Databricks Engineering Manager Interview Questions
& Process

Initially I was referred and the hiring manager reached out before any formal interviews. The first official round was a recruiter screen to see if there was a role fit and they walked me through the whole hiring process. After confirming fit, I could choose how much time I wanted to prepare before they scheduled interviews. I ended up being fast-tracked, and they set up four interviews in a single week. There were two tech rounds and two behavioral rounds, all 60 minutes each. Tech rounds: * System Design: Design the architecture of a [challenge type] application * Technical Deep Dive: Conversation about trade-offs of my past technical projects Manager rounds * People & Hiring: Conversation about how I've built thriving teams in the past * Tactical & Execution: Conversation about how I've made impact in the past

There were 2 recruiters in the process. 5 interview stages plus many calls with recruiters: * Chat with one of managers - the manager was disengaged and unprepared; * Architectural interview - with a senior engineer; * Systems interview - with a staff IC - it was a mix of coding and system design; was quite in-depth and fun, although a bit wierd. * Management interview - by a director of engineering - best interview, great vibe and questions; * Technical fit - with other managers - you have to defend that you are technical enough by sharing in-depth about the system you are working on now. This is where I failed. I'm questioning validity of this interview - I was explaining about a system I was implementing myself for 3 years and I got feedback that I'm not in-depth enough. My main complain is that the second recruiter was completely disengaged: * ignored joining one of the calls; * joined the interview while driving a car; Due to complexity of the interview process having a good recruiter is a must.

Initial interviews were by video call, 30 mins to assess fit / value / what you (might be) looking for. Questions were reasonable enough, most were pretty predictable but there were a few stand-out ones (retrospective of previous people you enjoyed working with and why). Process was ok, though there was some inefficient communication with HR (e.g. asking to please give some slots for the next interview, but not mentioning the interviewer was 9 timezones away). Technical screening interview was also fine - I really enjoyed discussing the interview problem and what it was like to work at DataBricks. Then I moved to the on-site round. While I could maybe have been more proactive in giving more information, the questions from their side were almost identical to the screening ones. Areas they had signalled as important didn't come up (growth / recruitment). Instead there was focus on things like executing product strategy. Questions didn't really match the job description at the time, looks like it’s more up to date now. Happy I got as far as I did - on-site was underwhelming, and it cost me a days vacation.