrics that show the downstream benefits of reducing tech debt include:
      • Code health metrics: Using tools like SonarQube, track issues like code complexity or duplication.
      • Operational metrics: Reduction in on-call incidents or deployment times.
      • Customer metrics: Improvements in latency or reliability.

Summary

  • Dashboard & Tracking: Use Jira to tag and categorize tech debt by type and source; visualize created vs. resolved issues.
  • Quantification: Leverage resource graphs to assign tech debt scores and surface ranked action items.
  • Prioritization: Address high-impact debt first, integrating into planning cycles and OKRs.
  • Culture of Ownership: Ensure teams document and own their debt, fostering accountability and shared responsibility.
  • Innovation Through Debt: Modernize and optimize systems while addressing tech debt, unlocking new opportunities.
  • Monitoring: Track measurable progress using key metrics to ensure improvements align with strategic goals.
  • Tech Debt as Innovation - Lisa Shissler Smith

What are two things you would like to change about your company’s culture?

  • Streamlining the meeting preparation process: Amazon’s culture requires that meetings begin with everyone reading a document during the meeting itself. This approach slows down decision-making and is often inefficient, especially since everyone has different reading speeds, leading to delays and inconsistencies in understanding. I believe this time could be better utilized if the document reading were done offline, prior to the meeting. This would allow participants to read at their own pace and come to the meeting fully prepared, enabling us to focus on discussion and decisions rather than consuming valuable meeting time with reading.

  • Enhancing meeting effectiveness by defining clear outcomes: To ensure meetings are purposeful and productive, I would like to see a shift towards starting every meeting with a clear statement of what success looks like for that particular session. For example, stating, “The goal of this meeting is to educate partners on XYZ,” allows us to work backward from this goal, ensuring that the meeting stays focused and aligned with its intended outcome. This approach would hold participants more accountable and help eliminate unnecessary meetings. If we could adopt this practice, it would significantly improve meeting efficiency and ensure that we consistently achieve our objectives with a focus on efficiency.

Growth Mindset

What was your biggest mistake as a people manager?

  • Story 1:
    • Managing Technical Debt:
      • Biggest Mistake:
        • One of the biggest mistakes I made as an engineering manager was delaying efforts to address technical debt in a system critical to our team’s operations. To set some context, my team inherited a legacy service that handled a significant portion of our data processing pipeline. While the system was functional, it had accrued/accumulated substantial technical debt due to years of patchwork updates and insufficient documentation.
      • Technical Debt Challenges/Impact on the Team and Product:
        • Initially, the team chose to prioritize delivering new features to meet business deadlines over addressing the system’s underlying issues. This approach aligned with short-term goals but exacerbated the technical debt.
        • The service became increasingly difficult to maintain, with frequent bugs and deployment failures. This misstep resulted in team burnout, as engineers spent increasingly more time firefighting production issues instead of innovating or improving the service. It also affected team morale, as the engineers felt they were operating in a reactive mode with limited ability to shape the product strategically. Team members consistently raised concerns during sprint retrospectives about how the system’s spaghetti code was slowing them down. However, I did not adequately escalate these concerns to leadership or create a robust plan to address the debt in incremental steps.
        • One particularly disruptive incident occurred when a bug in the codebase delayed the rollout of a key feature by two weeks, causing strained relationships/friction with stakeholders, who were frustrated by the lack of predictability in our delivery timelines.
      • Missed Opportunity to Prioritize Refactoring:
        • I failed to advocate for dedicated time to address the technical debt, despite these clear signs of its growing impact. My focus remained on immediate deliverables, underestimating the long-term cost of deferring maintenance.
      • Turning the Situation Around/Lessons Learned:
        • After reflecting on the challenges, I took a more structured approach to managing the technical debt:
          • Data-Driven Advocacy: I gathered metrics on bug frequency, mean time to recovery, and development velocity to illustrate the impact of the technical debt. This helped secure leadership buy-in to allocate time for refactoring.
          • Prioritized Roadmap: I collaborated with the team to break the refactoring effort into smaller, manageable chunks and integrated these tasks into our sprint planning process. This ensured that we balanced addressing debt with delivering new features.
          • Improved Documentation: We prioritized creating thorough documentation for the system, reducing onboarding time for new engineers and improving overall team efficiency.
          • Prevention Measures: I implemented a process to regularly review and address technical debt during sprint review/retrospectives, ensuring it remained a part of our ongoing planning discussions.
      • Lessons in Managing Technical Debt:
        • From this experience, I learned that proactively addressing technical debt is not optional—it is critical to maintaining team efficiency and morale. I also realized the importance of advocating for long-term solutions, even when they may conflict with short-term business goals. By presenting data-driven insights and breaking large problems into smaller, actionable tasks, I have been able to align leadership and team priorities more effectively. This experience has made me a stronger advocate for operational excellence and sustainability.
  • Story 2:
    • Saying No / Overcommitting:

      • Biggest Mistake: One of the most impactful mistakes I made as a people manager was failing to say no to a request that I should have challenged due to resource constraints and project deadlines. To set some context, our team was already operating at near full capacity, working on a critical product launch with tight timelines. Despite this, I agreed to take on an additional initiative requested by a senior leader without fully evaluating the impact on the team’s workload and morale.

      • Why I Overcommitted: At the time, I was new to the team as an engineering manager and felt a strong sense of responsibility to demonstrate my value and leadership while building trust with stakeholders. I wanted to be seen as a proactive leader who could deliver results and solve problems, even in challenging circumstances. Additionally, I underestimated the compound impact of the new initiative on the team’s bandwidth, believing we could manage by reshuffling and reprioritizing tasks. However, I did not adequately account for the complexity of the new initiative or the time it would take to onboard additional resources.

      • Impact of Overcommitment: Taking on the extra initiative strained the team’s focus and energy, leading to delayed deliverables on both the original project and the new initiative. The original product launch timeline was extended by three weeks while the additional initiative suffered from lower engagement and subpar execution, resulting in only partial success. The cumulative stress impacted team morale, as observed during retrospectives and through 1:1 conversations, where team members expressed feelings of burnout and frustration at not being able to meet expectations effectively.

      • Turning the Situation Around/Lessons Learned: This experience taught me the critical importance of having a backbone and advocating for the team’s capacity to ensure sustainable delivery and quality. I learned that saying no, when appropriate, is a sign of leadership and responsibility, not weakness. Specifically:
        • Balancing Stakeholder Expectations: I realized the importance of communicating trade-offs transparently to senior leaders, emphasizing the impact on existing commitments and presenting alternative solutions where possible.
        • Prioritization and Focus: I have since implemented stricter prioritization frameworks such as RICE, including capacity planning sessions with the team and leadership, to ensure alignment on what is feasible.
        • Empowering the Team to Push Back: I’ve encouraged team members to speak up when they feel overcommitted, creating an environment where they feel supported in prioritizing quality and well-being over burnout.
      • How I Handle Similar Situations Now: In subsequent situations where additional requests arose during high-pressure times, I’ve taken a more thoughtful approach to evaluating the team’s capacity. For example, when asked to add a non-urgent feature enhancement during the lead-up to another major launch, I collaborated with stakeholders to understand the timeline requirements and the available latitude, aligning the enhancement with the next product iteration rather than the current release. This not only preserved the quality of the ongoing work but also reinforced the team’s confidence in my ability to protect their bandwidth while meeting broader organizational goals.
      • By applying these lessons, I’ve developed a more balanced approach to prioritization, stakeholder management, and team advocacy, ensuring that we deliver consistently without compromising quality or team well-being.
  • Story 3:

    • Lack of Upward Feedback: One of the significant mistakes I made as a people manager was failing to be proactive in providing upward feedback to my manager. To set context, my manager recently inherited our org of 80 people after my previous manager’s departure. The new manager was unfamiliar with our org structure and its business operations.

