RedditEngineering Manager

Updated Jun 12, 2026

Reddit Engineering Manager interview questions & guide 2026

Every question Reddit interviewers actually ask, the frameworks that win the room, and the language hiring managers respond to.

Question bank

What is an Engineering Manager at Reddit?

An Engineering Manager at Reddit plays a critical role in shaping the technology, culture, and processes that power one of the most visited platforms in the world. Leading engineering teams at Reddit means operating at an extraordinary scale, where systems must process millions of concurrent requests, serve real-time content, and support vibrant communities. You are not just managing tasks; you are responsible for building the foundational infrastructure, feed ranking systems, moderation tools, and real-time engagement features (like chat and notifications) that directly impact hundreds of millions of active users.

In this role, you will balance technical stewardship with people leadership. You will be expected to guide highly skilled Individual Contributors (ICs), define technical roadmaps in close partnership with Product Management, and foster a healthy, inclusive, and high-performing team culture. Because Reddit is a highly collaborative and rapidly evolving environment, your ability to manage ambiguity, drive execution, and maintain system reliability is paramount to your team's success.

Ultimately, an Engineering Manager at Reddit must be a strong advocate for both engineering excellence and talent development. Whether you are leading a platform team focusing on core services or a product team building consumer-facing features, your leadership will directly influence how communities connect, share, and grow globally.

Common Interview Questions

The following questions are representative of what you can expect during the Reddit interview process for an Engineering Manager position. These questions are drawn from real candidate experiences and are designed to evaluate your technical depth, leadership philosophy, and execution capabilities.

System Design & Architecture

These questions assess your ability to design scalable, reliable, and highly available distributed systems under heavy traffic constraints.

How would you design a real-time chat system that supports millions of active users?
Design a notification system that can handle sudden spikes in user activity across the platform.

How would you architect a feed generation service that balances personalization with low latency?
Talk through how you would handle database scaling and caching strategies for a high-write, high-read application.

People Management & Team Building

These questions evaluate your leadership philosophy, how you mentor and grow engineers, and how you handle team dynamics and performance.

What is your philosophy on growing and mentoring engineers at different stages of their careers?
How do you handle a situation where a senior engineer on your team is underperforming or causing friction?
Describe your approach to building a balanced team. What are your thoughts on integrating junior versus senior engineers on a core platform team?
How do you keep your team motivated and focused during periods of organizational change or shifting priorities?

Collaboration & Execution

These questions focus on your project management skills, cross-functional collaboration, and ability to deliver complex technical initiatives.

Describe a time when you had to manage conflicting priorities between your engineering team and a product manager. How did you resolve it?
How do you identify, prioritize, and pay down technical debt while still delivering on product features?
Walk me through a complex technical project you led from inception to delivery. What were the challenges, and how did you measure success?
How do you handle a critical system outage or post-mortem process with your team?

Be ready to go over:

Scalability and Bottlenecks – How to scale database writes and reads, implement effective caching strategies, and use load balancers.
Data Modeling and Storage – Choosing between SQL and NoSQL databases based on the specific constraints of the system.
Real-Time Communication – Implementing WebSockets, long polling, or message queues (like Kafka or RabbitMQ) for real-time features.
Advanced concepts (less common) – Rate limiting algorithms, consistent hashing, and designing for eventual consistency in distributed databases.

Example questions or scenarios:

"Design a real-time chat system that supports both one-on-one and group messaging at scale."
"How would you design a distributed rate limiter to protect public APIs from abuse?"

People Management & Team Performance

This area focuses on your ability to recruit, retain, and develop engineering talent. You must showcase a clear philosophy on team dynamics, performance management, and career progression.

Be ready to go over:

Mentorship and Career Growth – How you help junior, intermediate, and senior engineers reach their professional goals.
Performance Management – Your process for identifying underperformance early and executing constructive Performance Improvement Plans (PIPs).
Team Composition – Building balanced teams and integrating different experience levels effectively.

Example questions or scenarios:

"How do you approach a situation where a senior engineer disagrees with the architectural direction of the team?"
"Describe your framework for helping an intermediate engineer transition into a senior role."

Cross-Functional Execution & Collaboration

This evaluation area tests how you deliver projects in partnership with Product, Design, and other engineering teams. You must demonstrate strong project management skills and the ability to negotiate priorities.

Be ready to go over:

Roadmapping and Prioritization – Balancing product feature requests with engineering-led initiatives like tech debt reduction.
Conflict Resolution – Resolving alignment issues between product goals and technical realities.
Agile Methodologies – Tailoring development processes (Scrum, Kanban) to suit your team's specific needs.

Example questions or scenarios:

"Tell me about a time you had to push back on a product launch date due to technical risks. How did you communicate this to stakeholders?"
"How do you ensure your team remains aligned when working on a highly dependent, multi-team initiative?"

Interview Guides

Reddit Engineering Manager interview questions & guide 2026

What is an Engineering Manager at Reddit?

Common Interview Questions

System Design & Architecture

People Management & Team Building

Collaboration & Execution

The questions most likely to come up

See how a strong candidate would approach this

Prioritizing Across Competing Client Projects

Getting Ready for Your Interviews

Interview Process Overview

The interview process, end to end

Deep Dive into Evaluation Areas

System Architecture at Scale

Note

People Management & Team Performance

Cross-Functional Execution & Collaboration

What they actually test for

Key Responsibilities

Role Requirements & Qualifications

Frequently Asked Questions

Other General Tips

Tip

Note

Summary & Next Steps

Other roles at Reddit