EXECHORD

Madhuri Mukerjee, San Francisco

A line climbing through the interview rounds, held to a steady line alongside it for the middle of the climb and taking the last step alone

The hiring manager round, prepared properly

One round decides most engineering leadership offers, and it is not the system design. It is the hour with the hiring manager, where they work out whether they want you running part of their org. That is the round I prepare you for, and the only one I take.

Hiring manager rounds

Book a free 15 minute intro

Four questions, so I can read the company and the role before we meet.

Who you are interviewing with, and at what level.
Your profile, plus a job posting or CV if you have one.

Coaching only. I do not pass candidates to companies and I do not take referral fees.

What I store, and for how long, is in the privacy notice.

What a session covers

  • Your leadership stories, rebuilt: which ones to lead with, what to cut, and where each one currently loses the room.
  • The questions this specific manager will ask, drawn from the role, the company, and the stage the org is at.
  • Scope and level, said out loud. Most rejections at this round are a level mismatch nobody names to the candidate.
  • The numbers to bring: team size, scope, delivery, retention, and how to use them without sounding rehearsed.
  • A written read within a day, and a conversation after it: what I would have said in the debrief, ranked, with what to change first.

What it is not

I do not run the full loop. No coding round, no system design, no take-home review. Those are well covered elsewhere and cheaper to practise on your own.

Why that is the point

This is one round, done properly, because it is the round with the least public preparation available and the most influence over the outcome.

How a session runs

  1. 1You send the contextThe company, the role, the level, and your profile. I read the posting and the org before we meet, so the hour is spent on you rather than on background.
  2. 2The round, at full lengthRun the way that manager would run it, at the bar I held. I do not soften it while we are in the room, because that is the whole value.
  3. 3The written and verbal readWithin a day, in writing: what a hiring manager would say about you, what would cost you the offer, and the order to fix it in. Then we talk it through, because the hardest notes land better in conversation than on a page.

Why me

I have been the hiring manager in this round, writing the rubric, sitting in the debrief, and making the call. Not as a panelist brought in for an hour, but as the person the decision belonged to.

I know the sentence that settles these decisions once the candidate leaves, and it is almost always about something they were never told they were being scored on.

Who it is for

Senior and staff engineers moving into management, managers going for director, and directors who have not interviewed externally in years.

It helps most with a live loop booked and a date to work against, though it also works before a promotion conversation, where the questions are much the same.

$300first session  /  $200 each session after  /  intro call free
Hiring manager rounds

Book a free 15 minute intro

Four questions, so I can read the company and the role before we meet.

Who you are interviewing with, and at what level.
Your profile, plus a job posting or CV if you have one.

Coaching only. I do not pass candidates to companies and I do not take referral fees.

What I store, and for how long, is in the privacy notice.