    • Manager’s New Approach: His approach to management and processes was considerably different from what the team had been accustomed to. He sought to revamp existing processes to align them with his vision (of increased operational efficiency), which, while well-intentioned, did not account for the specific nuances of how our team functioned.

    • Failure to Communicate Process Rationale: My mistake was in not effectively communicating to him the reasons behind our current processes, such as the fact that they had been tailored over time to address specific challenges unique to our team. For example, our bi-weekly project updates had been designed to balance in-depth status reporting with team autonomy, ensuring that team members could focus on execution without excessive oversight. Additionally, we had streamlined our approval processes to reduce bottlenecks, allowing for quicker decision-making during critical project phases. This change was implemented after a previous project experienced a two-week delay due to multiple layers of sign-offs, which hindered our ability to meet a key deadline. By streamlining approvals, we avoided similar delays in subsequent projects and enabled the team to move swiftly during critical phases. These workflows had already proven to optimize collaboration and productivity, as evidenced by our team’s successful delivery of multiple past projects over the past year. I should have shared these examples and explained that sudden changes—like introducing additional review layers or more frequent status meetings—would likely disrupt our momentum, delay decision-making, and diminish the team’s sense of ownership.

    • Disruption and Team Impact: While my manager had the right intent, his changes disrupted the team’s workflow as evidenced by feedback from both personal 1x1 discussions and anonymous polling of daily connection scores, which revealed growing frustration over challenges in meeting project deadlines due to the increased focus on status reporting. This led to increased friction, lowered morale, and a sense of frustration among the team, outcomes that could have been mitigated had I taken responsibility for offering constructive feedback early on.

    • Lessons in Advocacy: From this experience, I have learned the importance of being proactive in providing upward feedback, especially when changes could significantly impact team dynamics. I’ve come to the realization that it is my responsibility to advocate for my team’s needs and ensure that leadership is fully informed about how decisions may affect the team’s overall productivity and well-being.

Take two

  • Took on additional work accidentally
  • other teams in Amazon have a pipeline to productionize
  • This particular team had its own specific pipeline, very unique due to data governance/ data privacy laws they had to follow as this was very sensitive data
  • Could take longer than development

What is spaghetti code?

  • Spaghetti code refers to a software program or codebase that is poorly structured, tangled, and difficult to understand or maintain. The term evokes the image of a bowl of tangled spaghetti, where it’s hard to see where one strand begins and another ends. Similarly, spaghetti code often has:

    1. Lack of Clear Structure: The code lacks modularity and well-defined boundaries, making it challenging to follow the logic.
    2. Excessive Interdependencies: Functions, variables, or modules are overly intertwined, so changes in one area can unexpectedly break others.
    3. Poor Readability: The code is difficult to read, with inconsistent formatting, cryptic variable names, or excessive inline logic.
    4. Difficulty in Maintenance: Fixing bugs or adding new features often introduces new issues due to the fragile and convoluted nature of the codebase.
  • Spaghetti code typically arises from:
    • Quick-and-dirty fixes or updates over time.
    • Lack of adherence to coding standards.
    • Absence of proper design and planning.
    • Frequent patches without proper refactoring.
  • While it might work for small tasks in the short term, spaghetti code becomes a liability as a project grows, leading to inefficiencies, bugs, and higher maintenance costs.

What would your reports say you can improve?

  • Fostering a sense of camaraderie: Over the past 5 years, I’ve built closely knit teams at Apple and Alexa, but when I transitioned to AWS, I faced a new challenge of managing a fully remote team distributed across two continents for the first time.

  • Value of Camaraderie: As a manager, the importance of camaraderie and cohesion in building strong interpersonal relationships within the team was clear to me, so I used to schedule regular virtual coffee chats and team-building activities like game days to create informal touch-points for the team.

  • Difficulty in Fostering Camaraderie: However, with a fully remote team, fostering a sense of camaraderie and connection requires intentional effort beyond virtual touch-points. Many team members have expressed that they miss the sense of camaraderie that comes with working in a physical office environment.

  • Recent focus on improving camaraderie: In recent months, I have made an intentional/concerted effort to address this issue. For example, I have hosted in-person team on-sites (inviting some key XF partners as well), team lunches and dinners, a team fair, where we could demo our work, engage with XF partners, and celebrate our achievements together. This is a step in the right direction, but I recognize that maintaining and enhancing team cohesion in a remote setting requires ongoing attention and effort.

Growing Managers

(M2) Is this person effective at working through other managers?

  1. Set Clear Strategic Direction:
    • Organizational Alignment: I ensure alignment with broader organizational goals by reinforcing the company’s mission and how each department contributes to our overall success.
    • Strategic Vision and Priorities: I work with each manager to ensure they understand the strategic vision and clearly communicate priorities, so they know how their teams contribute and can focus on what matters most.
  2. Empower Managers to Lead:
    • Autonomy and Accountability: I give managers the autonomy to make decisions while holding them accountable for outcomes, fostering confidence and ownership.
    • Leadership Development: I provide guidance when needed but give managers the space to lead independently, allowing them to grow through their decisions and challenges.
  3. Focus on Coaching and Development:
    • Managerial Coaching: I regularly coach managers on leadership challenges like prioritization, team dynamics, conflict resolution, and fostering the right culture.
    • Tools and Role Growth: I provide frameworks for improving decision-making and ensure managers grow in their roles by offering developmental support and mentorship opportunities.
  4. Maintain Strong Communication Channels:
    • 1x1 Meetings and Open-Door Policy: I set up regular 1x1 meetings to discuss progress, roadblocks, and feedback, while maintaining an open-door policy for managers to bring up challenges early.
    • Cross-Team Collaboration: I promote cross-team communication to foster collaboration and break down silos.
  5. Create Accountability and Ownership:
    • Performance Metrics and Accountability: I establish clear performance metrics and milestones, holding managers accountable for results and following up on progress to ensure alignment with goals.
    • Empowerment and Ownership: I balance empowerment with accountability, ensuring managers take ownership of their results while maintaining flexibility to innovate.
  6. Provide Timely Feedback and Guidance:
    • Constructive Feedback: I give timely, actionable feedback when performance gaps arise, helping managers make immediate improvements and prevent recurring issues.

(M2) How do you help your line managers to work smoothly with each other?

