Learning Paths
Engineering Manager Interview Roadmap
This roadmap is your comprehensive companion to navigating the multifaceted landscape of a FAANG Engineering Manager interview. It goes beyond traditional coding questions, encompassing every critical dimension of the role—people leadership, team management, project execution, system design, communication, and stakeholder collaboration. Whether you’re transitioning from an individual contributor role or stepping up to a more strategic leadership position, this roadmap equips you with the frameworks, insights, and actionable strategies needed to excel in high-stakes interviews with top-tier companies like Meta, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Apple.
By focusing on both the technical and interpersonal competencies, this roadmap ensures you’ll be ready to tackle in-depth system design sessions, present thoughtful approaches to team performance challenges, and engage in compelling leadership discussions. Ultimately, you’ll gain the confidence to navigate the complexities of the engineering manager role at the world’s most influential tech organizations.
Modules:
6
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Learning Objectives
Holistic Preparation: Understand the full spectrum of an engineering manager interview—from technical system design and architecture reviews to leadership case studies and cultural fit conversations.
Technical Mastery: Hone your ability to break down complex system design problems, reason about scalability and reliability, and discuss architectural trade-offs—key skills for technical credibility at FAANG companies.
Leadership and Communication: Learn strategies for demonstrating people management skills, fostering team cohesion, driving results, and effectively communicating technical vision to both engineering and non-engineering stakeholders.
Behavioral Proficiency: Gain insights into handling situational and behavioral questions that reflect real-world challenges—managing conflicts, giving feedback, promoting diversity and inclusion, and inspiring team excellence.
Strategic Thinking: Develop the mindset to approach interviews not just as tests of knowledge, but as opportunities to convey strategic thinking, cross-functional collaboration abilities, and long-term vision alignment.
Confidence and Polish: Learn best practices for presenting your experience, refining your personal pitch, and projecting confidence and authenticity—crucial elements that set great engineering managers apart.
Path Contents
• 80 Chapters • 674 Lessons
Grokking the Engineering Manager Coding Interview
Your ultimate guide to successfully acing Engineering Manager coding interviews.
• 11 Chapters • 119 Lessons
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1.
Introduction
1 lesson
2.
Array
12 lessons
Introduction to Arrays
Arrays in Different Programming Languages
Running Sum of 1d Array (easy)
Solution: Running Sum of 1d Array
Find the Highest Altitude (easy)
Solution: Find the Highest Altitude
Array Transformation (easy)
Solution: Array Transformation
Minimum Increment to Make Array Unique (medium)
Solution: Minimum Increment to Make Array Unique
Maximum Gap (medium)
Solution: Maximum Gap
3.
Hash Table (aka Hashmap or Dictionary)
13 lessons
Introduction to Hashing
Introduction to Hash Tables
Issues with Hash Tables
First Non-repeating Character (easy)
Solution: First Non-repeating Character (easy)
Largest Unique Number (easy)
Solution: Largest Unique Number (easy)
Subarray Sum Equals K (medium)
Solution: Subarray Sum Equals K
Least Number of Unique Integers after K Removals (medium)
Solution: Least Number of Unique Integers after K Removals
Minimum Number of Steps to Make Two Strings Anagram (medium)
Solution: Minimum Number of Steps to Make Two Strings Anagram
4.
Stack
14 lessons
Introduction to Stack
Operations on Stack
Implementing Stack Data Structure
Applications of Stack
Balanced Parentheses (easy)
Solution: Balanced Parentheses
Reverse a String (easy)
Solution: Reverse a String
Decimal to Binary Conversion (medium)
Solution: Decimal to Binary Conversion
Daily Temperatures (medium)
Solution: Daily Temperatures
Evaluate Reverse Polish Notation (medium)
Solution: Evaluate Reverse Polish Notation
5.
