Tim Kung

Product Manager Interviewing

Tips for interview questions for Product Management roles at tech companies.

This page contains info on success with PM interviewing and questions. Based on my experience as an interviewee and interviewer.

Product Sense Questions

Product Motivation and Set Up

How to narrow down the problem space in Product Sense questions?

Product Sense questions are often intentionally broad and open to many directions (eg. Design an education product). The purpose is to understand how you would approach an ambiguous problem into ultimately a reasonable product.

Assuming a 45 minute interview, you could spend 3-10 minutes exploring the problem space. The goal at the end of problem space exploration would be a general direction within the broad space to pursue further.

Two ways to narrow down the space (can be used together) : 1) Clarifying questions and assumptions, 2) Exploration of the space and making decisions.

Clarifying questions and assumptions

Exploration of the space

From a product management perspective, we want to pursue opportunities that have promise for business success. For an interview, this means making reasonable assumptions and rational decisions towards promising business success.

To help explore the problem space for opportunities, here’s a toolkit of topics you could pull from to spark ideas:

  • Company mission
  • Status quo in the domain (from a company’s perspective or industry overall)
  • Market trends
  • Competitors and what they’re doing
  • Company SWOT
  • Ecosystem stakeholders

How to think more strategically in Product Sense questions?

To think more strategically, expand the time horizon, breadth, and scale of your thinking. In a Product Sense interview, the most apparent places to do this would be in exploration of the problem space and with solutioning.

Target Audience and Segmentation

How to do segmentation for Product Sense interview questions?

The outcome of segmentation is to reach a target audience to build a product for. The target audience identified should detailed enough to visualize an archetype (eg. parents of young children who take the family to museums for entertainment vs people who sometimes go to museums).

To get to a target audience, segment the space to get to a specific audience that has unique characteristics (needs, behaviors) from the other segments defined. MECE segmentation is highly recommended.

Here is a toolkit of ways a space can be segmented:

  • Players (eg. buyers, sellers, advertisers)
  • Life stage (eg. young adults, mid-life adults, seniors)
  • Behavior (eg. frequent users, moderate users, never used)
  • Motivation (eg. build muscle, lose weight, gain flexibility)

Solutioning

How to come up with solution ideas for Product Sense questions?

The most important piece of a product solution is that it addresses the pain point or need identified. A simple solution that addresses the identified pain point is much better than an innovative idea that solves a different problem.

To help brainstorm solutions, here’s a toolkit that could be used to spark ideas:

  • Remix existing company products. Can existing products in a company be mix and matched into something new?
  • Expand on existing products. Could something new be added to something existing?
  • Spin off ideas from different companies or domains. Eg. Airbnb for cars. Tinder for roommates.
  • Apply tech trends (if applicable). AR, Gen AI, ML etc.
  • Think of 11/10 delightful experience. What would be the most mind blowing solution to the problem identified?

How to get more creative with Product Sense solutions?

I found drills of a creativity test, “Alternative Use Test,” useful as a way to practice divergent thinking. It’s 2 minute exercise where you come up with as many alternative uses for a common everyday object, such as a paperclip. Practice with AUT helps to build ability to look at things from different perspectives.

To practice, I created a GPT I could run as a drill:

https://chatgpt.com/g/g-nCOw9PWE4-aut-alternative-use-creativity-test

How detailed should my MVP be?

For the chosen solution, you and the interviewer should be able to visualize how the product would function from a user’s perspective. This includes describing where the product would live (standalone, or within another product) and what the user workflow would be. How would they interact with the product?

The product is an MVP, so description of the product should include the minimum features to make the solution viable. A wireframe to illustrate is your choice. The goal is the interviewer gets an understanding of what the MVP would be like. A crisp description of the workflow should accomplish this. Choose the communication method that is most efficient for you (right details in 30-90 seconds).

How to do prioritization in Product Sense questions?

Should I screenshare or not in my Product Sense interview?

Product Execution and Analytical Thinking Questions

Metrics – should I come up with a brainstorm list of metrics or just a few metrics?

The most important piece for metrics is arriving at shortlist of the most important metrics you’d use to gauge success, along with a north star metric that guides success if looking at just one metric.

You can brainstorm a list of metrics or think through what the key metrics would be. Do what best enables you to come up with a few relevant metrics to discuss and scrutinize.

How to approach trade off questions in Product Execution interview questions?

A trade off question presents a situation that requires exploration and thought to determine which direction you would go in the hypothetical situation. The end result of a trade off question would be a decision rubric to in direction A (eg. ship feature) or direction B (eg. don’t ship feature).

