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Hi all! I have a 45 minute screening interview at Facebook (Meta) next week for their Product Development Specialist position. Does anyone have any advice on what I can expect? In particular, I was told there would be a case study question at the end of the interview. Any advice or insight is appreciated!
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Upcoming Data Analyst Interview with Healthcare startup company - Clarify Health Solutions. There are 6+ rounds and I’ve only made it through one. Super anxious as I’ve seen online that they tend to ghost throughout the process and it’s hard to get an offer. Can anyone provide any tips or pointers?
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Yes 100%, at least good enough to know what’s real and what’s bs
A good manager is like a conductor of a symphony. They can’t be a master at every instrument - nor should they! Their job is bring it all together.
Hummingbird - I’ll grant you that expertise, even competence, is of course preferable. There are some enterprises where the leaders need to know it from the ground up. Widget factories. The army.
But this mindset is outdated. It not a modern team. Modern teams are movie sets. They are symphonies. They reflect the unbelievably hyper specific skills of an advanced economy. Specialization is the only way to do this, and if you specialize it’s rather hard to also specialize in putting it all together. Few talented people can do this. Musk can do it. But that’s why he’s billionaire Elon Musk.
As a technical lead I feel my job is to make everyone under me better and elevate those that really stand out. I do this by working and coding with them. Not everyone likes this, but for what it’s worth, being uncomfortable is a better way to know you learning something.
I would never accept a leadership position that requires or even tries to take my fingers off the keys. It’s a sign of a lost perspective. How can I lead if I don’t understand what you do and hell I still learn things everyday. My $.02
I think they need to have the minimum understanding and direct experience in software development otherwise they become blockers, since they can’t make informed decisions to keep things moving. Not everyone should be full stack developers. But if you have small teams it is generally a waste of resources to have a PM who can’t tell a process flow from a data model. I am talking from experience here. We have the same expectation in other professions. You can’t manage social workers if you don’t understand social work and in many cases, have certifications. This is a huge problem in consulting because we have a shortage of qualified workers and don’t allow enough time to educate the workforce before we commit to delivery.
I think that "manager" is too general a term to answer the question... If you need people management, tech skills are only a bonus, not essential. If you need technical guidance, someone more technical would be preferred... A great "manager" would have both.
To get specific (to software and my experience)
A PO or PM need not understand coding but, in my experience, requires at least a technical mindset and an idea of the common problems/pitfalls with writing software. If they glaze over as soon as I mention technical debt, I'm gonna start worrying. A PM who can talk the tech speak and translate for the non-techs that I would otherwise have to deal with, has now become essential for me, since I have forgotten how to speak to regular people since lockdown ;)
A CTO/deciders of tech stacks/decision makers (I have mostly worked at small companies where the CTO has also been my line manager) should definitely come from a technical /engineering background (or be a very quick study), as far as I am concerned, as making calls on which tech/methodologies requires a whole bunch of understanding of the problem being solved.
You need to understand the role that you are managing and know what they do. Do you need to be the best? No. Leadership isn't easy and isn't for everyone. Leaders need to know what the day to day job looks like, the roadblocks and what their people need to do their best work.
They need to be competent coders. They need to understand the work statement and industry at a fundamental level.
Worst case is Boeing where all the execs go to Chicago and there are no engineers on the board of directors so nobody in power knows what the hell is going on.
Here's a balanced answer
The ability to be a good manager and the ability to be a good engineer and not correlated.
Some people have one
Some people have both
Some people have none
The people who have both should be engineering managers
The people who are good at managing, but not engineering should manage people in a different profession
The people who are amazing at engineering and not good at management should keep doing what they do best which is engineering. A guy with 50 patents is probably worth more as an engineer than any middle manager in the company anyways.
At least have an overview of the technologies that are a part of their department and an overall decent understanding. In terms of being an expert then surely that is what CTOs are for?
The best football managers were often mediocre players, yet the best players often turn out to be terrible managers.
I wonder where he draws the line where you no longer need to be technically capable. Managing directors, directors, vice-presidents, CEOs...
I do not know anything about Elon's *demonstrated* (i.e. hands-on) technical, mechanical, electrical, etc. capabilities, but it is interesting if he only has that requirement for lower-level management, and not leadership, or himself for that matter.
Sounds a bit *convenient* to excuse the actual decision makers from requiring such skills/abilities - that way, nothing really has to change.
Yeah, and generals need to be able to run with 50 pounds on their back, and be excellent marksmen, too, or they can't make proper wartime decisions! As usual, Elon is being a douche.