What is an Engineering Manager?

An Engineering Manager at ABB leads multi-disciplinary engineering teams that design, deliver, and sustain solutions powering industry—across Electrification, Motion (drives and motors), Process Automation, and Robotics & Discrete Automation. You convert strategy into engineered outcomes: safe, reliable systems that scale in the field, integrate with complex customer environments, and meet stringent compliance targets. Your impact is measured in uptime, safety, energy efficiency, lifecycle cost, and customer trust.

In practice, you will guide teams building and integrating systems such as power management systems (PMS) for energy-intensive facilities, LV/MV drives for HVACR and motion applications, PLC/DCS/SCADA architectures for industrial automation, and digital integrations through ABB Ability platforms. You balance roadmap priorities, delivery commitments, and field realities—while coaching engineers, aligning cross-functional stakeholders, and ensuring design-for-excellence standards.

This role is compelling because it sits at the intersection of engineering rigor, operational excellence, and customer value creation. Whether you are enabling a high-availability data center cooling architecture, modernizing a utility substation with IEC-compliant protection, or delivering a controls retrofit to extend equipment life, you will feel the direct impact of your decisions on the grid, on plants, and on sustainability goals.

Getting Ready for Your Interviews

You will be assessed on how well you combine technical depth, delivery discipline, and people leadership to achieve outcomes in a safety‑critical, customer‑driven context. Calibrate your preparation across domain mastery (ABB-relevant systems), structured decision-making, stakeholder influence, and a proven record of delivering complex programs on time, on budget, and to spec.

• Role-related Knowledge (Technical/Domain Skills) - Interviewers will probe your understanding of domains relevant to ABB (e.g., power systems, drives, automation, controls, industrial networking, safety standards). Demonstrate command of architectures, tradeoffs, and constraints. Use concrete examples with metrics (availability, MTTR/MTBF, energy savings, commissioning time).
• Problem-Solving Ability (How you approach challenges) - Expect scenario-based questions on ambiguous, multi-variable problems. Show how you define the problem, structure hypotheses, quantify risks, and converge on decisions under time and safety constraints. Highlight data sources, simulation/prototyping, and validation plans.
• Leadership (How you influence and mobilize others) - You will be evaluated on team building, coaching, feedback, delegation, and leading through change. Provide examples of raising engineering quality, resolving conflict, and building high-trust collaboration across functions (product, sales, service, manufacturing, compliance).
• Culture Fit (How you work with teams and navigate ambiguity) - ABB values safety-first thinking, customer obsession, integrity, and continuous improvement. Show how you operate in a matrix, align stakeholders with different incentives, and drive results while upholding quality, compliance, and inclusion.

Interview Process Overview

The ABB Engineering Manager interview process balances technical rigor with operational and leadership depth. You will see a mix of architecture/system design discussions, delivery and program execution deep dives, and behavioral interviews focused on how you lead people, manage risk, and collaborate in a global matrix. The pace is professional and structured; expect each conversation to build on prior discussions for a holistic view of your fit.

ABB’s philosophy emphasizes real-world applicability. You will be asked to reason about customer environments (e.g., data centers, utilities, marine, manufacturing), interface with standards and safety, and factor in lifecycle considerations like commissioning, serviceability, and upgrade paths. The tone is direct, with interviewers seeking clarity in your decisions, not just outcomes.

You should anticipate cross-functional exposure, with interviewers from engineering, product/portfolio, operations/project management, and occasionally sales/service for customer-oriented roles. Prepare to translate technical choices into business impact and vice versa, demonstrating fluency across both.

This visual lays out the typical progression—from initial screening to panel evaluations and final alignment. Use it to plan your preparation focus and logistics (e.g., time for a system design whiteboard, leadership panel, or scenario case). Build a concise portfolio of examples you can reuse across rounds, and keep a ready list of clarifying questions to tailor your responses to each interviewer’s perspective.

Deep Dive into Evaluation Areas

Technical Systems & Domain Mastery

Technical fluency is assessed through system design, integration tradeoffs, and domain-specific problem solving. Interviewers will test your ability to design robust, safe, and maintainable systems that meet real-world constraints.

