There isn’t a single person we know that wouldn’t want to work for Google. I mean, it’s Google! Most people don’t even get a chance to interview with them—but now, you do. What kind of Google Product Manager interview questions should you prepare for?
We have determined the following findings based on the feedback of over 70 Google Product Managers and Product Manager candidates that have interviewed for a Product Manager role at Google as either a Hiring Manager or Product Manager candidate.
When Preparing for the Google Product Manager interview, the first thing we recommend is reviewing tech blogs, such as Stratechery. This is something that you can do right now, whether you have an interview scheduled with Google or not. If your aim is to work at Google, make this website and the content within it a part of your weekly reading ritual.
How to Get a Product Manager Job at Google
At Product Gym, we apply a simple four-step framework to landing the Product Manager job you’re looking for. With this structure and the support of the PG community, both aspiring and veteran PMs have increased the number of calls they receive for interviews. The process also leads to more of those interviews being converted into offers.
Here’s how the magic works:
1. Optimize
From the best techniques for writing a cover letter to building an attractive Product Manager resume, the first step is to boost your credibility and professional branding. To get the offer from Google, you’ll need:
- A resume designed to beat the ATS
- A cover letter that shows your culture fit
- An optimized LinkedIn profile that aligns with the above
- A 30-second personal pitch that sells you as the best possible candidate
At Product Gym, we provide branding workshops, resume reviews, and the tools you need to take your professional branding to the next level.
2. Apply
Product Gym members apply for 20+ Product Manager jobs weekly, and often average 9+ interviews in any given week. But how’s that going to help you get the job at Google? Simple: by perfecting your application strategy and interview approach through practice and experience, you’ll build the confidence and expertise you need to wow the recruiter and interviewers at your dream company when the time comes.
Of course, our tried and tested application framework is paired with tools, tips, and interview support that all come together to form a job-hunting strategy that really works.
3. Convert
Once you’ve lined up your interviews, it’s time to zero in on converting those round ones into round twos, and so on, all the way to the Google Product Manager job offer. It’s no secret that we focus on the Product Manager interview process here at Product Gym: we’re there to help our members learn how to ace every step and every question — including behavioral questions, technical questions, case studies, salary negotiation, and more.
4. Learn
When should you start building your product management skillset? Before you apply? When you’re on the job? Honestly, transitioning into product management can be a long journey. We encourage Product Managers (whether you’re a first-timer or an industry vet) to start learning at the beginning and continue on past the finish line.
You likely already have skills that translate well into a Product Manager role: keep sharpening them, and find the gaps where you can learn, grow, and practice new skills to become a better Product Manager every day.
We want to make sure our members show up skilled and prepared for their interviews and their first day on the job, which is why we offer 20+ technical and business courses taught by industry experts.
What to Expect from a Product Manager Interview with Google
There are 6 major components to the Google Product Manager (PM) interview: Product Design, Analytics and Data, Strategy, Cultural Fit, Behavior, and Technical. You should expect to answer questions pertaining to all of these categories.
Product Design
Google Product Managers put users first. Product Managers are obsessed with providing the best user experiences. Think about all the Google Products you use and take for granted every day and imagine life without them. At Google, this process begins with customer empathy and a passion for products, down to the most acute details. A wireframe can be sketched just to convey an idea to a designer.
Product Design Sample Questions:
- How would you improve Google Maps?
- How would you reduce Gmail storage size?
- How would you improve the restaurant search?
- What’s your favorite Google product? What do you like or dislike about it?
- If you were to build the next killer feature for Google, what would it be?
- You’re part of the Google Search webspam team. How would you detect duplicate websites?
How to Prepare for the Product Design Questions:
- Practice and envision leading design discussions using a framework. (Need a framework? Try CIRCLES Method: http://qr.ae/i6kRM).
- Begin with possible personas and detailed use cases.
- Prioritize use cases and brainstorm solutions. Many Product Manager candidates often make the mistake of suggesting solutions that are incremental or derivatives of a competitor’s feature set. You don’t want to end your Product Manager interview with Google this way. The Product Management Hiring Panel at Google is evaluating your creativity, and they place a big emphasis on big ideas (aka “moonshots”).
- Impress and inspire them with unique, compelling ideas.
- Drawing wireframes on a whiteboard will help illustrate your ideas.
- To practice, download a wireframing tool like Balsamiq.
- Study popular web and mobile design patterns for inspiration.
Analytics and Data
Google Product Managers are fluent in the language of numbers to define the right metrics. Google Product Managers make their point by communicating their analysis. They can decipher and make decisions from A/B test results, go so far as to write SQL queries, and even run scripts to extract data from logs.
In essence, they don’t mind getting their hands dirty and doing whatever is required to prove their point.
Analytics and Data Sample Questions:
- How many queries per second does Gmail get?
- How many iPhones are sold in the US each year?
- As the Product Manager for Google Glass ‘Enterprise Edition,’ which metrics would you track? How do you know if the product is successful?
How to Prepare for the Analytical Questions:
- Prepare for estimation questions such as, “How many queries per second does Gmail get?”
- Get well-versed in product launch metrics and A/B testing, including interpretation of results.
Strategy
Google Product Managers are business leaders. As a result, they must be familiar with business issues. It’s not necessary for Google Product Managers to have business experience or formal business training. However, they do expect you to pick up business intuition and judgment quickly.
Strategy Sample Questions:
- If you were Google’s CEO, would you be concerned about Microsoft?
- Should Google offer a StubHub competitor? That is, sell sports, concert, and theater tickets?