Queue
14 lessons
Introduction to Queues
Working with Simple Queues
Diving Deeper – Circular Queues and Deques
Applications and Advanced Concepts
Reverse a Queue (easy)
Solution: Reverse a Queue
Implement Stack using Queues (easy)
Solution: Implement Stack using Queues
Zigzag Iterator (medium)
Solution: Zigzag Iterator
Continuous Subarrays (medium)
Solution: Continuous Subarrays
Sum of Subarray Minimums (medium)
Solution: Sum of Subarray Minimums
6.
HashSet
11 lessons
Introduction to HashSets
Counting Elements (easy)
Solution: Counting Elements
Jewels and Stones (easy)
Solution: Jewels and Stones
Unique Number of Occurrences (easy)
Solution: Unique Number of Occurrences (easy)
Determine if Two Strings Are Close (medium)
Solution: Determine if Two Strings Are Close
Longest Consecutive Sequence (medium)
Solution: Longest Consecutive Sequence
7.
Two Pointers Pattern
11 lessons
Introduction to Two Pointers Pattern
Squaring a Sorted Array (easy)
Solution: Squaring a Sorted Array
Triplet Sum to Zero (medium)
Solution: Triplet Sum to Zero
Quadruple Sum to Target (medium)
Solution: Quadruple Sum to Target
Dutch National Flag Problem (medium)
Solution: Dutch National Flag Problem
Triplets with Smaller Sum (medium)
Solution: Triplets with Smaller Sum
8.
Sliding Window Pattern
9 lessons
Introduction to Sliding Window Pattern
Smallest Subarray With a Greater Sum (easy)
Solution: Smallest Subarray With a Greater Sum
Longest Substring with K Distinct Characters (medium)
Solution: Longest Substring with K Distinct Characters
Longest Substring with Same Letters after Replacement (hard)
Solution: Longest Substring with Same Letters after Replacement
Smallest Window containing Substring (hard)
Solution: Smallest Window containing Substring
9.
Tree BFS/DFS Pattern
12 lessons
Introduction to Tree Breadth First Search Pattern
Introduction to Tree Depth First Search Pattern
All Paths for a Sum (medium)
Solution: All Paths for a Sum
Path With Given Sequence (medium)
Solution: Path With Given Sequence
Tree Diameter (medium)
Solution: Tree Diameter
All Nodes Distance K in Binary Tree (medium)
Solution: All Nodes Distance K in Binary Tree
Even Odd Tree (medium)
Solution: Even Odd Tree
10.
Island (Matrix Traversal) Pattern
11 lessons
Introduction to Island Pattern
Number of Islands (easy)
Solution: Number of Islands
Biggest Island (easy)
Solution: Biggest Island
Number of Closed Islands (easy)
Solution: Number of Closed Islands
Walls and Gates (medium)
Solution: Walls and Gates
Shortest Path in a Grid with Obstacles Elimination (hard)
Solution: Shortest Path in a Grid with Obstacles Elimination
11.
Greedy Algorithm Pattern
11 lessons
Introduction to Greedy Algorithm
Valid Palindrome II (easy)
Solution: Valid Palindrome II
Maximum Length of Pair Chain (medium)
Solution: Maximum Length of Pair Chain
Remove Duplicate Letters (medium)
Solution: Remove Duplicate Letters
Largest Palindromic Number (medium)
Solution: Largest Palindromic Number
Meeting Rooms II (medium)
Solution: Meeting Rooms II
Grokking the System Design Interview
Learn from the original Grokking System Design course. Get 20+ hours of video and text lessons, architecture case studies, and real interview questions.
• 4 Chapters • 82 Lessons
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1.
How to Approach a System Design Interview
7 lessons
What is a System Design Interview?
Understand the purpose of system design interviews, focusing on scalability, architecture decisions, trade-offs, and real-world problem-solving skills.
System Design Interviews - A step by step guide
Functional vs. Non-functional Requirements
Master functional vs. non-functional requirements in system design, emphasizing scalability, performance, and trade-offs for building robust, real-world systems.