Be ready to go over:

• Power and Controls Architectures: PMS fundamentals, LV/MV drives, PLC/DCS/SCADA layers, redundancy/availability, and fail-safes.
• Industrial Networking & Protocols: Modbus, Profibus/Profinet, OPC UA, IEC 61850; segregation, latency, determinism, cybersecurity boundaries.
• Engineering for Operations: Commissioning strategies, diagnostics, condition monitoring, maintainability, spares/obsolescence.
• Advanced concepts (less common): Grid-interactive data centers, microgrids, selective coordination, SIL/functional safety (IEC 61508/62061), arc-flash mitigation, model-based systems engineering, digital twins, ETAP/SKM studies.

Example questions or scenarios:

• "Design a high-availability control and drives architecture for a hyperscale data center cooling application; justify redundancy and control loops."
• "How would you integrate a new PMS into an existing facility with mixed-vendor gear while meeting IEC 61850 and cybersecurity requirements?"
• "A retrofit must cut commissioning time by 30%. What design-for-commissioning tactics would you apply?"

Engineering Leadership & People Management

Your ability to build, coach, and scale teams is central. Interviewers will look for how you raise the bar on engineering quality while keeping teams engaged and accountable.

Be ready to go over:

• Team Building & Coaching: Hiring signals, onboarding, capability matrices, growth plans, performance management.
• Engineering Excellence: Design reviews, FMEAs, verification/validation gates, documentation standards, change control.
• Operating Rhythm: Capacity planning, sprint/PI planning, risk reviews, stakeholder updates, cross-site collaboration.
• Advanced concepts (less common): Org design in a matrix, centers of excellence, succession planning, knowledge management at scale.

Example questions or scenarios:

• "Describe a time you turned around an underperforming engineering team. What changed within 90 days?"
• "How do you structure design and safety reviews to catch issues early without slowing delivery?"
• "Walk us through how you mentor a senior IC versus a first-time tech lead."

Program Delivery & Execution Excellence

You will be tested on delivering complex, multi-stakeholder programs with hard constraints. Expect probing on planning, risk management, and measurable outcomes.

Be ready to go over:

• Scoping & Estimation: Work breakdown, ROM vs. definitive estimates, contingency, earned value fundamentals.
• Risk & Change Control: RAID logs, decision frameworks, contract variations, claims prevention.
• Field Realities: Site readiness, access, HSE plans, FAT/SAT, commissioning windows, vendor lead times.
• Advanced concepts (less common): Multi-EPC coordination, phased cutovers with zero downtime, supply chain risk hedging.

Example questions or scenarios:

• "A critical vendor slips 8 weeks. How do you protect the commissioning window and margin?"
• "Show how you’d stage FAT/SAT to de-risk a brownfield controls upgrade."
• "Tell us about a decision where you traded features for schedule. What data did you use?"

Stakeholder, Customer, and Commercial Orientation

ABB Engineering Managers often influence specifications, collaborate with sales/channel, and align solutions to customer value. Interviewers will explore how you balance technical integrity with commercial outcomes.

Be ready to go over:

• Requirements & Value Discovery: Voice-of-customer, critical-to-quality, accept/reject criteria, total cost of ownership.
• Cross-Functional Alignment: Working with product management, service, sales/channel, and supply chain.
• Commercial Acumen: Margin-aware decisions, warranty/penalty clauses, lifecycle services, pricing implications of design choices.
• Advanced concepts (less common): Channel enablement, AVL (Approved Vendor List) dynamics, industry standardization.

Example questions or scenarios:

• "How have you influenced an end user or EPC spec to align with your product strengths without compromising requirements?"
• "Describe a time you partnered with service to reduce warranty failures via a design change."
• "How do you defend a costlier design when it improves lifecycle value?"

Safety, Quality, and Compliance in Industrial Contexts

Expect targeted questions on how you embed HSE, functional safety, and quality systems into everyday engineering. Demonstrate a proactive, auditable approach.

Be ready to go over:

• Standards & Codes: IEC, IEEE/NFPA, UL/CE, SIL allocation, arc-flash boundaries, lockout/tagout considerations in design.
• Quality Systems: Nonconformance handling, root cause (5-Why/Fishbone), CAPA, audit readiness, documentation.
• Cyber & Data: Segmentation, secure remote access, patching/firmware governance, OT/IT interfaces.
• Advanced concepts (less common): Safety case dossiers, probabilistic risk assessment, secure-by-design in legacy brownfields.

Example questions or scenarios:

• "How do you allocate SIL in a mixed-vendor safety loop, and verify it at FAT/SAT?"
• "Walk through a quality escape you owned. What changed in your design controls?"
• "How would you implement secure remote diagnostics for a critical system?"

