Scale Engineer

Software Engineering Manager

Software Engineering ManagerDirector of EngineeringHigh

The Software Engineering Manager (Director of Engineering) interview at MakeMyTrip is a comprehensive process designed to assess leadership capabilities, technical depth, strategic thinking, and people management skills. Candidates are evaluated on their ability to lead engineering teams, drive technical excellence, foster a positive engineering culture, and contribute to the company's overall business objectives.

Rounds·4

Timeline·~4d

Experience·10 - 15 yrs

Comp band·US$180000 - US$250000

Interview time·225 min

Evaluation

What they measure.

  • Leadership and people management skills
  • Technical vision and strategy
  • Execution and delivery capabilities
  • Cross-functional collaboration and stakeholder management
  • Cultural fit and alignment with MakeMyTrip's values

Preparation

How to prepare.

Tips

  1. Deeply understand MakeMyTrip's business, products, and market position.
  2. Review your past experiences and prepare specific examples using the STAR method (Situation, Task, Action, Result) for behavioral questions.
  3. Brush up on system design principles, scalability, and distributed systems.
  4. Familiarize yourself with modern software development methodologies, CI/CD, and DevOps practices.
  5. Think about your leadership philosophy, team building strategies, and how you foster a positive engineering culture.
  6. Prepare to discuss your approach to managing technical debt, innovation, and performance.
  7. Understand the company's values and be ready to articulate how you align with them.
  8. Research common interview questions for engineering managers and directors.
  9. Prepare thoughtful questions to ask the interviewers about the role, team, and company.

Study plan

Fig · Study plan — 04 phases

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01

Phase 01 of 04

Company & Self-Assessment

Weeks 1-2: MakeMyTrip business & product analysis, career history review, STAR story preparation.

Weeks 1-2: Deep dive into MakeMyTrip's business model, products (web and mobile), recent news, and competitive landscape. Understand their technology stack and engineering challenges. Review your career history, identifying key leadership achievements and challenges. Prepare STAR stories for common leadership and technical scenarios.

Questions

Commonly asked.

  • Describe your leadership style and how you motivate engineering teams.
  • How do you balance the need for speed and innovation with maintaining system stability and quality?
  • Tell me about a time you had to manage a significant technical challenge or failure. What did you learn?
  • How do you approach performance management and career development for your engineers?
  • Describe your experience with building and scaling engineering teams.
  • How do you foster a culture of collaboration and knowledge sharing within your team and across departments?
  • What are your strategies for managing technical debt?
  • How do you stay current with technology trends and ensure your team does the same?
  • Tell me about a time you had to influence stakeholders or other teams to adopt your technical vision.
  • How do you handle conflict within your team or with other departments?
  • What are your thoughts on the future of travel technology and MakeMyTrip's role in it?
  • Describe a time you had to make a difficult decision that impacted your team. What was the outcome?
  • How do you prioritize work for your team when faced with competing demands?
  • What metrics do you use to measure the success of your team and your own performance as a manager?
  • How do you ensure effective communication with both technical and non-technical stakeholders?

Locations

Regional differences.

Fig · Regions — 02 locations

01 / 02

Location

Gurugram, India

Interview focus

Understanding of the Indian tech landscape and talent pool.Familiarity with local market dynamics and competitive hiring practices.Ability to adapt leadership style to diverse cultural backgrounds within the team.Experience with scaling engineering operations in a high-growth environment, potentially with a focus on mobile-first strategies relevant to the Indian market.

Common questions

  • How do you handle conflicts within your team, especially between senior and junior engineers?
  • Describe a time you had to make a difficult trade-off between technical debt and feature delivery. What was your decision-making process?
  • How do you foster innovation and encourage experimentation within your team?
  • What are your strategies for attracting and retaining top engineering talent in the current market?
  • How do you measure the success of your engineering teams and individual engineers?
  • Describe your experience with cloud-native architectures and microservices. How have you led teams in adopting these technologies?
  • How do you ensure the quality and reliability of software delivered by your teams?
  • What is your approach to performance management and career development for your engineers?
  • How do you stay updated with the latest technology trends and ensure your team does as well?
  • Tell me about a time you had to manage a project with significant technical challenges or unforeseen obstacles.

Tips

  • Emphasize experience with scaling teams and products in a fast-paced, competitive market.
  • Highlight any experience working with or managing teams in India or similar emerging markets.
  • Be prepared to discuss strategies for building a strong engineering culture that resonates with local talent.
  • Showcase your understanding of MakeMyTrip's business and its position in the travel industry.

Rounds

Round-by-round.

Expand a step for evaluation criteria, sample questions, and prep notes.

DSA

Coding questions at MakeMyTrip.

Frequently reported on MakeMyTrip loops

View all at MakeMyTrip

Other guides

More at MakeMyTrip.