What are Back-of-the-Envelope Estimations?
Master back-of-the-envelope estimation to assess scalability, performance, and trade-offs using quick calculations in system design interviews.
System Design Master Template
Things to Avoid During System Design Interview
Learn what to avoid in system design interviews, like skipping trade-offs, ignoring requirements, poor communication, and rigid thinking.
Quiz
2.
System Design Trade-offs
24 lessons
Importance of Discussing Trade-offs
Demonstrating trade-offs shows maturity, critical thinking, and real-world design skills crucial for scalable, practical system architecture.
Latency vs Throughput
Understand the difference between latency and throughput, and explore strategies to optimize response time and data processing capacity in systems.
Horizontal vs Vertical Scaling
Proxy vs. Reverse Proxy
Understand how proxies and reverse proxies manage client and server traffic in distributed system design to improve security, caching, and scalability.
CDN Usage vs Direct Server Serving
Learn when to use a Content Delivery Network vs direct server hosting based on traffic scale, geographic distribution, and caching efficiency.
Load Balancer vs. API Gateway
Understand differences between Load Balancer and API Gateway in scalable architectures—traffic distribution, request routing, API management, and availability.
API Gateway vs Direct Service Exposure
Explore API Gateway vs Direct Service Exposure in distributed systems—compare centralized routing and security with direct access and reduced latency.
Token Bucket vs Leaky Bucket
Learn how Token Bucket and Leaky Bucket algorithms manage network traffic shaping, rate limiting, and handling of bursty data.
Stateful vs Stateless Architecture
Explore the architecture of stateful vs stateless systems, comparing session handling, scalability, and design trade-offs for APIs and web services.
Serverless Architecture vs Traditional Server-based
Learn serverless system design benefits like dynamic scaling and reduced ops versus traditional server hosting with full control and overhead.
REST vs RPC
Learn the architectural differences between REST and RPC, including stateless resource handling vs. procedure calls, flexibility, scalability, and performance trade-offs.
Synchronous vs Asynchronous Communication
NewPush vs Pull Architecture
NewPolling vs. Long-Polling vs. WebSockets vs. Webhooks
Compare real-time delivery strategies; Polling, Long-Polling, WebSockets, and Webhooks, for scalable, event-driven system communication.
Batch Processing vs Stream Processing
Compare batch vs stream processing in system design; complexity, resource efficiency, continuous vs scheduled data flow, and real-time responsiveness.
SQL vs. NoSQL
Compare SQL vs NoSQL databases based on schema structure, scalability, ACID compliance, flexibility, and best use cases in system design.
Normalization vs Denormalization
NewACID vs BASE Properties in Databases
Understand key differences between ACID and BASE database models, balancing consistency, availability, scalability, and fault tolerance in distributed systems.
Strong vs Eventual Consistency
Explore consistency models in distributed systems, comparing strong and eventual consistency in terms of latency, availability, accuracy, and scalability trade-offs.
Primary-Replica vs Peer-to-Peer Replication
Understand Primary-Replica vs Peer-to-Peer replication models, including data flow, consistency, scalability, fault tolerance, and use cases.
Read Heavy vs Write Heavy System
Explore how system design varies for read-heavy and write-heavy workloads with techniques like batching, replication, and data partitioning.
Server-Side Caching vs Client-Side Caching
Understand server-side vs client-side caching, how they differ in location, control, performance impact, and best use across web apps.
Cache-Aside vs Read-Through, Write-Through vs Write-Back
Explore cache read and write strategies for improving read performance, data consistency, and integrity in scalable systems.
Quiz
3.
