What is an Engineering Manager at CHEP?

As an Engineering Manager at CHEP, you are stepping into a pivotal leadership role at the heart of the global supply chain. CHEP is renowned for its pioneering circular economy model, managing the world’s largest pool of reusable pallets, crates, and containers. In this role, you will lead the engineering initiatives that keep this massive, complex network running efficiently, sustainably, and safely.

Your impact extends far beyond standard engineering deliverables. You will be responsible for driving automation, optimizing facility layouts, implementing process improvements, and leading cross-functional teams to solve high-stakes logistical challenges. The work you do directly influences the operational efficiency of global supply chains, affecting how essential goods are transported worldwide.

Expect a role that blends deep technical oversight with strategic business leadership. You will not only manage projects and personnel but also identify new business opportunities where engineering can drive value. Whether you are modernizing plant infrastructure, integrating new automation technologies, or mentoring the next generation of engineers, this role requires a leader who is comfortable with scale, complexity, and continuous improvement.

Common Interview Questions

The questions below represent the types of inquiries candidates face during the CHEP interview process. While you should not memorize answers, you should use these to practice structuring your thoughts, particularly around the Lominger competencies and your past business impact.

Lominger and Behavioral Questions

This category tests your core leadership traits, your emotional intelligence, and your ability to navigate complex interpersonal dynamics.

• Tell me about a time you had to manage a conflict between two of your team members.
• Describe a situation where you had to adapt your leadership style to achieve a goal.
• Give an example of how you have developed a subordinate's career.
• Tell me about a time you had to make a swift decision without having all the necessary information.
• How do you prioritize tasks when everything seems like a high priority?

Project Successes and Failures

These questions assess your humility, your analytical skills, and your ability to deliver results.

• Walk me through your most significant engineering achievement. What was your specific contribution?
• Tell me about a project that failed or missed its deadline. What went wrong, and what would you do differently?
• How do you handle a situation where a project is going over budget?
• Describe a time you had to recover a failing project.
• What metrics do you use to define the success of an engineering implementation?

Strategic and Business Impact Questions

These questions evaluate your ability to think like a business leader and drive value beyond basic engineering tasks.

• How would you approach identifying new business aspects or process improvements in your first 90 days?
• Tell me about a time you successfully pitched a high-cost engineering project to senior leadership.
• How do you ensure your engineering goals align with the broader company strategy?
• Describe a time you improved the efficiency of a physical process or facility. What was the ROI?

Getting Ready for Your Interviews

Preparing for the Engineering Manager interview at CHEP requires a strategic approach. Interviewers will look beyond your technical acumen to evaluate your leadership style, your strategic mindset, and your ability to navigate complex business environments.

Focus your preparation on these key evaluation criteria:

• Lominger Competencies – CHEP relies heavily on the Lominger (Korn Ferry) competency framework to evaluate candidates. Interviewers will assess traits like dealing with ambiguity, drive for results, building effective teams, and problem-solving. You must demonstrate these competencies through concrete, behavioral examples.
• Strategic Business Impact – Interviewers want to see how your engineering decisions drive bottom-line results. You will be evaluated on your ability to identify new business aspects, optimize processes, and deliver measurable ROI.
• Resilience and Problem-Solving – You will be asked to discuss both your successes and your failures. CHEP values leaders who can candidly analyze past project failures, extract actionable lessons, and apply them to future challenges.
• Proven Track Record – Your ability to visually and verbally articulate past successes is critical. Candidates who bring a well-structured portfolio of past projects and achievements often stand out in the evaluation process.

Interview Process Overview

The interview process for an Engineering Manager at CHEP is thorough, structured, and highly focused on your past experiences. You will typically begin with a 30-minute phone screen with an HR Director or recruiter. This initial conversation covers your background, your interest in CHEP, and a high-level overview of your career successes and failures. It is designed to ensure baseline alignment with the role and company culture.

