While most topics in the ByteByteGo newsletter focus on technical knowledge, we also acknowledge the critical role of soft skills, particularly for senior engineers. In today's issue, we are fortunate to have Dave Anderson, former Amazon General Manager and Tech Director, as our guest contributor. He is renowned for his invaluable career guidance in the industry. I follow his newsletter regularly and have yet to find anyone else who offers such actionable and practical career advice.
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I also encourage you to check out his leadership and career-oriented newsletter for further insights.
Senior employees and executives make a common mistake while interviewing. They try to answer the interview questions, instead of focusing on their goals.
It's been a while since I wrote an interview advice article. With the tech layoffs creating a spike in interview coaching demand, I thought that passing along some of my most common feedback would be a good use of my time.
When I was at Amazon, one common complaint I'd hear from newly hired employees was, "I was Under Leveled." What they meant was that they felt that they'd received an offer for a position at a lower level than they deserved.
I distinctly remember one Senior Manager (making in the ballpark of $500k yearly.. yes, poor him), complaining that he'd had 250 people reporting to him at his previous company, and now he only had 25 people. He recognized that Amazon was a great place to be (which was why he took the offer), but he was baffled on how he was leveled like this. It felt like a step back in his career.
How does being under leveled happen to someone? How can you avoid it happening to you?
In the case of that Senior Manager, I took the time to investigate his interview notes to see what had happened. It turns out he made literally all the mistakes I outline below.
I regularly coach senior leaders and executives on interviewing. They're applying for roles at companies like Amazon for Principal, Director, and VP positions. In my first practice round with these employees, many of them made the same mistakes.
It's predictable and avoidable. And it all comes down to not concentrating on your goals.
Let's say that I ask a question like, "Tell me about a time you disagreed with a co-worker." It's a very common question.
Now, what is your goal here? Is your primary goal to tell me a story in which you disagreed with a co-worker? No. Because you might have a story which has a great conflict, but it won't accomplish your actual goals. What's the potential problem with your stories?
First, if you answer the question in a way that doesn't convince me to hire you for the job, you've failed.
Second, if you answer the question in a way that suggests that you're a lower level employee than you actually could be, you've failed.
You have two major goals.
You want to answer every question in a way that convinces me to hire you, and your answers should convince me that you're at the maximum possible/reasonable seniority.
The interviewing system is stupid, inaccurate, inconsistent, and many other insulting words. We haven't invented a better scalable system, but it's not great at making fair decisions.
When in doubt, people will put you at a lower level.
When in doubt, people won't hire you at all.
You want to send the message that you're super remarkable, super valuable, and absolutely at the target level (if not higher).
Understand that your interviewer gets an incredibly short period of time with you. They take those tiny hints of data, and make gigantic assumptions about your capabilities and past performance.
Many of the most impressive career jumps people have made were when they interviewed incredibly well. I've heard of engineers at Amazon jumping two or three levels when interviewing at other companies. I've heard of managers jumping from 18-person teams to 800-person teams through a great interview.
Don't leave career growth or opportunity on the table. Think of the message you're sending.
You talk to someone at a dinner party. They say that they manage teams at Google. That sounds pretty cool to you. Google is a neat company. However, you have no idea how smart they are, or how important they are at Google. They could be an entry-level manager, or a VP.
Then they mention that they had a fun discussion with a VP the other day about AI.
Wham. You're now convinced that they're a senior employee. Certainly, not entry level. They are likely Director or VP level.
How does that work? Because you tend to interact with people around your level of seniority.
Is this fair? Nah. But it's how things work. We deal with practical things in this newsletter.
How can you use that information in an interview?
"Tell me about a time you disagreed with a coworker."
I've had senior leaders, managers of 100+ people, say something like:
"There was a college graduate, newly hired onto the team. As we were kicking off a new project, they said.."
You just announced to your interviewer that the most serious disagreement you had with a co-worker was with an entry-level hire. It sounds to me like you're a line manager (at best).
If you're answering a question where you discuss your peers, or someone you interact with, you must explain a situation where you're communicating with someone at the seniority you're aiming for. If you're interviewing for a Director level position, your interaction must be with other Directors or VPs.
"During a meeting, the VP of Marketing for North America asked..."
There we go. Now you're clearly a senior employee.
This one is obvious, yet senior people screw it up all the time. Senior people deal with vision, mission, architecture, design. Their perspective is high level, and broad impact. Junior people deal with details, low-level issues, and less valuable decisions.