System Design Problems
31 lessons
Designing a URL Shortening Service like TinyURL
Quiz - Designing URL Shortner
Designing Pastebin
Quiz - Designing Pastebin
Designing Instagram
Quiz - Designing Instagram
Designing Dropbox
Quiz - Designing Dropbox
Designing Facebook Messenger
Quiz - Designing Facebook Messenger
Designing Twitter
Quiz - Designing Twitter
Designing Youtube or Netflix
Quiz - Designing Youtube
Designing Typeahead Suggestion
Quiz - Designing Typeahead Suggestion
Designing an API Rate Limiter
Quiz - Designing an API Rate Limiter
Designing Twitter Search
Quiz - Designing Twitter Search
Designing a Web Crawler
Quiz - Designing a Web Crawler
Designing Facebook’s Newsfeed
Quiz - Designing Facebook’s Newsfeed
Designing Yelp or Nearby Friends
Quiz - Designing Yelp or Nearby Friends
Designing Uber backend
Quiz - Designing Uber backend
Designing Ticketmaster
Quiz - Designing Ticketmaster
Additional Resources
4.
Glossary of System Design Basics
20 lessons
System Design Basics
Get familiar with core system design concepts, key architectural components, and building blocks of scalable, distributed software systems.
Key Characteristics of Distributed Systems
Explore key characteristics of distributed systems, including scalability, reliability, availability, efficiency, fault tolerance, and manageability.
Load Balancing
Learn how load balancing improves scalability and availability by distributing traffic using smart algorithms, health checks, and redundancy techniques.
Load Balancing Algorithms
Proxies
Learn how forward and reverse proxies improve security, caching, and traffic control by mediating communication between clients and servers.
Caching
Learn caching strategies to improve system performance, including cache types, eviction policies, read/write methods, and cache invalidation techniques.
SQL vs. NoSQL
Compare relational and non-relational databases to understand schema flexibility, scalability, ACID compliance, and ideal use cases for each.
Indexes
Understand how database indexes optimize query performance, enable efficient lookups, and impact write operations in large-scale systems.
Data Partitioning
Learn data partitioning techniques, horizontal, vertical, hybrid, and partitioning criteria to scale databases, improve performance, and balance workloads.
Consistent Hashing
Learn the architecture of scalable systems using consistent hashing for efficient data partitioning, replication, and dynamic node management.
Redundancy and Replication
Learn how redundancy and replication improve system reliability and availability through failover strategies and synchronous, asynchronous, and semi-synchronous replication.
CAP Theorem
Understand why distributed systems must trade off between consistency, availability, and partition tolerance, only two of the three can be guaranteed at any time.
PACELC Theorem
Learn how PACELC extends CAP by showing that even without partitions, distributed systems must balance latency and consistency in replicated environments.
Quorum
Design highly available distributed systems using quorum-based consistency models to coordinate read/write operations across replicated nodes.
Leader and Follower
Understand the architecture of leader-based replication in distributed systems for consistent writes, fault tolerance, and coordinated data synchronization.
Heartbeat
Learn how distributed systems use heartbeat signals to detect server failures and maintain reliable request routing and availability.
Checksum
Explore how distributed systems ensure data integrity by using checksums to detect and prevent data corruption during transmission.
Bloom Filters
Explore space-efficient system design using Bloom filters for fast, probabilistic membership checks with minimal memory and no false negatives.
Long-Polling vs WebSockets vs Server-Sent Events
Understand the system design of real-time communication protocols for scalable push-based updates between client and server.
Quiz
Grokking the System Design Interview, Volume II
The advanced successor to the world's best-selling System Design course, designed to help experienced engineers master complex distributed systems and secure L5/L6 roles.
• 22 Chapters • 224 Lessons
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1.
Introduction
3 lessons
2.
Designing YouTube Likes Counter
11 lessons
YouTube Likes Counter: System Definition
YouTube Likes Counter: Requirements
YouTube Likes Counter: Capacity Estimation
YouTube Likes Counter: API Design
YouTube Likes Counter: High-Level Design
YouTube Likes Counter: Database Schema
YouTube Likes Counter: Detailed Component Design
YouTube Likes Counter: Toggles and Idempotency
YouTube Likes Counter: Scalability and Performance
YouTube Likes Counter: Failure Modes and Operations
Quiz
3.
