Google PM technical skills for non-CS majors

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Anqrs

New

Anqrs
Feb 13, 2018 8 Comments

I’m interviewing at Google for an L7 PM role. I’m 15+ years into my career in software but I never had a CS major or a programming background. Have done fine as a founder and startup VP product as well as large company PM.

BUT I’m a bit apprehensive about Google’s “CS required” mentality for PMs. And cognizant that PMs are expected to be more technical than most companies. Curious:

— If you’re a senior level PM, what technical skills did you actually use on the job?
— for a non CS major what subjects do you recommend they brush up on for actual job performance ?
— What skills / domains are worth learning from scratch?

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TOP 8 Comments
  • Google / Product
    shellcrot

    Go to company page Google Product

    shellcrot
    Low level google PM here. I write a lot of complex SQL queries, but don't do any real coding. I need to read and understand a lot of design docs. Occasionally I'll submit a CL for config file changes, whitelists, etc.

    Had never taken a CS class but had some experience doing basic scripting and stuff as well as data science stuff. I spent a month or so studying the basics of algorithms, data structures, and system design. I thought the tech interview was easier than PM ones.

    Senior PMs L6 and above are in meetings all day, they need to be able to understand technical trade-offs and and consume complex analysis, but definitely not coding anything.
    Feb 16, 2018 0
  • New
    machan3

    New

    machan3
    Op @Anqrs please share your experience/tips. Was there any phone interviews with programming or system design questions ?
    Mar 2, 2018 3
    • New
      machan3

      New

      machan3
      Thank you @EcVa56. Been a pm 10-12 years(technical enuf for system design, but not algo anymore, not MBA, been director/sr director, but hands on PM). Tototal 23 years experience first 10 in software (c,c++, Java, j2ee a lot). On fence if I should go through this or not 🤔

      Did two rounds of phone screen in 2010 - was typical pm product / feature design business case questions.

      In 2016 one phone call, first question itself took the whole call -.it was technical design algo question, I didn't anticipate and wasnt prepared for that type.

      Since then, I have been believing that LeetCode is needed.

      My anticipated call is for Cloud PM ( my pm since 2010 has been cloud related).
      Mar 4, 2018
    • New
      EcVa56

      New

      EcVa56
      On the system design, they did go quite deep (mine is on google assistant). On algo, interestingly, I told them on the phone interview that I haven’t coded in a long time and they mentioned that there wouldn’t be deep algo/data structure questions. Was expecting something general like “in this situation, what data structure will be best?” Etc. However, sure enough, the minute the engineer walked in, he gave me leetcode question and asked me to whiteboard. Didn’t expect that at all :(
      Mar 4, 2018
  • New
    EcVa56

    New

    EcVa56
    I am on the same boat. I am a Sr. TPgM at another company and will have an on-site with google next week.

    In my current role:
    - I did prototyping in Python for Machine Learning for an AI/ML project before it turned into a project. So my code has a lot of “brute force” and need to be optimized but it proves that a concept is doable.

    - System design is mostly around Hadoop HDFS, Hive, Pig, Impala,Kafka etc. I have yet to write any MapReduce job as I don’t have to in the past. I plan to practice a bit on it. Also do some back on the envelope calculation on distributed systems. I my current role, the architect did all these but I guess Google expect the TPgM to know the trade offs and challenge certain assumptions. It seems to make sense.

    - skills and domain: I am sticking to Python at the moment. Domain is in distributed systems and machine learning.

    It’s hard to stay technical as TPgM. 50-70% of my time spent on meetings, documentation, chasing loose ends; barely have any time to sit down, code, and improve ourselves.
    Feb 13, 2018 0
  • New
    machan3

    New

    machan3
    Thank you, again!
    Mar 5, 2018 0
  • Expedia
    Bbqbro

    Go to company page Expedia

    Bbqbro
    @shellcrot were you in the Analyst type of job before? I’m not PM but doing a lot of PM jobs, so wondering how to make a transition
    Feb 17, 2018 0