"Tell me about a time you built or repaired a strong working relationship with a Product Manager. Ideally, use a specific example where you and the PM had different priorities for a Meta surface like Facebook Feed, Instagram Reels, Messenger, or Ads Manager, and walk me through how you created alignment and what the outcome was."
This question tests whether you can form a high-trust engineering-product partnership rather than treating the PM as either a customer or an obstacle. For an Engineering Manager at Meta, interviewers want to see how you align on goals, handle tension around scope or timelines, and influence decisions without formal authority while keeping the team focused on user and business impact.
They are also looking for signs that you can operate in ambiguity: unclear requirements, competing stakeholder input, shifting priorities, or incomplete data. A strong EM-PM relationship shows up in how you make trade-offs, communicate risk early, and create a repeatable way of working together.
A strong answer uses one concrete example with real stakes, explains what was misaligned at first, and shows the specific mechanisms you used to build trust and improve decision quality. The best responses are structured in STAR, include measurable outcomes, and end with what you learned about how to partner more effectively with a PM.