Designing Unique ID Generator
9 lessons
Unique ID Generator: System Definition
Unique ID Generator: Requirements
Unique ID Generator: Capacity Estimation
Unique ID Generator: API Design
Unique ID Generator: High-Level Design
Unique ID Generator: ID Generation Strategies
Unique ID Generator: Scalability and Performance
Unique ID Generator: Failure Modes and Operations
Quiz
4.
Designing Notification Service
10 lessons
Notification System: System Definition
Notification System: Requirements
Notification System: Capacity Estimation
Notification System: API Design
Notification System: High-Level Design
Notification System: Data Storage and Schema
Notification System: Detailed Component Design
Notification System: Scalability and Performance
Notification System: Failure Modes and Operations
Quiz
6.
Design Google Calendar
9 lessons
7.
Designing Gmail
11 lessons
9.
Design a Recommendation System
8 lessons
13.
Designing Reminder Alert System
8 lessons
Reminder Alert System: System Definition
Reminder Alert System: Requirements
Reminder Alert System: Capacity Estimation
Reminder Alert System: High-Level Design
Reminder Alert System: Data Model and Storage
Reminder Alert System: Detailed Component Design
Reminder Alert System: Scalability and Performance
Quiz
14.
System Design Patterns
22 lessons
Introduction: System Design Patterns
1. Bloom Filters
2. Consistent Hashing
3. Quorum
4. Leader and Follower
5. Write-ahead Log
6. Segmented Log
7. High-Water Mark
8. Lease
9. Heartbeat
10. Gossip Protocol
11. Phi Accrual Failure Detection
12. Split Brain
13. Fencing
14. Checksum
15. Vector Clocks
16. CAP Theorem
17. PACELC Theorem
18. Hinted Handoff
19. Read Repair
20. Merkle Trees
Quiz
15.
Dynamo: How to design a key value store?
12 lessons
16.
Cassandra: How to Design a Wide-column NoSQL Database?
12 lessons
17.
Kafka: How to Design a Distributed Messaging System?
13 lessons
18.
Chubby: How to Design a Distributed Locking Service?
14 lessons
19.
HDFS: How to Design File Storage System?
12 lessons
20.
GFS: How to Design a Distributed File System Storage?
15 lessons
Google File System: Introduction
High-level Architecture
Single Master and Large Chunk Size
Metadata
Master Operations
Anatomy of a Read Operation
Anatomy of a Write Operation
Anatomy of an Append Operation
GFS Consistency Model and Snapshotting
Fault Tolerance, High Availability, and Data Integrity
Garbage Collection
Criticism on GFS
Summary: GFS
Quiz: GFS
Rapid-Fire Interview Questions: GFS
21.
BigTable: How to Design a Wide Column Storage System?
15 lessons
BigTable: Introduction
BigTable Data Model
System APIs
Partitioning and High-level Architecture
SSTable
GFS and Chubby
Bigtable Components
Working with Tablets
The Life of BigTable's Read & Write Operations
Fault Tolerance and Compaction
BigTable Refinements
BigTable Characteristics
Summary: BigTable
Quiz: BigTable
Rapid-Fire Interview Questions: BigTable
22.
Final Assessment
2 lessons
Grokking Microservices Design Patterns
Master microservices design patterns for designing scalable, resilient, and more manageable systems.
• 19 Chapters • 158 Lessons
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1.
Introduction
2 lessons
5.
Service Discovery Pattern
11 lessons
What is Service Discovery Pattern?
The Problem: Service Coordination in Distributed Systems
Service Discovery Pattern: A Solution
The Architecture of the Service Discovery Pattern
The Inner Workings of the Service Discovery Pattern
Service Discovery Pattern: An Example
Performance Implications and Special Considerations
System Design Examples
Security Considerations
Flashcards Review
Chapter Assessment
6.