  • Identify collaboration opportunities across line managers – tag-team managers with similar interests with each other and map opportunities to a group of people as you engage with your XFN.
  • Cross-pollination of findings via meetings to avoid stepping on each other’s toes and/or reinventing the wheel.
  1. Identify Collaboration Opportunities:
    • I actively look for areas where managers can collaborate based on shared goals or overlapping responsibilities. I tag-team managers with similar interests or complementary projects to encourage collaboration and mutual support. This allows them to work together on initiatives that benefit from multiple perspectives and expertise.
    • When engaging with XF teams, I identify opportunities that can be mapped to a group of managers, ensuring that collaborative efforts are organized and everyone is aligned. <!–
  2. Facilitate Cross-Pollination of Ideas:
    • I set up regular meetings or syncs where managers can share their insights, best practices, and lessons learned. This cross-pollination of findings helps managers avoid stepping on each other’s toes, duplicating efforts, or reinventing the wheel. By encouraging open communication, they learn from one another, streamline processes, and innovate together.
  3. Establish Clear Communication Channels:
    • I create dedicated channels for managers to communicate freely, discuss roadblocks, and seek advice from peers. This promotes transparency and ensures that any potential issues are addressed early. I also encourage managers to have cross-team check-ins to align their teams’ goals and strategies to prevent conflicts or misalignments. –>
  4. Facilitate Cross-Pollination and Open Communication:
    • I facilitate cross-pollination and open communication among managers by setting up regular meetings or syncs where they can share insights, best practices, and lessons learned. These sessions allow managers to freely discuss roadblocks, seek advice from peers, and address potential issues early. By promoting transparency, I ensure that managers avoid duplicating efforts, stepping on each other’s toes, or reinventing the wheel. Through this open communication, managers learn from one another, streamline processes, and collaborate to drive innovation.
  5. Clarify Roles and Responsibilities:
    • While this might be obvious, ensuring managers have a clear understanding of their roles and responsibilities is essential to avoid overlap or confusion. I work with each manager to define their team’s scope of work, making sure they understand how their team’s objectives fit into the broader organization. This clarity reduces friction and allows managers to focus on their specific areas while collaborating effectively with others.

(M2) In conflict scenarios or when one of your managers is making a mistake, how do you decide whether to step in or observe from the background and provide guidance/coaching?

  1. Assess the Severity of the Mistake:
    • My first step is to assess the severity of the mistake and the potential impact on the team or the broader organization. Not all mistakes are equal; some may have a larger, more lasting impact, while others can be learning opportunities.
    • If the mistake is minor and won’t have significant long-term consequences, I often observe from the background to give the manager the chance to correct the issue themselves.
  2. Determine if It’s a One-Way or Two-Way Door Decision:
    • I use the one-way versus two-way door framework to evaluate the decision. If the mistake involves a one-way door—meaning it’s a high-impact, irreversible decision—I will step in quickly to mitigate potential damage.
    • For two-way door decisions, where the mistake can be reversed or corrected without major repercussions, I prefer to let the manager handle the situation themselves. This allows them to learn and grow from the experience.
  3. Step In for Critical Situations:
    • In cases where the mistake could lead to catastrophic results—such as severe impacts on team morale, project delivery, or stakeholder trust—I will step in immediately to provide direction. In these instances, timely intervention is crucial to avoid long-term harm, and I’ll work closely with the manager to resolve the issue.
  4. Prioritize Coaching and Development for Non-Critical Mistakes:
    • For non-critical mistakes, I take a coaching approach. Rather than giving them the solution, I use the opportunity to teach them how to fish—helping them understand the root cause

Embracing Ambiguity and Uncertainty

Tell me about a time when you needed to act quickly on something but did not have a clear idea on how to best proceed. / Describe a time when you had to solve a problem and the solution was not immediately obvious. / Tell me about a time when you accomplished an objective despite ambiguity. / Tell me about a situation when you had to solve a problem without all the information you needed.

  • Story 1:
    • Situation:
      • At Amazon Alexa, where I supported the query understanding and personalization team, we were tasked with launching a new feature called kids mode for Alexa that enforced kid-specific protective guardrails (such as shopping restrictions, no explicit music, etc.). To set context, Alexa, being as a communal device, is used by various members of the household and is personalized to each of their preferences, creating the need for accurate user recognition to ensure appropriate personalization and content delivery.
      • Given that this was a new initiative, there were several unknowns about how the model would behave in diverse real-world environments across multiple devices, languages, accents, background noise variations, etc. These factors introduced edge cases that were challenging to anticipate fully during pre-launch testing.
      • Prior to launch, we had carried out our due diligence with offline evaluation on a new curated, human-annotated dataset to validate performance and robustness and subsequent online A/B testing. Despite these efforts, in a couple of weeks after launch, we received a couple of tickets that were triaged to Alexa misrecognizing children as adults and delivering personalized recommendations intended for adults. This misclassification effectively lifted the protective guardrails Alexa applied for child users as part of this feature.
      • The implications of this issue were that content that was inappropriate for children along with preferences personalized to adult users in the household – such as shopping, music, movies, reminders, etc. inadvertently become accessible to children, which compromised user trust and safety standards that were critical to the Alexa brand. As a result, the issue was escalated to a high-priority case requiring immediate resolution to mitigate further negative user experiences.
    • Task:
      • My responsibility was to come up with a mitigation/contingency plan to urgently root-cause the issue and come up with a resolution.
      • However, since this was a new feature, there was no playbook/precedent or clear plan for handling such a unique issue, such as simply reverting the model to a prior version. This increased the complexity of decision-making and required swift problem-solving.
    • Action:
      • Acting on the urgency of the issue, I facilitated a brainstorming session with subject matter experts within my team and across our XFN to chalk out a plan focusing on root-causing the issue at hand, consulting with relevant folks and obtain their perspectives. To avoid negatively impacting customer experience and potential PR issues as a result of it, we decided to temporarily pause the feature until we root-caused the issue and implemented a resolution plan.
      • I set up daily morning and afternoon stand-ups with the team, to track progress and drive the issue to closure.
      • I involved a data scientist on my team to mine relevant customer utterances to pattern-recognize the failures (help understand the failure patterns) and pinpoint the issue. The issue was a corner/edge case where the model would sometimes go wrong with multiple sources of multilingual speech in the background, such as TV running in the background, along with a phone conversation or people talking or singing, etc.
      • Partnering up with the Alexa recording studio, we quickly gathered new utterances superimposed with several multilingual noise sources (along with their synthetic augmentations and had them annotated with the help of our annotation teams), which were used to fine-tune the model. However, due to us being in a time crunch, we couldn’t afford the standard two month offline and online validation cycle and had to make swift decisions, relying heavily on our domain expertise and intuition to proceed.
      • I worked closely with the principal engineer on my team and devised a streamlined evaluation process, using a small, representative dataset for offline evaluation. This allowed us to quickly test for the specific edge case scenarios and check for performance regressions.
      • Due to the wider confidence intervals, we had to make an informed/calculated decision based on our domain knowledge, relying on our best judgment and intuition to move forward. At the same time, we assessed potential risks by analyzing sub-population coverage (across devices, languages, geos, etc.) within the new dataset.
      • We setup A/B tests with a gradual rollout starting with 5%, while cautiously monitoring for feedback from the field as part of our on-call to track performance and mitigate risks. In parallel to A/B testing, we conducted dogfooding to assess model behavior internally.
    • Result:
      • The end result was that the team successfully fixed the issue in a timely manner, addressing our customer’s concerns and improving customer experience.
      • Once the fix was confirmed stable, we rolled out the model update to all customers worldwide.
      • To avoid similar issues in the future, I initiated a dedicated project to revise our evaluation dataset distribution, using augmentation techniques to improve coverage for future scenarios.
    • Reflection:
      • Reflecting back on this episode, I’d say embracing ambiguity and uncertainty by relying on intuition/experience is key for success in such scenarios where time is critical.
  • Story 2:
    • Situation:
      • Recently, the AWS QuickSight service, which serves as our backbone for system logging and monitoring, experienced a service outage. Since we rely heavily on QuickSight for real-time insights into application performance, particularly for identifying failed user interactions, the interruption posed a serious risk to the health of all of our deployed applications. With QuickSight offline, we lost visibility into potential issues, which could have had a significant impact on user experience.
      • The AWS QuickSight team began actively investigating the issue right away, but we had no clear idea of how long the service would be down or what steps to take in the interim to mitigate the risk. A prolonged QuickSight outage can result from infrastructure failures in its underlying services like RDS (for data storage) or EC2(for compute resources), causing cascading effects that can make it difficult to isolate and resolve the root cause. The uncertainty made it difficult to plan our next moves effectively.
    • Task:
      • I needed to ensure continued monitoring of our applications’ health during the QuickSight outage.
      • I also had to prevent user issues from going undetected, despite our primary monitoring tool was unavailable.
    • Action:
      • Without a suitable automated alternative, I led the team to pull raw logs directly from S3 and use Python libraries such as Pandas for data manipulation and Matplotlib for visualization. This involved writing custom scripts to parse and analyze log data, which was time-consuming and required meticulous attention to detail to ensure no issues were missed.
      • We created a shift-based schedule where team members would manually run the Python scripts, review the generated reports, and monitor key performance indicators at regular intervals. This ensured that someone was always overseeing the system, but it was labor-intensive and slowed down other ongoing tasks.
      • I kept in constant touch with the QuickSight team to receive updates on their progress and prepared to transition back to our standard monitoring processes as soon as QuickSight was restored.
      • To streamline the tedious manual monitoring, I developed detailed documentation and guidelines to help team members efficiently run the scripts and interpret the results, reducing the margin for error and improving response times.
    • Result:
      • Despite the lack of an automated tool like QuickSight, the manual monitoring process using Python scripts allowed us to detect and address user issues promptly, preventing any major disruptions to our applications.
      • No significant user-impacting issues went undetected during the outage, maintaining a high level of user satisfaction and trust in our services.
      • The QuickSight team resolved the service interruption within 12 hours, allowing us to resume normal monitoring operations without any lasting issues.
      • The experience highlighted the importance of having backup plans and increased our team’s ability to handle similar situations in the future, albeit through more laborious methods.
    • Reflection:
      • Learned the critical need to have backup monitoring strategies, even if they are less efficient, to ensure continued oversight during service disruptions.
      • Recognized the value of being flexible and resourceful when faced with unexpected challenges and the absence of clear solutions.
      • Although tedious, developing structured manual monitoring procedures proved essential in maintaining application health and taught me how to streamline processes under pressure.
      • The experience reinforced the importance of maintaining open lines of communication with service providers to stay informed and ready to adapt as the situation evolves.

