If You're Interviewing for Engineering Manager Roles Right Now, Please Avoid Leaving This Kind of Impression

There are a number of ways this blog post can be viewed and one such way is that there was a misunderstanding. That might be the most polite way to put it. The more I think about the experience my client and I had with this engineering manager, the more I realize that, at its core, a very disappointing impression was made. And it goes without saying that all IT professionals should aim to never have this kind of interviewing experience happen in their career,? Let's call him Steven. He was part of some layoffs back in May of 2023 and after taking an extended sabbatical that went well beyond his severance package, he kicked off an active job search in early October.?

We had reached out to him regarding a Senior Engineering Manager role with a client of ours here in Austin. This company is doing well financially in what is currently a rough climate and their openings are all a result of some very nice, organic growth. They are ideally looking for someone who has led teams for a minimum of 3-4 years and Steven did meet this core requirement. On paper he appeared to match up quite well but at the same time, we weren't jumping up and down about him being the perfect match for our client's opening. In fact, here are the core observations we took away from his resume,

1. 17 years total experience and highest ranking title was "Sr. Engineering Manager" and this was at a startup.

2. Current tech stack from his most recent employer was AngularJS, Java and Spring.?

3. His foundational stack through the first eight years of his career was PHP/MySQL and his title at these companies was Web Developer.?

4. Most significant career accomplishment in his career was an acquisition by Amazon of one of the startups he had worked at. He looked to be 50% vested at the time of the acquisition. And it did look like he received a pretty nice windfall from this buyout.??

He requested a virtual meeting with me as he said it was important to see who he would be working with on his job search. We kicked things off in a nice, casual manner but the first words he said about his job search was that his main requirement in his next job was the title "Director of Engineering". I didn't want to initiate any points of contention with him but even with the uptick in hiring I've seen in the past month, there is still a very large pool of impacted IT professionals out there who are interviewing very hard to find their next job. And being out of work yet making a hard requirement on a title he had never held in his career sounded like a recipe for immediate rejection. Steven didn't seem to be in too much pain right now as he disclosed that he lived in a very nice neighborhood in Austin and he did his virtual meeting from his customized woodworking room which looked to be 300-350 square feet. It was clear that, despite not having worked in five months, he was still quite comfortable. But we are all very aware that with the cost of living in Austin, specifically the neighborhood he was in, eventually the time would come when he would have to buckle down on his job search with a bit more focus and urgency. With the exception of the top .05%, living comfortably without a revenue stream always has a finite timeline.?

We have a client here in Austin that is doing well financially in these difficult times. They are generating nice revenue and they need to build out their engineering leadership organization. The position they had open was for a Senior Engineering Manager and in our virtual meeting, Steven told me that I could submit his resume for the opportunity. I also told him that the salary topped out around 205k and despite the fact that his main focus was to secure a Director title, something he has never held in his career, he said the opportunity sounded interesting and gave me permission to submit his resume.?

Even if an opportunity is not our top pick, it's still very important to make the best impression possible to the other party. And this other party I'm talking about happens to be one of the most respected Talent Acquisition professionals in Austin. He has close to 20 years experience with some of the top startups in Austin and like all great recruiters, he is an excellent read on people. We submitted Steven's resume and a virtual meeting was scheduled.? Here was the feedback from the interview,?

Hey Mark - I connected with Steven and he wanted to opt out once we discussed?comp range.? He said there are two companies he's speaking with that could offer 240k and that it didn't make sense to pursue the role. And this was after he told you he was okay with a ceiling of 205k right??

I have to admit that I am not complaining one bit about passing on Steven. The?questions he asked (and how he posed them) gave me the sense that he lacks self awareness and executive polish.? It was clear that he did very little research and didn't look at any of the company information I sent over.? I might expect this kind of experience from a very passive candidate who is currently employed but not from someone who's been out of the market for?almost six months now and viewing himself at the Director level. And to your words, he has never even worked at the Director level before and after meeting him, I can see why.?

