Why should staff engineers/ IC take system design rounds for engineering managers hiring ? Why don't EMs take that round for other hiring EMs .
“You’re a good question” My take on this, EM bandwidth is very hard to get. There are so many last min declines because of conflicts. If we put them on interview panel for design rounds too, interviews for each candidate will go on for weeks. Also, EM tends to lose touch after joining because of everyday work. Staff SDEs keep a very high tech bar in design rounds and ensures that we have technically competent EMs.
My question is that we are only concerned about the tech bar at the time of hiring n don't care if EMs don't maintain that in their day to day execution n don't apply n use that , then why have the bar high only while hiring ?!?
The same reason why we ask DP/complex Graph questions to SDEs but once they join, we make them work on trivial projects. The reason is to assess analytical ability of candidate during interview.
They do often take the system design rounds. It’s just a level thing, either EMs or ICs at Staff+ will take it.