How can a service such as QuickSight experience a prolonged outage?

  • A service like AWS QuickSight can experience a prolonged outage due to several factors, including infrastructure failures in its underlying components, such as Amazon RDS (for data storage) or EC2 (for compute resources). If these services face disruptions, it can cause cascading effects, impacting QuickSight’s ability to function. Network connectivity issues within AWS data centers or regional outages could further extend downtime. Additionally, software bugs or misconfigurations during updates or scaling efforts might prevent the service from recovering quickly. Lastly, delays in diagnosing complex interdependent failures across AWS services can contribute to prolonged outages.

Communication

Tell me about a time that you had to explain a technical concept to a non-technical audience. / Describe a time when you had to modify your communication style or approach to interact effectively with others from a different background.

  • Story 1:
    • Situation:
      • In my role supporting a Generative AI team in AWS, we were in the middle of developing the LLM that powered “Rufus,” a conversational shopping chatbot, currently live on Amazon.com. Rufus is a critical project for Amazon – it is the next generation of Amazon’s shopping experience, enabling users to interactively shop by asking product-specific questions which it answers based on customer reviews and product information.

      • Since Rufus is customer-facing – it currently serves hundreds of millions of users daily, one of biggest focus areas was ensuring that the chatbot met Amazon’s user safety standards and legal regulations.

      • Task: I collaborated closely with Amazon’s legal and compliance team to ensure each feature’s alignment from a legal perspective and obtain legal approval for Rufus’s launch, which meant it needed to meet a variety of complex legal standards.

      • Action: The legal team, being one of non-technical stakeholders, I had to tailor my communication style to ensure effective communication and clearer alignment. To achieve this, I employed the AIM framework (Audience, Intent, Message) to adapt/tailor my message to the specific needs of the legal team. First, I considered the Audience—the legal and compliance team and their requirements (and specific terminology and jargon). I clarified my Intent which was addressing their specific regulatory and risk concerns and obtaining legal approval (by demonstrating how our solutions aligned with the company’s legal standards). For the Message, I outlined how each feature adhered to specific regulatory requirements, mitigated legal risks, and directly contributed to overarching business objectives.
      • For instance, when explaining the impact of our efforts in setting up adequate guardrails for Rufus, I framed it in terms of how our safety measures aligned with specific data privacy regulations and content moderation standards, reducing the chances of the chatbot generating harmful or biased responses. This ultimately safeguarded customer trust and reduced liability by preventing potential bad PR/reputational damage.
    • Result:

      • This made the discussions more productive and streamlined the approval process, as they could grasp the direct link between our design decisions for Rufus and adherence to the company’s legal objectives. This resulted in the legal team approving the project on schedule and us launching Rufus for the world mid last year.

      • Reflection: In hindsight, this experience reinforced the importance of having the right tools in your toolbox. In this case, it taught me the value of the AIM framework to tailor my communication effectively by bridging technical and non-technical perspectives, making complex discussions with diverse audiences clearer and more aligned with their priorities.

  • Story 2:

    • Situation:
      • One of the flagship projects my team at Amazon worked on was Rufus, a conversational shopping chatbot powered by LLMs (Large Language Models), designed to enhance the customer experience. Rufus aimed to help users interactively shop using voice or text as well as answering product-related questions based on customer reviews, which was critical for improving customer engagement and driving customer growth—a key business objective.
      • To handle diverse customer inquiries about specific products effectively, we needed to deploy Rufus with a Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) pipeline to pull relevant data from product reviews and provide accurate, context-rich responses.
      • To execute on this plan, it was essential to secure alignment and support from two non-technical stakeholders: marketing and finance. Marketing needed to understand and support the technical approach to effectively publicize Rufus’s capabilities to customers, while finance was crucial for cost approval to ensure the RAG pipeline implementation received the required resources. Getting buy-in from them was essential because they influenced the resources and prioritization needed to move forward with the RAG implementation.
    • Task:
      • When engaging with non-technical teams – in this instance, the marketing and finance teams – my task was to explain why building a RAG pipeline was essential for Rufus to answer product-related questions based on customer reviews.

    • Action:

      1. To ensure effective communication with non-technical stakeholders, I employed the AIM framework (Audience, Intent, Message). By tailoring my explanation to the specific needs of the marketing and finance teams (Audience), my Intent was to convey the business relevance of implementing the RAG pipeline, and I crafted my Message to focus on the big picture impact and emphasize how it would enhance customer satisfaction, sales, and conversion rates, using clear, relatable terms to align with their interests. Specifically, I framed the conversation around how customer experience and engagement would improve by providing more accurate, relevant product information through RAG, ultimately driving sales and repeat purchases.

      2. Next, distilling the concept of RAG, I explained that RAG allows Rufus to “search through product reviews in real time” and incorporate that information into its responses, acting like a “smart assistant” that uses real customer feedback to improve accuracy. Without RAG, Rufus would rely on outdated or generic information, but with RAG, it could dynamically retrieve the latest reviews, providing personalized and accurate responses that would enhance the shopping experience.