Circuit Breaker Pattern
9 lessons
Introduction
The Problem: The Struggles of Distributed Systems and Service Failures
The Circuit Breaker Pattern: An Effective Shield Against Cascading Failures
Circuit Breaker Pattern: An Example
Performance Implications and Special Considerations
System Design Examples
Summary
Flashcards Review
Chapter Assessment
7.
Bulkhead Pattern
11 lessons
10.
Service Mesh Pattern
10 lessons
11.
Database per Service Pattern
10 lessons
Introduction to Database per Service
The Problem: One Shared Database
Database per Service: A Solution
The Architecture of Database per Service
Database per Service: An Example
Performance Implications and Special Considerations
Use Cases and System Design Examples
Conclusion
Flashcards Review
Chapter Assessment
12.
Saga Pattern
11 lessons
13.
Transactional Outbox Pattern
10 lessons
Introduction to the Transactional Outbox Pattern
The Problem: Dual Writes
The Transactional Outbox: A Solution
The Architecture of the Outbox Pattern
Transactional Outbox: An Example
Performance Implications and Special Considerations
Use Cases and System Design Examples
Conclusion
Flashcards Review
Chapter Assessment
14.
Event-Driven Architecture Pattern
11 lessons
Introduction
The Problem: Managing Complex Interactions in Distributed Systems
Event-Driven Architecture: A Promising Solution
The Architecture of the Event-Driven Architecture Pattern
The Inner Workings of the Event-Driven Architecture Pattern
Event-Driven Architecture Pattern: An Example
Performance Implications and Special Considerations
Use Cases and System Design Examples
Conclusion
Flashcards Review
Chapter Assessment
15.
CQRS (Command Query Responsibility Segregation)
10 lessons
16.
Event Sourcing Pattern
10 lessons
17.
Configuration Externalization Pattern
10 lessons
Introduction
The Problem: Configuration Management in a Microservices Architecture
The Solution: Configuration Externalization Pattern
How Configuration Externalization Works
Configuration Externalization: A Code Example
Considerations and Implications
Use Cases and Real-world Examples
Conclusion
Flashcards Review
Chapter Assessment
18.
Final Exam
1 lesson
19.
Course Wrap-up
1 lesson
Grokking the Engineering Manager Interview
Master the art of engineering management and ace your next big interview!
• 11 Chapters • 45 Lessons
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1.
Introduction
2 lessons
2.
Understanding the Role of an Engineering Manager
4 lessons
3.
The Interview Process for the Engineering Manager Role
3 lessons
4.
Developing the Right Skills
2 lessons
5.
Crafting Your Responses for the Interview
2 lessons
6.
Behavioral Interview Questions
9 lessons
9.
Project Retrospective Interview Questions
4 lessons
10.
Advanced Stages and Preparation
3 lessons
11.
Final Takeaways
2 lessons
Grokking Engineering Leadership Interviews
Master the art of engineering management and ace your next leadership interview with confidence and skill.
• 13 Chapters • 46 Lessons
Hide Contents
1.
Introduction
2 lessons
2.
Understanding Leadership Interviews
2 lessons
3.
Getting Ready for a Leadership Interview
3 lessons
4.
Behavioral and Situational Questions for Leadership Roles
7 lessons
5.
Technical Leadership Questions To Expect
5 lessons
6.
Business Leadership Questions for Interviews
8 lessons
7.
Handling Exceptional Situations
3 lessons
8.
Understanding Different Leadership Styles
3 lessons
9.
Building Emotional Intelligence
3 lessons
10.
Developing Effective Decision Making
3 lessons
11.
Promoting Diversity and Inclusion in Leadership
2 lessons
12.
Leadership Principles
3 lessons
13.
Final Takeaways
2 lessons
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