"Tell me about an interesting project you worked on recently."
"Well, we were trying to decide if we should upgrade our JUnit package version from.."
Ok, that sounds like something an entry-level engineer works on. Yes, in reality, a senior employee might do that work. Yes, it might even be interesting. But no, it doesn't accomplish your goals. I'm not convinced by you working on JUnit that I should hire you, or that you're a senior employee.
On every single question, you need to beat into your interviewer's head that you're valuable, and a senior employee.
"Tell me about an interesting project you worked on recently."
"Well, I was trying to build our software upgrade strategy. We are inconsistent about how we upgrade open source packages, and I needed to communicate a strategy to our security and legal teams, so that our update cadence..."
Oh yeah. That's a good one. You're working on strategy. You're working across departments (security, legal). You're looking at improving processes and mechanisms. This sounds pretty senior.
But what about my technical depth?
If you're being interviewed by a technical employee, and they say, "Tell me about the most technical thing you've done recently", feel free to dive deep into the weeds. But still, keep in mind what types of weeds you're diving into.
If you're the manager of 150 people, upgrading the JUnit package still doesn't convince me that you can attend a meeting with a few of your principal engineers, and understand what they're saying.
Therefore, even with technical depth, you need to discuss at the perspective level for your destination level. If you're interviewing for senior positions, you should be talking about large-scale architecture and design decisions. Perhaps complex efficiency problems. Operational support or cost challenges. Things that senior employees work on.
Senior leaders are often worried that they'll be viewed as "out of touch" in their interview. Therefore, they make a common mistake. They demonstrate that they're incredibly in touch with the details by pretending they were doing all the work themselves.
"Tell me about a conflict your organization had recently."
"A peer team was running behind on an API definition. I talked to the project manager and explained that they needed to get it done by Friday, because.."
If you're personally talking to a project manager about a single task which is running behind, you sound like a line manager.
Being in the details doesn't mean that you personally need to do the work. The details appear even more interesting when you need to manage through other leaders.
"A peer team was running behind on an API definition. During our status update meeting, I heard from a manager on my team that they were unable to get that team to prioritize the work. I met with that manager after the meeting, and got further information on the situation. I then coached the manager on how to approach the situation, and build a stronger relationship while hitting our dates.."
There. Same situation, except instead of a line manager, you're now a manager of managers. With a small amount of wording changes, you've defined yourself as a more senior employee. But what about executives and directors?
"A peer organization was running behind on an API definition. During our status update meeting, I heard about a challenge to get the work prioritized. It turns out that we didn't have regular communication with their leadership team, so engineers and managers from both organizations were inventing priorities on a case by case basis. I talked to one of the Directors on my team, and explained the situation. I coached them on our need for an operating model between our two organizations. They setup a meeting with their peer Director, and came to an agreement on a long list of projects both of our teams were working on.."
Ok, yes, that answer is a bit longer (thus why people joke that executives talk too much), but it's the same situation. Yet, you're clearly an executive.
You didn't directly handle the issue, but you were able to resolve the problem through coaching your senior leadership. That demonstrates that you can see broader needs for your organization, you can grow leaders into more effective leaders, and you can resolve conflicts positively.
As you run low on answers, you may find yourself falling into the trap many interviewees fall into.
"Tell me about a time you had to give constructive feedback to an employee."
"Well, to avoid duplication of my previous answers, I'll tell you about a time 6 years ago, when I had an intern on the team, and they were underperforming."
You're right that you shouldn't duplicate answers if you can avoid it. You're right that you need to give an answer to this question. But you are failing by giving this answer.
Every single answer must meet your goal criteria. It must answer the question well, and it must communicate that you're a senior employee. You must answer the questions with issues senior employees would deal with.
If you're running out of answers, re-use a scenario, but explain it differently.
"I explained to a previous interviewer how I had rescued a failing project from a Director who reported to me. I'll explain to you the feedback I gave to that Director, and how the coaching process went."
You can frequently re-use a situation, as the question will not be the same. As a side note, if the question really is the same, I'd suggest you tell the interviewer, since they'll probably want to ask a different question.
The key here is to keep your goals in mind when interviewing. You need to use every single answer to communicate your value and your level. Any answer, which doesn't communicate both of those things, is a failed and wasted answer.
If you use every interview question wisely, you can repeatedly demonstrate your expertise and seniority, and receive the position you deserve. Or, if you're lucky, a bit better than you deserve.