      3. I tried to proactively anticipate some of the stakeholder’s concerns such as response accuracy, latency, scalability, and highlighted how RAG would result in quicker, more accurate responses, leading to a projected 15% increase in customer satisfaction and a 10% boost in conversion rates and the ability to scale easily with the growing number of reviews, keeping responses up-to-date without requiring manual updates.

    • Result:
      • The end result was that the team fully supported the RAG pipeline, understanding how it would improve our key business metrics of customer satisfaction and growth.
      • After launch, Rufus saw a lift in business metrics inline with our expectations.
    • Reflection:
      • In retrospect, this experience reinforced the importance of explaining technical changes in terms of business impact and focusing on the metrics that matter to non-technical stakeholders.
      • I also learned the value of anticipating potential concerns from the audience and proactively addressing them in my communication to build confidence and ensure smoother buy-in from stakeholders.

  • Story 2:

    • AIM framework.
    • Intern vs Director vs Customer.
    • Project was our first launch in the GenAI org.

    • Australian Open multi-modal AI tennis umpire.

    • Situation:
      • Developing a Multi-Modal AI Umpire for the Australian Open: I was working on a high-profile project in our GenAI org: developing a multi-modal AI umpire for the Australian Open. This system leveraged both vision and language models to make real-time decisions on tennis matches, such as line calls and scorekeeping.
      • Diverse Stakeholders: The project involved collaborating with a diverse group of stakeholders, from junior engineers and interns to senior directors and external customers, each with different levels of expertise and communication needs.
    • Task:
      • Ensuring Effective Communication and Collaboration: My task was to ensure effective communication and collaboration across this diverse group.
      • Adapting Communication for Different Audiences: I needed to adapt my communication style to accommodate interns who were learning the ropes, directors who needed high-level overviews and strategic insights, and external customers who were concerned with the practical applications and benefits of the AI umpire in enhancing the tennis tournament experience.
    • Action:
      • Using the AIM Framework: I used the AIM framework (Audience, Intent, Message) to tailor my communication.
        • For Interns: I broke down the complex vision and language models into manageable concepts and focused on teaching, making sure they understood both the technical details and their role in the project. I emphasized mentorship, offering guidance to help them grow within the project.
        • For Directors: I presented high-level overviews, focusing on strategic alignment and the broader impact of the AI umpire on Amazon’s GenAI strategy and partnerships. I omitted the granular technical details and instead concentrated on business metrics, such as market potential and the innovative edge the system would bring.
        • For Customers: When interacting with customers, I shifted my focus to outcomes. I explained how the AI umpire would enhance the Australian Open experience by increasing accuracy in line calls and providing real-time feedback. I translated technical jargon into user benefits, such as improved fairness in matches and better engagement for spectators.
    • Result:
      • Strong Buy-In and Alignment from Stakeholders: By modifying my communication style according to the audience, I was able to secure strong buy-in and alignment from all stakeholders.
      • Interns’ Effective Contributions: The interns felt supported and contributed effectively.
      • Directors’ Confidence in Strategic Direction: The directors were confident in the strategic direction.
      • Customer Excitement About Impact: The customers were excited about the potential impact of the AI umpire.
      • Successful Launch: This alignment was crucial to the successful launch of the multi-modal AI umpire at the Australian Open, which received widespread praise for its accuracy and innovation.
    • Reflection:
      • Tailoring Communication for Different Stakeholders: This experience highlighted the importance of tailoring communication to meet the needs of different stakeholders.
      • AIM Framework for Effective Communication: By using the AIM framework, I was able to ensure that everyone, regardless of their technical background or role, understood the project’s value and their part in its success.
      • Adaptability Key to Success: This adaptability was key to the project’s successful deployment and reception at a global event.

Feedback / Growth Mindset

Tell me about a time that a peer or manager gave you specific, actionable feedback for improvement.

  • Story 1:
    • Situation:
      • In my role supporting a Generative AI team in AWS, we were in the middle of developing the LLM that powered “Rufus,” the conversational shopping chatbot on Amazon.com.
      • Given the project’s customer-facing nature—Rufus currently serves hundreds of millions of users daily, ensuring that the chatbot met Amazon’s user safety standards and legal regulations was critical.
      • I collaborated closely with Amazon’s legal and compliance team to ensure each feature’s alignment from a legal perspective and obtain legal approval for Rufus’s launch.
    • Task:
      • In my interactions with the legal team, I had already been (i) simplifying complex concepts using non-technical terms and (ii) connecting the dots between our design decisions and their legal impact. However, during this process of conveying Rufus’s technical implementation details around safety compliance to the legal team, there were some occasional misunderstandings which led to back-and-forth and churn.
      • In my 1x1s with a peer manager, she suggested using the AIM (Audience, Intent, Message) framework as a tool to bridge technical and non-technical perspectives by better structuring the conversation and making my messaging more effective for the legal audience.
    • Action:
      • After reflecting on this feedback, I began restructuring my communication using the AIM framework to tailor my message to the specific needs of the legal team. First, I considered the Audience—the legal and compliance team and their specific terminology and jargon to bring about clearer alignment. I clarified my Intent: addressing their specific regulatory and risk concerns and obtaining legal approval (by demonstrating how our solutions aligned with the company’s legal standards). For the Message, I outlined how each feature adhered to specific regulatory requirements, mitigated legal risks, and directly contributed to overarching business objectives, such as maintaining customer trust and reducing liability.
      • For instance, when explaining the impact of our efforts in setting up adequate guardrails for Rufus, I framed it in terms of how our safety measures aligned with data privacy regulations and content moderation standards, reducing the chances of the chatbot generating harmful or biased responses. Additionally, I linked our design decisions to overarching business objectives, such as safeguarding customer trust by ensuring a safe, reliable user experience that supports Amazon’s customer-first philosophy and in turn, preventing potential bad PR/reputational damage.
    • Result:
      • This made the discussions more productive and streamlined the approval process, as they could see/grasp the direct link between Rufus’s performance on safety benchmarks and adherence to the company’s legal objectives. As a result, the legal team approved the project on schedule, and this approach became a model for me to leverage for future XF collaboration, especially with non-technical partners.
    • Reflection:
      • In hindsight, this experience reinforced the importance of (i) a growth mindset to embrace feedback wherever possible, and (ii) having the right tools in your toolbox. In this case, it taught me the value of the AIM framework to tailor my communication effectively, making complex discussions with diverse audiences clearer and more aligned with their priorities.
  • Story 2:
    • Situation:
      • Over the past 5 years, I’ve built closely knit teams at Apple and Alexa, but when I transitioned to AWS, I faced a new challenge of managing a fully remote team distributed country-wide/across two continents for the first time.
      • As a manager, the importance of camaraderie and cohesion in building strong interpersonal relationships in the team was clear to me, so I used to schedule regular virtual coffee chats and team-building activities like game days to create informal touchpoints for the team.
      • At Amazon, we use anonymous connection scores to evaluate several key aspects of team dynamics, such as inclusion, job satisfaction, manager effectiveness, technical skills, and alignment with company culture. A noticeable drop in team effectiveness became a critical signal that deeper issues were affecting the team’s cohesion and performance.
      • The challenge I faced was that with a remote team distributed country-wide, fostering a sense of camaraderie and connection, as well as cultivating a sense of belonging, required intentional effort beyond virtual touchpoints.
    • Task:
      • During this time, I had a conversation with a peer manager who had faced a similar challenge managing a remote team.
      • She empathized with my situation and offered me a nugget of wisdom from her own experience.
      • She suggested that while virtual touchpoints like coffee chats were helpful, it was worth using part of the budget to invest in in-person events such as team on-sites and fairs (similar to a science fair but focused on demoing our team’s work) to connect people in person and celebrate team achievements.
      • Her rationale was that while virtual touchpoints are valuable, in-person events can significantly accelerate team cohesion and trust.
      • The issue was that I inherited the team from a different manager who had not allocated any budget for in-person events during the planning process at the beginning of the year.
    • Action:
      • I worked closely with my director, created projections for the required funds, and secured some last-minute budget reshuffling to make these events possible.
      • In addition to the virtual coffee chats, I hosted in-person team on-sites (inviting key XF partners) and a team fair to demo our work and celebrate achievements together.
      • These face-to-face experiences helped the team connect on a deeper level, fostering stronger relationships beyond project deadlines.
    • Result:
      • The in-person events brought a new level of cohesion to the team.
      • Over the next couple of months, I noticed a significant shift in how team members interacted, both internally and with XF partners.
      • Communication improved, trust deepened, and collaboration became more fluid and efficient.
      • The team fair reinforced pride in our work and provided a unique platform to engage with XF partners.
      • These efforts created bonds that continued to yield dividends in collaboration, trust, and performance well beyond the events.
    • Reflection:
      • This experience reinforced the belief that “feedback is a gift”, and being open to new strategies can lead to lasting improvements when faced with challenges.
      • Lastly, this investment in building a cohesive team not only improved morale but also yielded long-term dividends in collaboration and project success.

