I have attempted product management interviews at Google, Amazon , Facebook and failed at all of them. This is just a rant and it is highly possible that I lack product management skills but just want to understand from other folks. I am an engineer who transitioned to Product Management so I am more technically comfortable rather than MBA methods. I am doing fairly ok at my current job but am looking for a change. I have observed and interacted at product managers at my own company and others at Qualcomm, AWS, Vmware and else but nobody follows the crap that FAANG expects in interviews. The answers I see on exponent are ridiculous of how organized the candidates are. The biggest joke is customer Obsession as a part of AWS interview. I find it hard to believe anyone does follow that of listening to customer pain points or user research. Did Amazon do user survey when building privacy intrusion features or did they do a user research when they bait switch in prime availability from 1 day to after purchasing 2-3 days. The only customer obsession they do is offer a 10 dollar sorry gift card when they call the customer service. Did apple do a user research before putting a notch or did they listen to the customers on why they hated the notch. NO. Typically I feel customer is an idiot. I feel the real job of a product manager is get the best product out what the inventor of the product or the company feels and manage the customer expectations by communicating. Another question from Google was how would you design a toaster for blind. Seriously. I gave my best attempt but it still did not satisfy the interviewer. TC:200k YOE:18
Product managers need to be able to interview customers. If this is how you think about customers this is not a role aligned with your skill set. You're failing interviews because they can tell you think you know more about the product than the people using the product, which is the hallmark of a terrible PM.
I am talking about customer surveys. I have regular cadence with my customer and the regular requirements alignment discussions , PRD, MVP and all and I actually care in educating my customer if some requirements are ridiculous. I am saying putting fake principles like customer obsession as company ideology is phony
Except it's not. Your perspective is misaligned with the characteristics of what they're looking for because of exactly this.
PM interviews are broken and yeah, you need to learn the structure of how to answer the questions since the interviewers have a rubric/checklist they need to check off. Amazon and Apple interviews are probably amongst the best though since they actually focus on previous experience instead of the hypothetical design/strategy questions that Google and FB does.
Agree the hypothetical scenarios are useless
The hypothetical scenarios help bring everyone on same ground. Your experience could vary a lot with someone else’s and it’s very hard for an interviewer to know understand all the intricacies of your job. The hypothetical scenarios being out clarity in your approach.
Often having more skills than the job requires works against you.
that's not the challenge for OP.
Sooooo, how are you doing on your research and discovery skills? Do you have a good sense for how to structure research questions and what methods to apply? For instance, the notch, I would have been doing research to understand if users would be accepting of the trade offs. I bet you someone did that research at Apple and here I am with my notch. Sometimes research is to inform on risks and if you should take a risk. Sometimes research is to understand what will drive delight. These are all tools in a toolbox and you need to know how to apply them. Seems like an area for growth.
Fantastic answer from someone who is obviously experienced in product
Based on what you wrote, I would not hire you as a PM and I would guess you are missing more skills/are worse at your job than you believe. You seem strongly opposed to engaging with a number of different critical PM activities, skills, and philosophies. Understanding and empathizing with the customer is step 1 if you want to build good software.
This is why so many swes who try to switch to PM fail miserably.
But OP is saying the examples where customer empathy didn’t play a part in some of the product decisions? At some point a product design strategy is made to keep it more exclusive & profitable & not always about customer , no?
Even if you are right and the interview process is BS, it’s still on you because you refuse to play by the rules of the interview. Like you seemingly disregard the parameters of the interview process because you “know better” and then act surprised when you failed? What. Also doesn’t seem like you prepared much either. Build an alarm clock for the blind is actually a pretty targeted and “simple” product design question because it already narrows down a major user group for you. It’s about as straight forward and recycled design question that any PM can get and has been a stock test bank question for about a decade.
Toaster* for the blind. Ngl that would stump me a little bit
It really shouldn’t though. The most important and difficult part of a product design question isn’t the solution, it’s defining the user group for the product. Ex: design a toaster vs design a toaster for the blind. Designing a toaster for the blind is much easier because the question already narrows the user group massively. All solutions flow from pain points. All pain points flow from user group. User group is the most important part to nail.
I am not disregarding the rules of interview. I am not comfortable with bluffing my way out. Maybe I just need to practice hamming my answers. I am not saying I know better. I am propose being honest with the customer. Customers most of the time are unreasonable: give me the feature in 1/3 the time and at 1/4th of cost. They still believe 9 men can impregnate and give a baby in 1 month. Empathizing is not going to win you the kudos. But working with them and being honest and explaining them the technical challenges and working towards a quality product is what a product manager should stand behind. 90 % of the product companies including apple, intel, qualcomm, samsung have their roadmap planned 3 years ahead of time. Apple told no to Dish (launching a new 5g network)who was their customer that they cannot launch a phone until they align their needs with apple’s roadmap. Now we’re they empathizing or making sure a successful launch happens with something that works and not something that is fancy.
you ask for feedback, then defensively posture that this feedback is completely wrong immediately. Your attitude/perspective is not an effective one for being a successful Product Manager (and it seems like you'd be unpleasant to manage frankly). Regardless what you believe, your approach is not what the industry believes, experts/leaders in product believe, interview panels believe, etc etc. PMs with this approach suffer and struggle and grind things out in pessimistic corners of the industry for 🥜. Ones who give a shit about customers get the good jobs, fun products, and high 💸.
Doing surveys, focus groups and talking with customers is #1 in the PMs job. You don't collect this information so that customers can tell you what features they want. You collect this info to find out what problems and issues the customer is experiencing. Then you use this info to build a product with features that solve those problems. After building, you can collect more information from customers to validate that you did build the right product. The things you talk about in your post have more to do with internal business requirements and technology limitations. There will always be constraints, you need to build products that balance business needs with customer needs within the constraints that you have.
First of all read the post above carefully (I presume you read the customer requirements similarly). I did not ask for feedback, I put a rant. Rant typically is an opinion. You shared your feedback thanks . I have the right to defend my opinion similar to what you are doing. You do not represent the industry. Also I am not asking for a referral so I am not sure what the comments here mean like I would not hire you. I kind of see the difference here in software product managers who don’t seem to care about technical challenges. Their job is to just take the requirements and pass it to the engineering and then let them deal with it. Ownership is lacking in delivering. Anyways the poll shows that I am not the only one thinking in the same lines.
lolwut
Thanks, now we know what kind of self-absorbed jerk is being rejected for PM roles. Personally I'm grateful to not have an aholey POS attitude like yours to deal with on the user end. Trust me when I say most of the other users where I work wouldn't have a clue how to describe anything to a PM or even another user. Now kindly place your attitude back under the rock you had it wedged under.
Play by the rules of the interview, it's you who is seeking a job! Each company is different in terms of what they expect for a PM so do your home work and follow the rules and speak that language. As a PM , you need to adapt and adjust to what customers and your R&D teams ask from you, be that liason that helps and removes roadblocks and add value by defining a long term vision
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Sorry. From hearing your rant it is obviously transparent why you failed. As a leader in product at amazon I can assure you we start with customers (and profit is almost always secondary). The interview is one thing and you have to play the game by the rules to get the job. With little respect to the process it is clear why you didnt pass.
You can't fake it for the interview either, people will expect you to continue giving a shit about customers.
Respectfully disagree your statement that profit is secondary. Let’s be honest here profit is almost the most important criteria. Nobody is here for charity