DLDevLadder📒 My Notebook
Roadmap › 7. Interview Questions & Career › Step 59
TL

Team Lead, Managerial & Agile Interview

The tech lead vs engineering manager role, SDLC and Agile/Scrum/Kanban, estimation and planning, delegation, mentoring, performance management, conflict resolution, stakeholder management, risk and incident management, hiring, technical decision-making and model answers for managerial rounds.
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Leadership answer pattern

Context → my approach (principles) → concrete example (STAR) → result/metric → what I learned.

Scrum quick facts

Roles: PO · Scrum Master · Developers. Events: Sprint · Planning · Daily (15 min) · Review · Retro. Artifacts: Product Backlog (Product Goal) · Sprint Backlog (Sprint Goal) · Increment (DoD). Scrum Guide 2020.

Planning tools

INVEST stories · acceptance criteria · story points + planning poker · velocity · three-point/PERT (O + 4M + P)/6 · MoSCoW · risk register · RAG status.

People tools

1:1s · SBI feedback · situational leadership (direct → coach → support → delegate) · Tuckman (form, storm, norm, perform) · psychological safety · PIP as last resort.

Delivery tools

Definition of Done · WIP limits · change requests · ADRs · blameless post-mortems (5 Whys) · DORA metrics · tech-debt budget 15–20%.

Phrases that work

"Here are three options and my recommendation." · "What will we drop to add this?" · "Disagree and commit." · "Let's restore service first, then find root cause." · "What does success look like for you?"

Avoid

Blaming the team · hero culture · comparing individuals by velocity · hiding bad news · promising dates without the team's estimate.