Following the HR screen, candidates usually advance to a rigorous panel or 1-on-2 interview, often featuring the Direct Hiring Manager and a Division Senior Director. This stage is highly detailed. Interviewers will dig deep into how your specific experiences translate to the job at hand. The pace can be fast, and the expectations are high—you will be challenged to explain exactly what value you bring to the table and how you intend to make a tangible difference in the business.

This visual timeline outlines the typical progression from the initial HR screening through the final leadership interviews. Use this to pace your preparation, ensuring you are ready for high-level behavioral discussions early on, and deep, strategic business-impact conversations in the final rounds. Note that while the process is rigorous, it is often executed quickly, meaning you should have your examples and portfolio prepared before your first phone call.

Deep Dive into Evaluation Areas

To succeed in the CHEP interview process, you must master the specific areas that hiring managers prioritize. Below is a detailed breakdown of the core competencies you will be evaluated against.

The Lominger Competency Framework

CHEP has a well-documented tendency to utilize Lominger competency interview questions. This framework assesses the underlying behaviors that drive success in leadership roles. Strong performance here means providing highly structured, STAR-method answers that map directly to core competencies like Action Orientation, Strategic Agility, and Directing Others.

Be ready to go over:

• Dealing with Ambiguity – How you lead teams through uncertain, shifting project requirements.
• Drive for Results – Your track record of pushing projects across the finish line despite obstacles.
• Managerial Courage – How you handle difficult conversations with stakeholders or underperforming team members.
• Advanced concepts (less common) – Organizational agility, managing vision and purpose, and building peer relationships across global matrixed teams.

Example questions or scenarios:

• "Tell me about a time you had to lead a critical engineering project with incomplete data or shifting requirements."
• "Describe a situation where you had to push back on a senior stakeholder to ensure the safety or quality of an engineering deliverable."

Managing Successes and Failures

Interviewers at CHEP are highly interested in your professional resilience. They will explicitly ask about projects that did not go as planned. A strong candidate does not shy away from failure but rather uses it to demonstrate growth, accountability, and improved risk management.

Be ready to go over:

• Root Cause Analysis – How you identify what went wrong without assigning undue blame.
• Course Correction – The immediate steps you took to mitigate damage during a failing project.
• Process Improvement – How you changed your engineering or management approach based on a past failure.

Example questions or scenarios:

• "Walk me through an engineering project that failed to meet its objectives. What was your role, and what did you learn?"
• "Describe your most successful project to date. What specific leadership actions did you take to ensure that success?"

Strategic Value and New Business Aspects

As an Engineering Manager, you are expected to be a business partner, not just a technical executor. You will be evaluated on your ability to look at an operational network and identify areas for cost reduction, automation, and efficiency.

Be ready to go over:

• ROI and Capital Expenditure (CapEx) – How you justify the cost of new engineering initiatives.
• Automation and Innovation – Your experience introducing new technologies to legacy operational environments.
• Cross-Functional Synergy – How your engineering solutions make life easier for the operations, safety, and logistics teams.

Example questions or scenarios:

• "If you were hired, how would you identify new opportunities to drive efficiency in our service centers?"
• "Explain a time when your engineering initiative directly resulted in a measurable increase in business profitability."

Key Responsibilities

As an Engineering Manager at CHEP, your daily responsibilities will bridge the gap between high-level strategy and on-the-ground execution. You will be tasked with overseeing the engineering lifecycle for multiple service centers or operational facilities. This includes leading capital projects, from initial scoping and budget approval through to installation, commissioning, and handover to the operations team.

You will collaborate heavily with plant managers, supply chain directors, and health and safety personnel. A significant part of your role involves analyzing current facility performance and designing automation or process engineering upgrades to increase throughput and reduce equipment downtime. You will also be responsible for managing external vendors, negotiating contracts, and ensuring that all engineering work complies with CHEP's strict safety and environmental standards.

Beyond project execution, you will act as a mentor and leader to a team of engineers and technicians. You will set performance goals, conduct reviews, and foster a culture of continuous improvement using Lean or Six Sigma methodologies. Your ultimate deliverable is a more robust, cost-effective, and scalable operational network.