Here’s a framework to approach trade off questions:

  1. Align and clarify on the trade off presented
  2. Interpret into user behavior
  3. Trade-off or Decision. Plug extreme numbers either side – short long term effects
  4. Evaluate (AB test or time horizon eval)
  5. Decide –
    1. Ship no ship criteria
    2. Good, bad, maybe – green light, red light, yellow light

Considerations to ship or not ship something

  • Tactical – what are the most important product metrics and what do they indicate? What are the product goals?
  • Strategic – Is there a broader or longer term goal for users or the company to consider?
  • Cannibalization – If the product is net positive at a higher level, cannibalization could still be ok.

Meta Leadership and Drive PM Interview

The Meta leadership and drive interview is a behavioral interview. It’s similar in style to Amazon PM interviews, where the questions are asking about past experiences (e.g “Tell me about a time when you had a conflict with another team”) and then evaluating for certain skills.

What’s the difference with Meta Leadership and Drive and Amazon Interviews?

Two differences:

  1. Less time for each story. In the Meta interview, be ready to speak to 3-5 stories in 35 minutes. An Amazon interview could entirely be on 1-2 stories.
  2. Skills/traits evaluated are different. Amazon evaluates across prioritized Leadership Principles (e.g. Deep Dive, Customer Obsession, etc). Meta evaluates for ownership, resourcefulness and results, learning, resolving conflict. There is overlap, but Meta evaluates on a narrower set than Amazon does with their Leadership Principles.

Meta Leadership and Drive Interview Tips

A few tips from my experience:

  • Stories need to be more compact than for Amazon. It’s just 35 ish min to cover 3-4 ish questions/stories, whereas Amazon a whole interview could just be on 1-2 stories.
  • Authenticity is important. Talk about whatever topic comes up openly. This includes acknowledging weaknesses and failures, as well as strengths and successes.
  • Introspect on experiences. Thoughtfulness is valuable. How were you thinking at the time of your stories? How is your thinking different now, if it is? What have you learned from your experiences? What would you now do differently?

Product Manager Interviews at Meta

Meta Product Manager interviews follow a standard process of 3 rounds: 1) Recruiter screen, 2) PM screen, 3) Onsite round.

The PM screen consists of two 45 min interviews. One each of Product Sense and Analytical Thinking (formerly known as Product Execution). The onsite round consists of three 45 min interviews: another Product Sense, another Analytical Thinking interview, and a Leadership and Drive interview.

What’s the difference with Analytical Thinking and Product Execution interview?

I don’t know what is different. From my own experience and research, Analytical Thinking seems to consist of more standard questions, focused on goal setting and trade-offs, as opposed to Product Execution which could have wider range in the questions.

How to prep for Meta Product Manager interviews?

My prep strategy consisted of a loop of: practice, self-exercises and practice with partners, reflection and YouTube mocks review, practice, assessments.

For assessments, I got feedback from credible people (friends, coaches) to gauge my performance level.

My prep and end-end interview time was 2 months. I practiced until I could complete cases smoothly in the time frame needed. I estimate I did 50-90 mocks.

The most useful resources I found were: 1) YouTube videos of mocks. There are stellar examples of mock interviews. 2) The materials provided my Meta. Meta provides materials which seem obvious, but are detailed enough to know exactly what is evaluated. 3) Credible feedback via paid mocks/coaches/friends. I found value to calibrate my performance with credible feedback.

A high impact tactic for me was to self-record mocks and review them. Recording mocks put me into the state of an actual interview. Review of the mocks enabled me to see how I actually came across.

I had previously read books “Decode and Conquer” and “Cracking the PM Interview” which are useful for background or foundational info if starting from scratch. I think they’re a bit dated and broad.

What frameworks are best for Product Sense and Analytical Thinking?

Overall, I used the Meta provided info to base my frameworks. Meta tells you what they’ll be looking for. I tailored my framework to what flowed for me as I practiced.

Here are my general frameworks I used (each framework has sub-framewoks):

Product Sense

  • Motivation
  • Target Audience
  • Goals and Needs
  • Solution Ideas
  • MVP

Analytical Thinking

  • Motivation
  • Goals
  • Metrics
    • Journey
    • Shortlist metrics
  • Northstar
  • Critique metrics

Tradeoff

  • Align and clarify
  • Interpret into user behavior
  • Trade-off or Decision.
    • Plug extreme numbers either side – short long term effects
  • Evaluate 
    • AB test or time horizon eval
  • Decide –
    • Ship no ship criteria
    • Good, bad, maybe – green flag, red flag

Tips for success in Meta Product Manager Interviews

Clear thinking is very important. It’s a great way to stand out in the interviews as well. Some ways clear thinking is demonstrated:

  • Precise, logical comments and ideas
    • Bad – “I’d like to focus on the US because there’s a large population of users” 
    • Good – “I’d like to focus on the US because it has the most car centric culture”
    • Bad – “VR solution for a group of friends to decide where to go”
    • Good – “Location roulette feature in WhatsApp group chats for friends to decide where to go”
  • Structured thinking
  • Logical movement through exercise