How to Prepare for the Strategy Questions:
- Use a framework to structure your strategy discussions. If you’re not familiar with strategy or frameworks, Porter’s Five Forces is a good start.
Cultural Fit
Google Product Managers lead and influence effectively, have a bias for action, and get things done. Many Google Product Managers go on to become CEOs of their own companies.
Being smart isn’t enough: You have to fit in with the Google crowd. The team at Google takes pride in their ability to get things done as an organization. This is one of the most difficult criteria to fulfill and one of the reasons why Google is so cool to work at. You are going to have to show that you are smart enough to hang with the best of the best, and fit in with the rest. It’s a balancing act, but absolutely necessary to weed out all the people that Google does not want.
Culture Fit Sample Questions:
- Why Google?
- Why Product Manager?
How to Prepare for the Culture Fit Questions:
- Understand what it means to be “Google-y” by reading Google’s corporate philosophy.
- Review Google’s Android design principles.
- Read Google’s visual asset guidelines and Steven Levy’s 2007 (but still useful) article on the Google APM program
- Another optional, but more in-depth (and recent) perspective, read Steven Levy’s “In the Plex: How Google Thinks, Works, and Shapes Our Lives.”
Behavior
Be prepared for behavioral interview questions such as, “Tell me a time when you had to influence engineering to build a particular feature.” Google Product Manager interviewers are relying more on behavioral interview questions in recent months.
Technical
Google Product Managers lead product development teams. Leading effectively means Product Managers have influence and credibility with engineers. At the final round (aka onsite) interview, a senior member of the engineering team will evaluate your technical competence. Be prepared for whiteboard coding questions at the onsite interview.
Technical Sample Questions:
- Write an algorithm that detects meeting conflicts.
How to Prepare the Technical Questions:
Coding questions are unlikely during the phone interviews, but if you are invited to an on-site interview, you must prepare for programming interviews. The technical interviewer does not expect your programming syntax to be perfect, but you should have sufficient mastery of technical concepts so that you can participate in technical discussions and help make technical trade-offs. I would recommend going over computer science fundamentals and practicing a couple of coding questions.
One of my favorite resources is How to Ace the Software Engineering Interview. Also be prepared to describe key technologies including search engines, machine learning, and MapReduce.
What Not to Expect
Brain teasers, such as logic puzzles, are rarely used in today’s Google Product Manager interviews. Google’s HR department found a low correlation between job performance and a candidate’s ability to solve brain teasers.
Examples of brain teasers:
- I roll two dice. What is the probability that the 2nd number is greater than the 1st?
- What’s 27 x 27 without using a calculator or paper?
However, hypothetical questions have not been banned at all. Hypothetical questions are imaginary situations that are related to the job. This is in contrast with brain teasers, which are not related to the job. An example of a hypothetical question could be, “How would you design an algorithm to source data from the USDA and display it on Google nutrition?”
The following are questions that may contain more than 1 of the 6 criteria that Google looks for. Be prepared to answer them, if you aim to work there. We wish you good fortune on your journey to becoming a Product Manager with Google. If it was easy everybody would work there, which would defeat the purpose you want to work at Google in the first place.
If you are interested in learning how to craft the best answers to these questions, please schedule a call with us here. We look forward to helping you make the transition.
Google Product Manager Interview Questions
- Tell me about a Consumer Product you like.
- Apple Music has curatorial-driven playlists while Spotify is more algorithmically driven. What do you think about that?
- If you are head of product for a third competitor, where would you go? How would you go?
- What are the downsides of this particular future? Over-indexing, automation has the Facebook echo chamber?
- You are hired by Spotify, you are a Product Manager, how would you improve Spotify?
- Let’s switch gears. You have been hired by Google (Nest), and Nest wants to enter the Smart kitchen market. How would you enter this market? What would you build?
- CEO says this is awesome, how would you bring this product into the market? You don’t have unlimited resources.
- What other things are you thinking about? Barriers of entry? Competitors?
- What would your target Alphabet ecosystem or broader audience user? What do you think are the advantages and disadvantages of targeting each of them?
- Do you target online Google users? Or do you target other companies?
- What’s your go-to-market strategy?
- Different topic, I would like you to estimate for me the total amount of data that Google is required to restore all the imagery on GoogleEarth?
- Can you calculate for me the total available parking spots that are in New York?
- What is the total amount of storage space on Gmail? How would you calculate it?
- Design for me a product that solves the problems for people with hearing loss or impaired listening.
- Explain to me as you would to a 10-year-old how the internet works.
- If you were going to describe using a metaphor, what would that be?
- Your company distributes specifically ATMs to airports. You are in charge of designing a new one. How would you go about it?
- Explain how machine learning works.
- What are some things about engineers that you are aware of?
- How would you take present an image on HTML?
- Can you write me the code on the whiteboard?
- Define a function that takes the array (ex [2, 3, 4] and spits out 235, takes the last number and adds 1 & then combines the arrays(length) to form one number.
- If physics wasn’t an issue, can you design for me a smartwatch if Google was going to enter the market?
- If you were a Product Manager at Google, how would you monetize Google’s self-driving cars?
- In 10 years from now, do you think the smartwatch technology or self-driving would have a bigger impact on society and why?
To learn more about the interview process, RSVP for our next event. To see how Product Gym can help you land your next Product Manager job, schedule a call today.
Editor’s Note
This blog post contains excerpts from author Lewis C. Lin‘s original work, now published in his book: Secrets of the Product Manager Interview.