What were some considerations for technical and non-technical stakeholders based on the AIM framework?

  • For Technical Audience:
    • Audience: Engineers, developers, and technical stakeholders.
    • Intent: Emphasize technical innovation, solving complex issues, and performance improvements.
    • Message:
      • Detailed breakdown of architecture, algorithms, and metrics.
      • Diagrams and data flow visuals to explain how it works.
      • Impact on efficiency, system stability, or technical scalability.
  • For Non-Technical Audience:
    • Audience: Executives, product managers, business stakeholders.
    • Intent: Show alignment with business objectives, user benefits, and competitive advantage.
    • Message:
      • High-level overview, focusing on user impact and business goals.
      • Projections on user engagement, revenue potential, or strategic advantages.
      • Simplified visuals or case studies to illustrate user benefits.

How do you handle constructive criticism?

  • 4A framework for feedback - Reed Hastings
  • I view constructive criticism as an opportunity to learn and grow (or for growth and development). When receiving feedback, my first step is to listen attentively/carefully to fully understand the perspective being shared. I make sure to ask clarifying questions if something isn’t clear. Once I have a complete understanding of their stance, reflect on the feedback received (with a data-driven approach) before responding, rather than have a knee-jerk reaction. I approach such conversations with an open mind and willingness to compromise. This helps to prevent hasty reactions and ensures thoughtful resolution. Then, I determine a suitable plan of action to course correct/address the gaps that have been pointed out.
  • Both feedback and course correction are key to maintaining productivity and efficiency in a dynamic, fast-paced setting, and I welcome them as opportunities for continuous learning and growth. Ultimately, it’s important to maintain a professional attitude, respecting that disagreements are part of a dynamic working environment and can lead to better results when handled constructively.
  • For instance, in a previous project, a supervisor suggested that my presentations were somewhat data-dense and could benefit from a more streamlined approach. I appreciated the feedback, reconsidered my approach, and worked on creating more visually appealing presentations with clear takeaways. The improved presentations were well-received and more impactful, reaffirming my view of constructive criticism as a positive, growth-oriented aspect of my professional life.

Misc

How do you provide recognition and visibility to your team members? How do you ensure team members feel valued?

  • Tailoring recognition to individual preferences: Recognition is not a one-size-fits-all approach, and it is critical to engage with each team member on an individual level to understand their preferences. Some employees may feel uncomfortable with public recognition, while others may thrive on being acknowledged in front of the entire org. Therefore, I use 1x1s with my team to do my due diligence and understand each person’s preferred style of recognition, allowing me to adapt my management approach and ensure that praise is both meaningful and motivating.

  • Utilizing diverse recognition channels: To ensure team members feel valued, I leverage various methods to reinforce the individual’s contributions via methods/channels such as sending org-wide emails, utilizing internal kudos tools, recognizing their efforts during 1x1s or team meetings, or even offering personalized gestures of appreciation like gift cards with a note from everyone on the team. Selecting the appropriate channel allows me to provide recognition in a way that aligns with the individual’s preferences, ensuring that the recognition resonates with each recipient (based on what is most effective for the individual).

What are some strategies for closing senior candidates?

  • Highlighting the diversity and scope of projects: Senior candidates are often attracted to roles that allow them to make a significant impact and contribute to a variety of high-level initiatives. It is essential to emphasize the breadth of projects the team is currently pursuing, showcasing how these efforts align with the company’s strategic goals. Demonstrating the potential for diverse technical challenges and opportunities to work on innovative or transformative projects can be a powerful motivator.

  • Emphasizing the team’s proven impact: Sharing concrete examples of past successful launches and project outcomes can build trust and excitement. Senior candidates value joining teams that have a track record of delivering impactful results, so it is crucial to demonstrate the measurable influence that the team has already had within the company or industry.

  • Visibility and interaction with leadership: Senior candidates are often keen on roles where they will have direct exposure to and interaction with the company’s leadership. Highlighting how their role will involve presenting ideas to executives or contributing to high-level discussions will underscore the importance and visibility of their position within the org.

  • Opportunities for collaboration with senior technical leaders: Senior candidates highly value environments where they can engage in peer-level collaboration with other senior technical leaders. Emphasize the accessibility of the company’s top technical talent and describe how regular collaboration opportunities will foster a culture of learning, innovation, and shared expertise. This opportunity to influence strategic technical decisions is often a key factor in attracting and retaining senior talent.

Additional Questions

How do you assess/assign priorities?

  • Assessing priorities:
    • I categorize priorities on a scale from P0 to P3, where P0 represents a critical issue (showstopper), P1 indicates an expected outcome, P2 denotes an important task, and P3 applies to tasks that are good to have (i.e., beneficial but not critical).
    • Priorities must align with the project milestones, which in turn, must strategically align with OKRs established at the beginning of the quarter, serving as our guiding principle or “north star.”
  • Assigning them:
    • To set priorities, I prefer to engage team members involved in the respective projects during the planning phase, creating a mutual decision-making environment regarding priorities. My approach to assigning task priorities—and, more broadly, managing the day-to-day operations of the team—hinges on the idea that the level of autonomy granted to an employee matches (i.e., is directly proportional) to their skillset and competency. For instance, senior engineers can set their own priorities, whereas junior engineers may require closer guidance. This flexibility not only fosters trust but also brings about leadership development** within the team, rather than encouraging a follower mentality (i.e., we are looking to build leaders not soldiers). However, for critical projects with strict delivery timelines, I like to stay connected to the low-level details of the work.
  • Reiterate priorities during weekly team meetings or daily stand-ups to ensure alignment and focus.

How do you delegate responsibility and assign tasks to your team members? Who do you choose? What and how do you delegate?

