Makes you wonder why some (too many, really) companies are putting SE managers through the same coding interviews that they do with junior engineers.
As it turns out, when you've been a manager for years and years, coding hasn't been part of your daily work for about just as long. And when you decide to join another company, to continue to work in a managerial position, there's gonna be just as little coding there.
But still they insist you to do the same cookie-cutter DS and Algo questions.
(Note: this obviously doesn't apply for every company - but there seems to be a lot of cargo-culting going on, and trying to generalize the interview process for everyone in the industry)
Was at a very fast growing tech company until a couple of months ago on one of the core teams and while we did put engineering managers through coding and design interviews, they were not held to the same standard as a staff or sr staff level engineer.
The main goal was to understand how they approached problem solving and handled things they may not know since that was a key ability we wanted in our managers. Managers still need to be technical, even if they aren't coding on a day to day.
So while the questions may be the same, the way they are graded/evaluated may not have been the same.
having the ability to code on a basic level is actually a desirable trait in a SE manager. It helps when communicating the day-to-day. It also makes it easier to have conversations surrounding technical debt
Makes you wonder why some (too many, really) companies are putting SE managers through the same coding interviews that they do with junior engineers.
As it turns out, when you've been a manager for years and years, coding hasn't been part of your daily work for about just as long. And when you decide to join another company, to continue to work in a managerial position, there's gonna be just as little coding there.
But still they insist you to do the same cookie-cutter DS and Algo questions.
(Note: this obviously doesn't apply for every company - but there seems to be a lot of cargo-culting going on, and trying to generalize the interview process for everyone in the industry)