To begin, Steven needs to be careful because "talking to companies that are offering 240k" in no way whatsoever means he'll secure offers from those companies. In fact, my team and I recently worked with a well funded client who had a Director level role come open with a salary level up to 230k. Their technical and cultural bar was top 1% yet they still had seven candidates make it to the final round before they made their decision. There are a lot of candidates out there who are talking with a lot of companies but the end goal right now is to get them across the finish line with a written offer and Steven is currently nowhere near that.?

But even more of a concern were the reasons my client immediately rejected Steven. It's a little more cut and dry when you're a software engineer. If you're a developer on an active job search, the #1 variable you need to project is your technical aptitude and ability. From there, the soft skills come into play. For engineering leaders, however, it's an entirely different ballgame. A lot of the evaluation in an interview comes down to your delivery and narrative. How the words come out of your mouth and as well as your vision and insight into an engineering organization. And Steven came nowhere close to passing this bar with my client. Like all professions, when it comes to senior leadership, there must be a sense of legitimacy with the problems you are working on as well as the people you are leading. And again, this internal recruiter did not get that sense at all from Steven. A few weeks ago, I caught up with Beth Weeks over at Planview and given our long history together, the virtual meeting was very casual. But that said, as she was updating me on her engineering organization and how things were going, it was so abundantly clear I was in the presence of a true and legitimate executive. The flow from her was just incredible. Trust me when I say that she was 100% just being herself but after our meeting, I just sat back in my chair and said to myself, "Damn, what a meeting".?

And therein lies the main concern for Steven in this post. For one, he's inconsistent with me on what he said he would consider from my client but the much bigger issue is that the internal recruiter, one of the best in Austin, immediately realized he was nowhere near the level he was targeting and rejected him. And again, he didn't see "the polish" that you experience from a senior leader. This recruiter has worked for some of the top engineering leaders in Austin and in addition to their technical brilliance, he's also experienced the dynamic of polish. And I am also fortunate to experience it often in my work schedule as well. A couple of months ago, I had a very quick exchange with Doug Gray over Linkedin and in his 7-8 word reply to me, I felt his polish and gravitas. The dynamic is very real and it is also not quickly learned.?And given Steven is five months unemployed and hasn't had this moment of internal realization is a big concern I see for him going forward.??

Whether you're an executive engineering leader or Level 1 Customer Support,?please do yourself a favor and don't miss as badly as Steven did on this interview. Whether an impression is positive or negative, the receiving party remembers it for a very long time. And should Steven cross paths with this recruiter again in the future at another company, this original experience will be shared with the company and he will not be considered. And let's not forget the impression that was left on me as well. For Steven to give me permission to submit his resume to my client knowing that the role was for Engineering Manager topping out at 205k and then, in his interview, tell the internal recruiter he's only considering 240k annual cash as well as Director of Engineering?? Was he having fun and trying his best at being Prankster 101? If so, he may have won the immediate game of making me look incompetent to my client but these sort of shenanigans will only hurt him in the long run.?

In closing, if you're unemployed and on an active job search right now, please make sure your #1 goal is to simply leave a positive impressions on the other party. And by "other party", I'm talking specifically about hiring managers and internal recruiters. Be consistent in your delivery, humble in your expectations and go on trust. You are welcome to explore a company's salary range but don't throw out numbers well over their ceiling. Do everything you can to take the interview process to the offer stage. From there, you can then put on your negotiating cap and do everything possible to get the company's best and final offer. Trust me, cross the finish line first and then you can start gently negotiating on title and money.?

It's this kind of approach that will help you secure your next job and, believe it or not, will also put a little "polish" on your professional reputation as well.?

Thanks,?

Mark Cunningham

Technical Recruiter

512-699-5719

[email protected]

https://thebiddingnetwork.com

https://markcunningham91.blogspot.com

https://www.dhirubhai.net/in/markhc