Stakeholder Collaboration & Project Delivery

This area evaluates your project management capabilities and how you interface with business partners, product managers, and client-facing teams.

Be ready to go over:

• Agile Delivery – Planning sprints, managing backlogs, and ensuring predictable delivery cycles.
• Cross-Functional Communication – Translating complex technical constraints into clear business terms for non-technical stakeholders.
• Client & Partner Relationships – Showcasing client relationship skills and aligning engineering output with partner needs.
• Advanced concepts – Managing complex dependencies across multiple platform teams and negotiating product feature scope.

Example scenarios:

• Describing how you managed a high-priority, cross-functional project that required tight integration with an external brand partner's API.
• Explaining how you handle a situation where a product manager continuously introduces scope creep mid-sprint.

As an Engineering Manager at Fetch, your day-to-day responsibilities will span technical leadership, people management, and cross-functional execution. You will be expected to:

• Lead and manage a team of 6 to 10 software engineers, providing regular feedback, conducting 1-on-1s, and guiding career growth.
• Own the technical delivery of your team's services, ensuring high system availability, security, and performance.
• Collaborate closely with product managers and business stakeholders to define the team's roadmap, prioritize tasks, and manage dependencies.
• Remain hands-on enough to participate in code reviews, guide system design decisions, and occasionally contribute to technical spikes or prototypes.
• Drive engineering excellence by championing modern software development practices, automated testing, and robust CI/CD pipelines.
• Interface with partner-facing teams (such as PD Partners) to ensure external integration requirements are met efficiently.

Fetch seeks highly technical engineering leaders who have a proven track record of delivering robust software at scale. The ideal candidate possesses a blend of the following qualifications:

• Must-have skills & experience:

  • Robust experience in software engineering, with a strong background in backend development (e.g., Go, Python, Java, or Kotlin).
  • Proven track record of managing and mentoring software engineering teams in an agile environment.
  • Strong system design skills with experience building and scaling distributed systems in cloud environments (AWS, GCP, or Azure).
  • Excellent communication skills, with a demonstrated ability to collaborate with business leaders and manage stakeholder expectations.

• Nice-to-have skills & experience:

  • Experience working in high-growth startup environments or scale-ups.
  • Background in loyalty programs, ad-tech, e-commerce, or high-volume transactional platforms.
  • Experience managing client-facing integrations or partnering directly with external business clients.

Q: How technical is the Engineering Manager interview at Fetch? A: It is highly technical. Unlike some companies where engineering managers are purely focused on people and project management, Fetch requires its managers to pass a pre-application CTF assessment and a hands-on backend take-home coding challenge. You must be prepared to write clean code and discuss system architecture in depth.

Q: What is the typical timeline for the Fetch hiring process? A: The timeline can vary. Some candidates experience a swift, informal process over a few weeks, while others undergo a highly structured process taking several weeks and upwards of 15 hours of active interview time. Be prepared for multiple rounds, including take-home assessments and a multi-hour final panel.

Q: Does Fetch offer remote or hybrid work options for this role? A: Fetch supports flexible working arrangements, including hybrid options in major hubs like Chicago, IL, Austin, TX, and New York, NY, as well as fully remote opportunities within the United States depending on the specific team and business needs.

Q: What is the core business model of Fetch that my team would support? A: Fetch is a consumer loyalty platform where users scan receipts to earn rewards points. The engineering teams build the infrastructure that processes receipt OCR data, matches purchases to partner brand promotions, detects fraudulent activity, and manages the rewards marketplace.

To maximize your chances of success during the Fetch Engineering Manager interview process, keep these practical tips in mind:

• Do Not Skimp on the Take-Home: Treat the take-home coding assessment as if you were writing production code for Fetch. Ensure it is fully tested, modular, well-documented, and handles edge cases gracefully.
• Showcase Client and Partner Skills: Be ready to discuss how you manage relationships with external partners or client-facing product divisions. Fetch highly values engineering leaders who can represent technical teams in business-critical partner discussions.
• Prepare Your Architecture Deep Dives: Be prepared to walk through system design scenarios in detail. Practice explaining how you would scale database writes, optimize API latency, and design message queues for high-volume transactions.
• Demonstrate Accountability: Fetch values a high-accountability culture. In your behavioral answers, highlight how you take ownership of failures, how you address underperformance directly, and how you keep your team aligned with business goals.

An Engineering Manager role at Fetch offers an exciting opportunity to lead high-performing teams, tackle massive scaling challenges, and directly influence a product loved by millions of users. By successfully navigating this rigorous process, you will position yourself as a key technical leader in a fast-growing, data-driven organization.

To prepare effectively, focus equally on your hands-on backend coding skills, system design fundamentals, and behavioral leadership scenarios. Ensure you can articulate a clear, structured management philosophy that balances technical excellence with business delivery.

The salary insights above represent the competitive compensation structure offered by Fetch for engineering leadership talent. When evaluating your offer or preparing for compensation discussions, consider how your specific technical expertise, years of management experience, and location align with these market ranges.

For more detailed candidate insights, real interview questions, and preparation resources, continue your journey on Dataford to ensure you are fully equipped to ace your upcoming interviews. Good luck!