Role Requirements & Qualifications

To be a competitive candidate for the Engineering Manager position at CHEP, you need a blend of technical expertise, operational experience, and proven leadership capabilities.

• Must-have skills – A bachelor's degree in Engineering (Mechanical, Industrial, Electrical, or similar). Extensive experience in project management, specifically handling large CapEx projects. Proven ability to lead and develop engineering teams. Deep understanding of health, safety, and environmental (HSE) regulations in an industrial setting.
• Nice-to-have skills – Certifications in Lean Six Sigma (Green or Black Belt) or PMP. Experience with industrial automation, robotics, or material handling systems. Familiarity with circular economy principles or global supply chain logistics.
• Soft skills – Exceptional stakeholder management. The ability to translate complex engineering concepts into clear business cases for non-technical executives. High emotional intelligence and adaptability.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: How deeply should I prepare for the Lominger competency questions? You should prepare extensively. CHEP heavily relies on this framework. Review the standard Lominger competencies (like Drive for Results, Dealing with Ambiguity, and Strategic Agility) and map at least two STAR-method stories to each core competency.

Q: Is it really necessary to bring a portfolio to the interview? While not strictly mandatory, candidates who bring a well-organized portfolio of past successes stand out significantly. A portfolio demonstrating project timelines, before-and-after metrics, and clear ROI helps interviewers visualize the exact value you will bring to CHEP.

Q: What is the culture like for an Engineering Manager at CHEP? The culture is highly operational, data-driven, and focused on continuous improvement. Because CHEP operates a massive physical supply chain, leaders are expected to be hands-on, safety-conscious, and highly collaborative with plant operations teams.

Q: How difficult is the interview process? Candidates consistently rate the process as difficult but positive. The difficulty stems from the interviewers' demand for highly specific details regarding your past business impact and how you handle failure. Expect to be pushed for specifics on numbers, budgets, and exact methodologies.

Q: How long does the interview process typically take? The process is often described as "very quick." Once you pass the initial HR screen, leadership interviews are usually scheduled promptly. You should be fully prepared for deep-dive technical and behavioral questions from day one.

Other General Tips

• Prepare a Physical or Digital Portfolio: Document your past successes, project layouts, and ROI metrics. Being able to show, rather than just tell, how you improved a process or facility is a massive differentiator at CHEP.
• Master the STAR Method for Lominger: When answering competency questions, strictly use the Situation, Task, Action, Result format. Ensure the "Action" focuses heavily on your specific leadership decisions, and the "Result" includes quantifiable business metrics.

• Understand the Circular Economy: CHEP's entire business model is based on "share and reuse" (pooling pallets and containers). Frame your engineering mindset around sustainability, asset durability, and long-term network efficiency.
• Focus on Cross-Functional Collaboration: Emphasize your ability to work with non-engineering stakeholders. An Engineering Manager at CHEP must build strong relationships with operations, safety, and supply chain leaders to successfully implement changes.

Summary & Next Steps

Securing the Engineering Manager role at CHEP is an opportunity to lead high-impact initiatives within one of the world's most sustainable and expansive supply chain networks. You will be challenged to bring both technical excellence and strategic business vision to the table, driving efficiencies that have a global footprint.

This compensation data provides a baseline for what you might expect in this role, factoring in base salary and potential bonuses. Use this information to benchmark your expectations and negotiate confidently, keeping in mind that total compensation often scales with your level of experience and the specific regional market.

To succeed, focus your preparation on mastering the Lominger competencies, clearly articulating your past successes and failures, and demonstrating how your engineering leadership directly improves business outcomes. Build your portfolio, refine your STAR stories, and approach your interviews with the confidence of a seasoned leader ready to make a difference. For more detailed insights, question banks, and peer experiences, continue your preparation on Dataford. You have the experience and the skills—now it is time to showcase them effectively. Good luck!