Went through the Lyft EM loop earlier this year, L6 level, and wanted to write up something more specific than the generic "behavioral + system design" summaries floating around.
Five rounds total for me. Here's the rough shape:
Recruiter screen (30 min): Light. They want to know you've managed teams before, not just led projects. The distinction matters to them. Have numbers ready: team size, org structure, how many direct reports.
Hiring manager intro (45 min): Half culture fit, half "what's your philosophy on execution vs. technical debt." They push on how you've handled underperforming engineers. Have a real story, not a sanitized one. They can tell.
Technical system design (60 min): Yes, EMs do system design at Lyft. This isn't optional or light. I got a ride-matching at scale problem, which shouldn't surprise anyone. Think through: how do you partition, how do you handle eventual consistency when driver location updates are streaming in at high frequency. They want to see that you can still think architecturally, even if you're not hands-on coding daily.
Leadership deep-dive (60 min): Two interviewers, behavioral, structured around specific situations. Common themes: how you build alignment across eng and product, how you handle competing priorities in a roadmap, what you do when an engineer pushes back on a timeline you committed to. All STAR format implicitly expected.
Cross-functional interview (45 min): A PM or data science lead. They're testing whether you can communicate trade-offs without jargon. I was asked about a time I had to kill a project that was already in progress. Think about how you frame that for a non-eng audience.
Debrief took about 2 weeks. Offer came about 3 days after the loop closed.
A few things I noticed about Lyft's EM bar specifically: they care about org health metrics. Not just velocity. They asked about attrition on my team, how I've improved retention, how I've run performance cycles. More people-ops depth than some other FAANG-adjacent companies.
Comp at L6 EM ranged based on the conversation, but the recruiter mentioned total package in the $430-$480k range including RSUs. I don't know if that's 2025 or if it's changed since.
Happy to answer questions.