Leadership interviews
Leadership interviews for tech lead, engineering manager and staff-plus roles are scored against different rubrics. This course works through them with one running example: Meridian, an invoicing company with twelve engineers and an acquired product called Ledgerly. The lessons cover choosing a path, hiring questions, org design with Team Topologies and Conway's law, influencing without authority, executive writing and the one-pager, and hard conversations about underperformance. The last lesson runs a full five-round leadership loop with weak and strong answers and a scoring table.
What you'll learn
- ✓How tech lead, engineering manager and staff-plus loops differ, and the four shapes of staff roles
- ✓Designing a hiring process with distinct signals, bias controls and clear veto rules
- ✓Using Conway's law, team types and interaction modes to propose an org structure
- ✓Influencing decisions you cannot order, including disagree and commit with a review date
- ✓Writing a one-pager that leads with the ask and prices the do-nothing option
- ✓Handling underperformance with observable signal, specific conversations and a named change in your own approach
Tech lead, EM and staff: which path
"So, are you looking for a management track or an IC track?"
Read the full lesson free →Curriculum
7 lessonsTech lead, EM and staff: which path
Compares tech lead, engineering manager and staff-plus roles, the four shapes of staff, and what an EM loop contains.
Hiring questions: how you build a team
Describes a hiring process where each stage gives a distinct signal, with bias controls, veto rules and onboarding.
Org design and team topologies questions
Applies Conway's law, four Team Topologies types and three interaction modes to splitting Meridian's twelve engineers.
Influencing without authority
Explains how to change decisions you cannot order, including disagree and commit with a recorded condition and review date.
Executive communication and the one-pager
Shows how to write a one-pager that leads with the ask, prices inaction and addresses the strongest objection.
Hard conversations and underperformance
Covers underperformance answers grounded in observable signal, specific private conversations, exits and the mechanism you changed afterwards.
Leadership loop: putting it all together
Runs a full five-round engineering manager loop at Meridian, contrasting weak and strong answers with a scoring table.