  • My approach to delegating tasks involves (i) assessing the competency/proficiency/skill-set of the employee in the particular domain, (ii) considering their individual interests and career development goals, (iii) evaluating compatibility (i.e., how well they would collaborate/tag-team) with other potential assignees of the task, and (iv) business needs.
  • Delegating responsibility thus requires figuring out the best intersection in the Venn diagram of these three areas—where business needs, employee interests, strengths/superpowers/skill-sets, along with the compatibility of team members working together on the task.

What have you found to be the best way to monitor/track the performance of your work and/or the work of others? / Talk about your planning (OKRs) + tracking (Sprint) process.

  • Let me first set context by talking about the process I use to set task priorities and I can then touch upon how I track tasks.
  • To set priorities, I prefer to engage team members involved in the respective projects during the planning phase, creating a mutual decision-making environment regarding priorities. My approach to assigning task priorities—and, more broadly, managing the day-to-day operations of the team—hinges on the idea that the level of autonomy granted to an employee matches (i.e., is directly proportional) to their skillset and competency. For instance, senior engineers can set their own priorities, whereas junior engineers may require closer guidance. This flexibility not only fosters trust but also brings about leadership development** within the team, rather than encouraging a follower mentality (i.e., we are looking to build leaders not soldiers). However, for critical projects with strict delivery timelines, I like to stay connected to the low-level details of the work.
  • To track priorities, I establish intermediate checkpoints to evaluate progress and ensure projects stay aligned with their objectives, utilizing a hybrid process that combines Agile project management with a Scrum or Kanban framework for sprint planning and tracking, while incorporating OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) for strategic alignment with overarching long-term business goals. This offers both short-term planning with Agile and long-term alignment with the OKR framework.
    • Summary:
      • As a quick summary, the idea is to break down user stories into tasks with clear acceptance criteria and track them during sprint planning and review meetings. Multiple sprints aligned with a milestone are monitored via milestone or project review meetings, which serve as broader checkpoints. Lastly, ensure milestones are aligned with OKRs for strategic, long-term business alignment.
    • Break down user stories into tasks or sub-tasks with clear acceptance criteria/outcomes to ensure measurable, successful completion. These tasks are tracked during sprint planning and review meetings, where I discuss, estimate, and assign them to upcoming sprints.
    • Track multiple sprints aligned with key milestones during milestone or project review meetings. Milestones serve as higher-level checkpoints, typically spanning multiple sprints, and I track them to measure progress at a broader level.
    • Align milestones with OKRs, which serve as high-level goals with measurable outcomes, tracked quarterly (or annually) to ensure overall strategic alignment with overarching long-term business goals. Milestones are more operational, while OKRs encompass broader, long-term objectives that may include multiple milestones or projects.
  • I like to collaborate closely with PMs (program managers) during sprint planning to define goals, estimate workloads, and ensure that user stories and their constituent tasks are on track for timely completion.

How do you roadmap cross-functional projects? How do use a Gantt chart with timelines and deliverables for roadmapping cross-functional projects?

  • A Gantt chart with timelines and deliverables, commonly used in project management for roadmapping cross-functional projects, is one of the most popular and useful ways of showing activities (tasks or events) displayed against time. On the left side of the chart is a list of the activities, and along the top is a suitable time scale. Each activity is represented by a bar; the position and length of the bar reflect the start date, duration, and end date of the activity. This allows you to see at a glance:

    • What the various activities are
    • When each activity begins and ends
    • How long each activity is scheduled to last
    • Where activities overlap with other activities, and by how much
    • The start and end date of the whole project

  • Here’s why a Gantt chart works effectively:

    1. Visual Representation: Gantt charts provide a clear visual timeline of the project, showing tasks, deadlines, and dependencies, making it easier for cross-functional teams to understand the flow and sequence of work.

    2. Task Ownership: Deliverables can be assigned to specific team members or departments, clarifying responsibilities across different functional areas.

    3. Milestones and Deadlines: Key project milestones and deadlines are highlighted, ensuring that all teams – partners and peers – are aligned on critical dates and deliverables.

    4. Dependencies: Gantt charts show dependencies between tasks, which is essential for coordinating efforts across teams to avoid bottlenecks or delays.

    5. Progress Tracking: They allow teams to track progress in real-time, making it easier to identify delays or issues that require intervention.

    6. Scalability: Gantt charts can scale to complex projects involving multiple functions, making them suitable for initiatives requiring collaboration across departments.

  • By providing a centralized view of the project roadmap, a Gantt chart serves as a powerful tool for planning, coordinating, and executing cross-functional projects effectively.

Example

  • The following figure (source) illustrates a simple Gantt chart which shows what has to be done (the activities) and when (the schedule/milestones).

  • The following figure (source) illustrates an advanced Gantt chart with additional information used for tracking the project’s schedules, tasks, and phases, such as how the tasks relate to each other in terms of dependencies, how far each task has progressed, what resources are being used for each task and so on.

What is the role of a Product Manager? How do a Product Manager and an Engineering Manager collaborate?

  • One of the key responsibilities of a product manager (PM) is to identify and define features or projects that align with the overall product strategy and business goals. However, this process is collaborative and involves input from various stakeholders, including the engineering team.

  • Here’s how a PM typically figures out a feature or project for an engineering team:

    • Understanding Business Goals and Strategy:
      • The PM ensures they have a clear understanding of the company’s vision, business objectives, and the product’s roadmap.
      • They prioritize initiatives that deliver value to customers while aligning with business goals.
    • Gathering Customer Insights:
      • PMs interact with customers, analyze feedback, and study usage patterns to identify pain points and opportunities.
      • They may conduct user interviews, surveys, or usability testing to validate potential features.
    • Analyzing Market (i.e., Market Research) and Competitive Landscape:
      • PMs research the market and competitors to understand trends, gaps, and areas where the product could differentiate itself.
    • Collaborating with Stakeholders:
      • PMs engage with cross-functional teams like sales, marketing, support, and design to gather diverse perspectives.
      • Input from these stakeholders helps shape priorities and feature specifications.
    • Evaluating Feasibility with Engineering:
      • PMs work closely with engineering to evaluate the technical feasibility of potential projects.
      • Engineers provide insights into the complexity, required effort, and potential trade-offs associated with design decisions.
    • Defining and Prioritizing Features:
      • Based on business impact, customer value, technical feasibility, and resource availability, PMs prioritize features or projects.
      • Tools like OKRs, RICE (Reach, Impact, Confidence, Effort), or the Kano model may guide prioritization.
    • Creating Clear Documentation:
      • PMs document the requirements in a format the engineering team can easily understand, such as user stories, product requirement documents (PRDs), or specs.
      • They outline the “what” and “why” of the feature while allowing engineering to define the “how.”
    • Facilitating Iterative Collaboration:
      • Throughout development, PMs collaborate with engineering to refine the scope, address blockers, and adapt to new findings.
  • In summary, while the PM initiates and defines the feature/project, the process is highly collaborative. Engineering teams often influence the direction by providing technical insights and suggesting innovative solutions that meet both customer and business needs.

What role does a Program Manager play?

  • The role of a program manager involves emphasizing collaborative, cross-functional responsibilities, and how they contribute to achieving organizational goals.

