Engineering Manager Mock Interview ft. Robinhood EM

Summary

In this mock interview, Sri Shari, Head of Data Infrastructure at Robinhood, discusses setting goals for his team. He emphasizes gathering inputs from senior leadership, team customers, and team members, and using these to prioritize projects based on their impact on key performance indicators. He also addresses managing tech debt, motivating engineers, and setting realistic stretch goals, highlighting the importance of honesty and learning from retrospectives.

Takeaways

• 😀 Sri Shari introduces himself as the Head of Data Infrastructure at Robinhood, emphasizing his role in engineering management and supporting career development within the organization.
• 🛠️ The mission of Data Infrastructure at Robinhood is to build foundational data platforms used across the company, focusing on big data technologies and tools for engineers, data scientists, and analysts.
• 🔍 Sri discusses the importance of gathering inputs from senior leadership, team customers, and team members themselves when setting goals for the team, highlighting the need for a comprehensive understanding of company objectives and team capabilities.
• 📊 Setting goals involves a mix of art and science, with Sri using a combination of data-driven insights, intuition, and team feedback to prioritize projects and estimate their potential impact on key performance indicators (KPIs).
• 📈 Sri uses surveys to gather feedback from both internal customers and team members, analyzing the results to determine which features or improvements to prioritize.
• 📝 The team's goals are organized in a spreadsheet, where they are stack-ranked based on various criteria, including their potential impact on the team's KPIs and the company's strategic objectives.
• 🔄 Tech debt is a significant consideration in goal setting, with Sri emphasizing the importance of addressing it to prevent future issues and maintain team sustainability.
• 🌐 Sri stresses the importance of honest communication with the team about the necessity of tech debt work, connecting it to its broader impact on the team and the company.
• 🚀 Stretch goals are identified as projects beyond the team's immediate capacity, intended to motivate the team to exceed expectations without overcommitting resources.
• 🤝 The process of setting stretch goals involves team buy-in, ensuring that everyone is aligned on the aspirational nature of these goals and understands their purpose.
• 🔄 When goals are not met, Sri advocates for a blameless retrospective to understand what went wrong and to apply those learnings to future planning, emphasizing the importance of continuous improvement.

Q & A

What is Sri Shari's current role at Robinhood?

Sri Shari serves as the Head of Data Infrastructure at Robinhood, mainly in an engineering management role, supporting the organization and career development of people, and ensuring good strategy towards internal teams and customers.

What is the mission of the data infrastructure team at Robinhood?

The mission of the data infrastructure team is to build foundational data platforms used by the rest of the company, involving work with big data technologies and building the right foundational tools and platforms for engineers, data scientists, and analysts across the company.

How long was Sri Shari at Yelp before joining Robinhood?

Sri Shari spent about eight years at Yelp, starting as a new grad and growing into a management role, setting up the data platform team.

What is Sri Shari's approach to setting goals for the team?

Sri Shari's approach involves gathering inputs from senior leadership, team's customers, and the team itself, then using these inputs in the planning process to set goals.

How does Sri Shari gather feedback from customers?

Sri Shari's team sends out periodic surveys to customers, asking for feature suggestions and their likelihood to recommend the platform to other teams, using these survey results as input for goal setting.

What is the process Sri Shari uses to prioritize goals for the team?

Sri Shari uses a process of stack ranking priorities based on intuition, judgment, and gathered data, estimating the size of projects, and determining how much the team can meaningfully achieve, including stretch goals.

What criteria does Sri Shari consider when prioritizing projects?

Sri Shari considers the impact of projects on key performance indicators (KPIs) such as reliability, scalability, security, and how likely they are to move these metrics.

How does Sri Shari motivate engineers when a half is tech debt oriented?

Sri Shari communicates the truth about the importance of addressing tech debt, connects it to its impact on the team, and tries to find the right project-person fit, including learning opportunities.

What is Sri Shari's view on stretch goals?

Stretch goals are aspirational projects beyond the team's capacity, intended to motivate the team to push themselves, and are chosen with team buy-in.

How does Sri Shari handle situations when goals are not met?

Sri Shari approaches it from a blameless perspective, doing honest retrospectives to understand what went wrong and learning from it, and tries to anticipate and communicate risks early on.

What mindset does Sri Shari have regarding deadlines?

Sri Shari believes most deadlines are arbitrary, except for those involving multiple teams or significant releases, and focuses on understanding and acting on reasons for delays.