Engineering Manager Interview Experience - Amsterdam, North Holland
Process
The interview process was significantly broken and unpleasant.
I interviewed for an EM role in Amsterdam. The 'system-programming' interview question felt more appropriate for a 2-3 hour home assignment than for a 1-hour interview. Surprisingly, I passed.
The management skills interviewers seemed openly antagonistic. They cut me off every few words, evidently not truly listening. Between the lines, it seemed their culture is extremely focused on the tactical and short-term, with zero tolerance for any type of medium or high-level leadership.
In general, it felt like they were not interested in my skills at all and were just going through the motions of the process. Ultimately, I got ghosted.
Questions
SD: Design an object-store system.
A highly simplified version of Amazon S3.
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Interview Statistics
The following metrics were computed from 1 interview experience for the Databricks Engineering Manager role in Amsterdam, North Holland.
Success Rate
Databricks's interview process for their Engineering Manager roles in Amsterdam, North Holland is extremely selective, failing the vast majority of engineers.
Experience Rating
Candidates reported having very negative feelings for Databricks's Engineering Manager interview process in Amsterdam, North Holland.
Databricks Work Experiences
- 4.0Intense, strong product-market fitEngineering Manager • Current EmployeeMountain View, California, United StatesOctober 28, 2025Pros: Great engineering talent. Strong product-market fit and business growth.Cons: Intense. Bad work-life balance. A lot of process in place.
- 5.0High-impact, collaborative, engineering-driven cultureEngineering Manager • Current EmployeeSan Francisco, California, United StatesFebruary 18, 2022Pros: doing something useful for the world culture of eng excellence, deep technical problems humble, smart people high transparencyCons: The growth stage is sometimes chaotic, but overall the company is focused on evolving as we grow.
- 5.0Great growth opportunity with sustainable deliveryEngineering Manager • Current EmployeeApril 19, 2021Pros: Great growth for mid-career. Databricks is growing fast, so you'll have the chance to make a huge impact at mid-level. Great comp package. Total comp is competitive with FAANG, with more upside. Good work-life balance. Strong focus on delivery, but leadership has high trust in the team when there are hiccups/challenges. Engineering-driven organization, so engineers drive roadmaps and determine timelines. Deep technical challenges. You're not just building another CRUD app with the same scaling strategies. Investment in engineers' careers. Lots of engineers here have 4+ years at Databricks and are staying beyond initial vesting.Cons: Decision-making and ownership could be clearer. With some cross-team projects, it's unclear who is accountable for driving the project and who has the final say. D&I numbers are not great. While there is nothing negative if you are an underrepresented individual, there doesn't seem to be org-wide level efforts to drive representation or clear accountability tied to leadership to improve D&I.
Databricks Interview Questions