This word cloud highlights recurring technical and leadership themes in ABB Engineering Manager interviews—expect emphasis on drives, PMS, PLC/DCS/SCADA, safety, commissioning, and program delivery. Use it to calibrate your preparation depth and prioritize the vocabulary and concepts you can speak to with authority.

Key Responsibilities

As an Engineering Manager at ABB, you will lead teams delivering engineered solutions from concept to commissioning and lifecycle support. You translate business objectives into roadmaps, build robust plans, and ensure on-time, safe, and compliant delivery across sites and partners.

You will collaborate extensively across product/portfolio management, sales/channel, service, operations/manufacturing, and supply chain to align specifications, manage risks, and meet customer commitments. Expect to manage multi-site execution and interface with EPCs, end users, and certifying bodies.

• Own engineering quality and standards: design reviews, safety validation, documentation, and configuration control.
• Guide system architecture and integration: select topologies, interfaces, and redundancy strategies; enforce cybersecurity and safety.
• Plan and track delivery: estimates, staffing, milestones, FAT/SAT, commissioning; escalate and resolve blockers proactively.
• Develop people: recruit, coach, set goals, conduct performance reviews, and create growth pathways for engineers and leads.
• Engage customers and partners: translate requirements, influence specifications, manage changes, and communicate status and risks.
• Drive continuous improvement: reduce commissioning time, defects, and lifecycle costs; standardize modules and playbooks.

Role Requirements & Qualifications

Strong candidates blend deep domain expertise with people leadership and delivery excellence. ABB values leaders who can dive into technical details when needed, then elevate to portfolio and commercial perspectives.

• Must-have technical skills:

  • Systems/Controls: PLC/DCS/SCADA architectures, drives/motion control, controls theory basics, redundancy/fail-safe patterns
  • Power/Protection (as relevant): PMS fundamentals, LV/MV distribution, protection coordination, short-circuit/arc-flash awareness
  • Industrial connectivity: Modbus, Profibus/Profinet, OPC UA, IEC 61850; network segmentation and cybersecurity basics
  • Engineering process: requirements, FMEA, V&V, change control, FAT/SAT, commissioning best practices

• Must-have leadership and execution:

  • Team leadership: hiring, coaching, feedback, delegation, performance management in a matrix/global setup
  • Program management: scoping/estimating, risk/change management, stakeholder communication, cross-functional alignment
  • Quality & safety: working knowledge of IEC/IEEE/NFPA/UL/CE; CAPA, audit readiness, documentation discipline

• Tools exposure (typical, role-dependent):

  • Project/DevOps: Jira or Azure DevOps, MS Project, Confluence
  • Design/Analysis (domain-specific): ETAP/SKM (power), EPLAN/AutoCAD Electrical, MATLAB/Simulink (controls), version control for configurations
  • Business systems: SAP/ERP basics, Salesforce/CRM for customer-facing roles, Power BI for reporting

• Nice-to-have (differentiators):

  • Experience with ABB portfolios (e.g., ABB Ability, LV/MV drives, 800xA/DCS ecosystems)
  • Exposure to data centers, utilities, marine, mining, water/wastewater, pharma, or other regulated industries
  • Functional safety certification (e.g., TÜV FS Engineer), IEC 61850 integration projects, digital twin/model-based systems engineering
  • Proven work with channel/EPC/OEM ecosystems and AVL inclusion processes

This visualization provides compensation ranges for Engineering Manager roles, segmented by level and location, including base, bonus, and where applicable, long-term incentives. Use it to calibrate expectations; ABB compensation varies by business (Electrification, Motion, Process Automation, Robotics), market, and experience. Come prepared with a data-backed range and a clear view of your tradeoffs (scope, travel, location, team size).

Common Interview Questions

Expect a mix of technical, delivery, and leadership questions tailored to ABB’s domains. Prepare brief, outcome-oriented stories using the Situation–Task–Action–Result structure, and be ready to draw diagrams for system design prompts.

Technical / Domain

This area tests your command of ABB-relevant systems and engineering tradeoffs.

• How would you architect a redundant LV drive system for a mission-critical HVACR application in a data center?
• Describe your approach to integrating a PMS with existing protection relays and SCADA while meeting IEC 61850 and cybersecurity constraints.
• What design-for-commissioning practices reduce on-site time without sacrificing safety?
• How do you evaluate make/buy and vendor selection for key components in a brownfield upgrade?
• Explain how you would structure a FAT to de-risk a complex controls retrofit.

System Design / Architecture

You will translate requirements into scalable, safe, and maintainable architectures.

