Product Manager Interview Questions and Preparation

I wanted to share some of the questions I was asked and my approach to preparing for PM interviews in the hopes it’s helpful to others who are recruiting as well.

I had PM on-sites at six mid-stage (Series C to E) startups in 2019 and was fortunate enough to end up with five offers.

Each of the panels I had was some subset of the below:

This interview deserves an outsized focus in preparation, it’s the most common and also the hardest.

This interview goes one of two ways:

Walk through a past product launch

Example question

Keys to answering well

A case, either about the company, another company, or a general UX challenge

Example questions

Keys to answering well

These conversations tend to be a little bit more free-wheeling, but largely focused on your past work and your goals. I’ve grouped the hiring manager and exec interview as they tend to be relatively similar.

Example questions

Keys to answering well

Product used to have a much more technical bend (it still does at some companies). None of my interviews had algorithms or other traditional coding questions and instead focused on the partnership between product and engineering.

Example questions

Keys to answering well

Companies will give you a couple days to complete these, they often take much longer than the advertised ~4 hours. Typically there will also be a live presentation component.

Example questions

Keys to answering well

This interview tends to test how you take operational input and how you work through ops issues.

Example questions

Keys to answering well

This interview ends up being very similar to the engineering lead interview with more of a design flavor.

Example questions

Keys to answering well

This interview is designed to check if you are a culture fit for the company.

Example questions

Keys to answering well

I like to tactfully ask about anything that is a concern for me about the company, but failing that I ask questions from the list below

Before each interview I remind myself to be:

Hopefully this list of questions is useful. Happy interviewing and let me know if I can be helpful, I always enjoy hearing from readers!

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I’m Dale Everett, I’m currently spending the majority of my time building the future of retail at Faire. I like thinking and writing about career development, self-improvement, gaming, and life in general.

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