Update 2 -------------- My recruiter went on leave and a new recruiter took up my case. I received a call from the recruiter and unfortunately I didn't make it to HC or Team Matching. Disappointed. Surprisingly, not as devastated as I was about 5 years back when I first got rejected after the 2nd rounds. Perhaps having Meta and Amazon interviews lined up helps or perhaps it is the maturity of your 30s :) The feedback was that I did well in the Strategy+Behavior interview and in the Domain Insights interview but didn't do well in the Analytical+Behavioral, Design and Technical rounds. The rounds that I did well - They were hypothetical and strategic. My experience + stratechery + blogs + PM Twitter probably helped :) Analytical - I started off well but then didn't do the execution well. In hindsight, this is reflective of my preparation; I didn't prepare for analytical at all. I didn't expect G to ask any analytical like Meta. I have Meta and Amazon interviews lined up. Wish they were sooner so that their prep would have helped here lol. Design - I didn't go into the kind of depth expected for an L6. I am a little disappointed here because I believe this is my strength. I can't reveal the question but I feel that some questions can be sensitive and it feels like walking on egg shells when answering it in an interview setup because you don't know anything about the interviewers feelings about the topic. I told the recruiter that it is a question that should be removed. I hope they take the feedback seriously. Technical - I didn't go deep into the technical stuff. It didn't feel very natural to draw the architecture diagram, when I don't do that at work. If I were to do anything differently here, I would study the architecture of common apps very thoroughly. I wish I got more strategic questions or the question about CI/CD like someone else on blind did. Next time, I will ask one of my engineering friends for some serious system design prep just to make sure I don't get dinged due to this type of questioning. I would also practice drawing on Google docs. Finally I want to thank all the well wishers in the comments. I hope you all do better than me and get offers. Please feel free to reach out if you have any questions. Update 1 ---------------- Had my technical round. It was with an EM. It was a system design question. Interviewer was very friendly, down to earth and supportive. Waiting on recruiter to follow-up. Original Post -------------------- I thought I would post about my Google PM interview preparation and interview experience. I haven't heard back from the recruiter yet but figured I will share now. If the results are negative, chances are I will go MIA for a while to recover and forget :) I will update with my thoughts on how I did and the actual feedback and results later TLDR 1. Use the initial call with the Sourcer/Recruiter to establish the level. Make sure you highlight all your accomplishments if your YOE and designation doesn't make it obvious. 2. Use Jeff Sipe videos to practice and prepare for hypothetical behavioral questions or open ended questions 3. Product Alliance and try Exponent are good if you are interviewing at Google for the first time or if you are applying for L4 or maybe L5. 4. Practice design questions which start with an ambiguous or atypical prompt so that you are not thrown off-guard during the interview and are structured. 5. Find coaches who are current of ex-interviewers to get better feedback - I didn’t do it this time but will definitely do it the next time. 6. Interviewers seem to have a lot of discretion when it comes to domain rounds In Early November 2021, a Google Sourcer reached out for a PM role in GCP. I have been managing a team of PMs so he asked me whether I am looking for a manager role or an IC one and I said I didn't have any preference. He also asked some general questions about my experience as a Product Manager. I assumed it was for leveling purposes. I would advice folks to use this call to highlight all the achievements to make sure they are leveled correctly. My first phone screen was not great. I felt very rushed. There was an estimation question followed by a strategy question. The interviewer was very friendly though. I shared my feedback to the Sourcer about being rushed and he seemed to agree based on the feedback he received so a second phone screen was scheduled. My second phone screen was a Product Design Question. When the Sourcer called me to tell me about the result of the 1st phone screen, I asked him what level I was being interviewed for and he said L6. After the 2nd phone screen he said the feedback was that I should be moved to the next round at L6. I got introduced to the recruiter and had my 2nd rounds scheduled. I had a months time to prepare. I chose SaaS as the domain. Preparation ---------------------------------------- - I am familiar with the different question types so I skimmed through the Product Alliance course and Try Exponent to review the basics. I think if I were back in b-school and preparing for my first PM interviews, I would find them exceptionally useful to bag a L4 at Google. I had in fact interviewed some 5-6 years back and wish I had this material to prepare. With the experience I have now, I feel that the material to be pretty basic and not sufficient to pass an L6+. - I watched many mock interviews in the courses as well as on YouTube, especially more difficult questions where the usual framework doesn't fit right away and they need to think on their feet. I think there are far fewer of these videos and enterprising folks should start a channel on this. I am sure they will get some decent views. - I used Lewis Lin's slack channel to find