• Sketch a high-availability control architecture with clear failure modes and mitigations.
• Propose an integration plan for mixed-vendor gear ensuring interoperability and lifecycle support.
• How do you handle obsolescence and spares strategy in long-lifecycle industrial systems?
• Walk through network segmentation for OT/IT with secure remote diagnostics.
• Discuss tradeoffs between centralized vs. distributed control for a large facility.

Behavioral / Leadership

Interviewers will probe how you build teams, resolve conflict, and drive excellence.

• Tell me about a time you raised engineering quality across a team—what mechanisms did you implement?
• Describe a difficult feedback conversation and how it changed performance.
• How do you prevent burnout while maintaining delivery pace during a high-stakes program?
• Share an example of building cross-functional alignment when incentives conflicted.
• What’s your philosophy on delegation vs. diving deep as a manager?

Program Delivery / Case Studies

Be ready for scenarios that require structured, metric-driven decision-making.

• A vendor slip threatens a fixed commissioning window—what are your mitigations and decision checkpoints?
• You discover a scope gap post-award—how do you quantify impact and manage change?
• Show how you track and communicate risks to customers and executives.
• Describe a time you traded scope for schedule—how did you protect safety and quality?
• How do you measure success beyond on-time/on-budget (e.g., defects, MTBF, energy savings)?

Safety, Quality, and Compliance

You must show proactive, auditable approaches to safety and quality.

• How do you allocate and verify SIL in a safety loop?
• Walk through a root-cause analysis you led and the CAPA you institutionalized.
• How do you ensure documentation quality across global teams?
• What is your approach to arc-flash risk mitigation in design and field work?
• How do you enforce cybersecurity controls without impeding maintainability?

Use this interactive module to practice by category and difficulty. We recommend rehearsing concise, outcome-centric answers and iterating based on feedback to tighten your narrative and technical clarity.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: How difficult is the interview and how much time should I allocate to prepare?
Allocate 2–3 weeks of focused preparation. Difficulty is moderate-to-high given the breadth (technical, delivery, leadership); prioritizing ABB-relevant domains and practicing system design and case scenarios will materially improve outcomes.

Q: What differentiates successful candidates?
Clear systems thinking, strong safety/quality instincts, and a track record of delivering complex programs in industrial contexts. They communicate crisply across audiences and demonstrate how they scale people, processes, and architecture.

Q: What is the culture like on engineering teams?
Professional, safety-first, and customer-focused. Teams operate globally and value collaboration, accountability, and continuous improvement—expect structured rhythms and data-driven decisions.

Q: What is the typical timeline from first interview to offer?
Timelines vary by business and region, but plan for several weeks to complete technical and leadership discussions, references, and alignment. Keep your availability flexible for cross-time-zone panels.

Q: Is the role on-site, hybrid, or remote?
Many engineering leadership roles are hybrid with site and customer visits for FAT/SAT and commissioning. Some teams operate remotely across regions; expect travel aligned to project phases and business needs.

Other General Tips

• Anchor everything in safety and standards: Open with how you enforce IEC/IEEE/NFPA/UL/CE and functional safety; it signals ABB-ready judgment.
• Diagram your thinking: For architecture prompts, sketch layers, interfaces, redundancy, and failure modes. Narrate tradeoffs and validation plans.
• Quantify impact: Tie outcomes to KPIs—availability, commissioning time, defect rates, energy savings, lifecycle cost.
• Show mechanism, not heroics: Describe repeatable processes (design reviews, FMEAs, CAPA, playbooks) that scale across teams and sites.
• Know ABB’s portfolios: Be conversant in drives, PMS, PLC/DCS/SCADA, and ABB Ability; connect your examples to these ecosystems where relevant.

Summary & Next Steps

As an ABB Engineering Manager, you will lead teams that design and deliver systems the world depends on—safely, reliably, and sustainably. The role blends deep technical judgment, operational excellence, and people leadership to create measurable customer value across complex industrial environments.

Focus your preparation on five areas: domain mastery (drives, PMS, controls, standards), system design under real constraints, program delivery with risk and change control, leadership that scales quality and performance, and customer/commercial fluency. Practice concise, data-backed stories and build a versatile set of diagrams you can adapt in the moment.

Use the modules above to rehearse likely questions and calibrate expectations. Approach each conversation with clarity, ownership, and a safety-first mindset. You’re ready to lead teams that run what runs the world—bring your best, and show us how you’ll raise the bar.