Just finished the Uber engineering manager interview loop for a senior EM role on the Rider Experience team. Wanted to write this up while it's fresh because I couldn't find much current info when I was prepping.
The process was five rounds total plus a recruiter screen:
Recruiter call (~30 min): standard background, comp alignment, timeline. The recruiter was direct about the fact that Uber is operating lean post-2023 headcount cuts and they're only opening reqs where there's real business need.
Phone screen with hiring manager (~45 min): half technical, half leadership. She asked me to walk through the largest engineering project I'd led, focusing specifically on tradeoffs I made. Not a case interview. Very conversational.
Onsite block 1: Engineering judgment (~60 min): this was with a staff engineer. Basically a design/architecture discussion. I'm an EM, not an IC, so I expected to be tested lightly here. I was not tested lightly. They want to know that you can actually evaluate your engineers' technical decisions, not just manage their feelings.
Onsite block 2: People leadership (~60 min): scenarios around performance management, team conflict, cross-functional influence. Classic "tell me about a time" format but they pushed hard on specifics. "What did you say exactly" is a phrase I heard three times.
Onsite block 3: Strategy/product sense (~60 min): how would you define success metrics for a given rider feature, what would you do if your team's KPI went sideways mid-quarter. Felt very product-adjacent, more than I expected for an EM role.
Bar-raiser equivalent: Uber calls it something slightly different internally but effectively the same thing. A senior leader from outside the org. Lots of "where do you want to be in 3 years" type questions.
What I wish I'd prepped more: the engineering depth piece. Even as an EM candidate, you should be able to speak credibly to distributed systems tradeoffs. I stumbled a bit on a latency vs consistency question and I think it showed.
Timeline: recruiter screen to offer was 18 days. SF-based role, hybrid 3 days a week.