  • A Program Manager owns alignment (and thus, risks, challenges associated with misalignment and subsequent mitigation strategies) and communication (both with cross-functional partners and status updates to leadership) across teams and workflows especially in cross-functional environments. They focus on enabling teams to deliver efficiently by managing the interplay between processes, people, and technology. Specifically, their role includes:

    1. Stakeholder Alignment & Communication:
      • They facilitate alignment between diverse stakeholders, ensuring that there is clarity on program priorities, progress, and roadmaps.
      • By proactively identifying risks and potential misalignments, Program Managers develop strategies to mitigate challenges, thus maintaining project momentum.
      • Their role also involves creating frameworks for feedback and continuous improvement, ensuring that workflows and technology evolve to meet dynamic needs.
    2. Workflow Optimization & Change Management:
      • Program Managers identify bottlenecks and addressable inefficiencies within workflows, particularly in complex and global-scale operations.
      • They spearhead initiatives to streamline operations by collaborating with product teams, ensuring that changes are implemented with minimal disruption. This involves crafting change management strategies, coordinating communication, and creating documentation and best practices.
      • They lead organizational change by activating key stakeholders and driving adoption of improvements across matrixed teams.
    3. Technology Implementation:
      • A Program Manager is instrumental in rolling out new tools, features, or operational capabilities. They partner with technical and functional teams to ensure smooth transitions, from planning and communication strategies to monitoring adoption and impact.
      • They serve as advocates for team needs, ensuring that the deployed technology or workflows align with the intended goals and address the real-world challenges of end-users.

  • As an Engineering Manager, the Program Manager would act as a critical partner in ensuring that engineering teams stay focused on delivering scalable and innovative solutions. Their work complements the technical delivery by enabling:

    • Seamless integration of tools or workflows with the engineering pipeline.
    • Effective collaboration between cross-functional teams like product management, operations, and customer success.
    • Risk mitigation and clear communication paths to manage dependencies and ensure alignment across stakeholders.
  • In summary, the Program Manager drives the operational and organizational backbone that allows engineering teams to perform at their best, aligning strategies, people, and processes to deliver impactful results. Their ability to optimize workflows and manage change ensures that teams can focus on technical innovation without being hindered by inefficiencies or misalignments.

What role does a Project Manager play?

  • A project manager (PM) plays a crucial role in ensuring that a project stays on track, meets its objectives, and delivers value to stakeholders. In agile frameworks like Scrum, the PM often works alongside or complements the Scrum roles (such as Product Owner, Scrum Master, and Development Team). Here’s how the PM contributes, especially in the context of sprint planning and sprint review:

    • Role of a Project Manager in General:
      • Coordination: Acts as the liaison between stakeholders, teams, and external resources to ensure smooth communication.
      • Planning and Scheduling: Oversees the creation of project timelines, ensuring that work is broken down into manageable chunks (like sprints).
      • Risk Management: Identifies potential risks and formulates mitigation strategies.
      • Scope Management: Ensures that the project delivers agreed-upon objectives without scope creep.
    • During Sprint Planning:
      • The sprint planning meeting sets the stage for the work to be completed during the sprint. In agile frameworks like Scrum, sprint planning is primarily a team-driven activity led by the Scrum Master and the Product Owner. However, a project manager may be involved in the following ways:
        1. Providing Context: They ensure that the sprint planning aligns with the broader project goals, timelines, and constraints.
        2. Facilitating Resource Availability: Ensuring the right team members are available for the sprint and resolving any potential blockers.
        3. Stakeholder Alignment: They may coordinate between stakeholders to ensure that the backlog reflects priorities and business needs.
        4. Supporting Estimation: While developers estimate the effort, the project manager may help ensure the estimates align with broader deadlines or milestones.
        5. Ensuring Alignment: They help the team align sprint goals with the overall project roadmap.
    • During Sprint Review:
      • The sprint review meeting is an opportunity to showcase the work completed during the sprint and gather feedback. The project manager’s role here includes:
        1. Stakeholder Engagement: Ensuring the right stakeholders attend to review the completed work.
        2. Tracking Progress: Observing whether the sprint deliverables are on track with the project timeline and scope.
        3. Facilitating Feedback: Acting as a bridge between the team and stakeholders to capture and document feedback.
        4. Addressing Risks: Identifying risks or challenges based on the sprint outcomes and incorporating mitigation plans into future sprints.
        5. Communicating Status: Reporting progress to stakeholders or leadership, based on what was accomplished in the sprint.
    • Complementary Role to Scrum:
      • While agile methodologies (like Scrum) do not explicitly define a PM role, they often operate alongside Scrum roles to handle cross-team dependencies, manage external risks, or support strategic alignment. In organizations transitioning to agile, PMs often provide stability by:
        • Managing larger project timelines or budgets.
        • Handling escalations that go beyond the Scrum team’s immediate purview.
        • Ensuring the project integrates seamlessly into the organization’s broader portfolio.
    • Key Skills for a PM in Agile::
      • Strong communication and stakeholder management.
      • A solid understanding of agile principles and methodologies.
      • Problem-solving and risk management capabilities.
      • Collaborative mindset to work with Product Owners, Scrum Masters, and the development team.

  • In summary, the PM plays a supportive, strategic, and facilitative role in sprint planning and reviews, ensuring that team efforts align with broader goals, risks are mitigated, and value is delivered efficiently.

Recruiter - ppl management (Detail, Managing through managers, Reflection)

  • 1 People management. The Purpose of the people management interview is to assess your philosophy, process, and strategy around your management experience as well as how you communicate effectively to your team. ◦ During this interview you will be asked to tell a lot of stories about relevant experiences. Be prepared with a few stories highlighting your people management, coaching/mentorship, building a team, success hiring and firing, examples of managing strong performers and low performers (how did you help turn situations around).  ◦ Describe a work experience that you consider to be most interesting, challenging, and perhaps relevant to what you view as the opportunity at Facebook. ◦ Describe a situation where you worked XFly to remove a significant barrier for your team, or a situation in which you were able to really maximize the productivity of a team by digging into the inner workings and dynamics of the team.

  • People Leadership:
  • Team Structure:
    • How many people are on your team?
    • What is your team working on?
  • Performance Management:
    • Have you had to manage performance issues?
    • What is your process for performance management?
    • Have you managed through managers?
    • How do you manage through managers to ensure alignment and accountability?
    • How do you grow leaders within your team?
    • If someone didn’t meet expectations, what actions did you take to help them improve?
    • Have you had to hire or fire based on performance?
  • Philosophy on Promotions:
    • What is your philosophy on promotion?
    • How do you grow individuals who aren’t quite ready for promotion yet?
  • Team Retention and Culture:
  • Retention and Satisfaction:
    • How do you ensure team retention and satisfaction?
    • How do you keep the team motivated?
  • Team Building:
    • Have you organized offsite events for your team? How have you done them?
    • What are you focused on in growing and fostering a positive culture within your team?
  • Meetings and Feedback:
  • Team Meetings:
    • What is the structure of your team meetings?
    • How do you conduct 1x1 conversations?
  • Feedback:
    • How do you give feedback to your team members?
    • Do you ask for feedback from your reports?
  • Building Teams:
  • Team Structure and Reporting:
    • How are people structured in your team? Who reports up to you?
  • Recruitment:
    • Are you focused on technical performance, or do you balance technical skills with culture and other factors?
    • How do you partner with recruiting to build diversity within your team?

  • Your senior engineer doesn’t have enough context to make this decision? Talk about how you gave it to them.

  • Your mid-level engineer doesn’t have the skills yet. Do they have a mentor in that area?

Rubric - ppl management

  • Growing reports: different growth plans per level
  • What is your management type
  • How do you grow folks into leaders
  • Low performers
  • How to hire
  • how to change current culture
  • how to reward employees
  • biggest mistake