people to do mocks with. I did 2 mocks but I think a better option would be to find current or former interviewers to take mocks for you. I didn't do that this time but will definitely do that the next time. - There are (supposed) past questions on Product Alliance, Lewis Lin and on Glassdoor. I picked a design strategy or estimation question everyday to practice, mostly to practice typing in the Google sheet. I am not very good at typing while listening/speaking and was afraid that I will struggle with this. - I also watched Jeff Sipe videos and I definitely recommend them. I found them to be very useful in the end because I had a behavioral question in almost all the interviews and his tips really helped. - The one thing I didn't practice much was analytical. I thought the metrics questions will be asked during the domain rounds and I am very familiar with SaaS metrics. I expected - 1 G&L, 1 Design, 1 Estimation, 1 Domain-based Strategic Insights, 1 Domain-based engineering I got - 1 Behavior + Analytical, 1 Strategy + Behavioral, 1 Design, 1 Domain-based Strategic Insights 2nd rounds ---------------------------------------- 1st interview (Behavioral + Analytical) - The 1st interviewer was a new Group PM. She was very friendly and had a lot of humility - felt like they found someone who aced the Googleyness interview to interview me on Googleyness, LOL. She asked a behavioral question and then, wait for it, an analytical question. The behavioral question was one of the usual suspects. The analytical was about a popular Google Product. 2nd interview (Strategy + Analytical) - The 2nd interviewer was also a Group PM. He led the Product Team for a cool and very famous Google project so it felt good being interviewed by him :) . He asked a Strategy question and a behavioral. The Strategy question was a typical consulting case question. 8 years back when I was in b-school, I would have nailed it in my sleep. I was expecting the typical “should Netflix get into Gaming” or “What will meetings look like in 10 years” type of question. The behavioral question was a hypothetical. Jeff Sipe material helped here. 3rd interview (engineering) - the interview got postponed. I will update once it is over 4th interview (Domain - SaaS) - I am beginning to think the interviewers have a lot of discretion when it comes to domain rounds. My interviewer was a Senior PM who asked me three questions. One was about my past experience, another was about a product that I like to use, and a third about my domain. I am not supposed to reveal the actual questions but knowing what I got, I don't think I could prepare any differently knowing what they were. Jeff Sipe’s CFS approach for open ended questions help here. 5th interview Design - this was a pure design round with a PM. I assume he is either senior PM or group PM like the rest since he had 20+ years of PM experience and had pretty broad scope from what I understood. The question was ambiguous - to solve a problem that our community is facing that is very difficult to solve. He was taking extensive notes but was paying attention. I figured he had given this question to many candidates. His questions were very pointed as if he has heard this play out before. #pm #product #productmanager
Thanks 🙏
Many thanks for such a detailed write-up. Best of luck. I hope you get the role you want.
Thanks for sharing OP 🙏 Best of luck!
Thank you for posting this! What helps differentiate L4/L5 vs L6 in product case interviews? You mentioned Exponent doesn't help at L6, so I'm wondering what will for candidates on the cusp of 5/6
Good luck with the rest of your interviews
This is all in retrospect and maybe my interview was different. I found Jeff Sipe videos useful just because of all the open ended questions I got. The design questions I got also started with some ambiguity. You can find some videos like that in Youtube. For example, I found this one by Exponent where the question is to design a product to encourage voting (in the elections). I also think that when it comes to strategy questions, there is a high expectation in L6 compared to L4 just because they expect successful candidates to have had to deal with these questions.
Boy, it does indeed take a lot of effort to prepare for the interview. Thanks for sharing and fingers crossed for you. good luck
Awesome post, thanks for creating this!
Had my technical round and updated the post.
Thanks OP. For your technical round, is it a general system design or domain (SAAS) related? Asking since I’m also preparing for on-site with SAAS domain
Sorry I just saw this. Hope it is not too late. It was a general system design round. I was not asked anything domain specific. The interviewer was an EM in GCP though. When are your interviews?
Hey OP, what would be the best way to prepare for the phone screen, if you were to do it all over again?
Did recruiter has right to not send one interview feedback to HC in packet ?
Yes. In fact they only send to HC if they think you stand a chance.
No my question is If recruiter took 3 technical round One did not do well, He will do team match and make you do more 1 or 2 additional round Now if recruiter feels that you did well in later round so Did he/she has authority to not send earlier bad technical round in packet to HC?
Software Engineering Career
Yesterday
3270
L4 Google -> 45 interviews, 5 offers, AMA
Tech Industry
4d
43679
What happens when most of your team is Indian?
Tech Industry
Yesterday
1335
The man I love hates me because I’m Vietnamese
Tech Industry
Yesterday
4073
BREAKING: Internal sources confirm another round of layoffs just hit emails at Tesla. For real.
Personal Finance
Yesterday
262
“Money is just a number”
Great write up! Thanks!