Awesome awesome article!! Thank you so much for it! Could you share more guidance on a Security TPM role and what are some of things to prepare? Excellent article!!! Thank you so much.. Will you be able to throw some light on this?
How should one prepare resources, previously asked questions etc. This article has really helped me focus on certain areas. My previous interview preparation since a few months back was focused on Product Manager positions but also at very technical companies so there was a lot of overlap for me.
So many great lessons and insights. The step by step process for the actual design problems first seemed too short but the descriptions have been concise for me. Money well spent in my eyes as I know that I will retain this knowledge due to its delivery.
Great Indeed. Would you like to update info as it was written in Also, Would you mind if I request to be more company specific in another blog of yours. Some top companies and what do they really ask in their interviews for TPMs and how their individual expectations are. Thanks a lot Mario, no doubt this is the most detailed blog to start preparation for TPM role.
Thanks again. Thanks so much for putting this. Very helpful indeed. I am wondering where can I find generic answers for PM and agile sample question that you have posted above. This would help in prepare more. Wow thanks for taking the time to write this down. Its really very helpful. I added you on LinkedIn too. Wow, this is one stop shop for all info for this role.
Thank you for taking so much effort to write this for everyone. Great read! Thanks for gathering all this information. Great write up! Every relevant detail is captured on a single web page. Thanks for sharing! However I could say this only after jumping in the water and trying to go through the vast amount of resource to finally stumble on this article that does pretty good job to give a structure.
Fantastic article especially for dummies like me who are just curious to know what a Senior Technical Program Manager does. Mario: this is an amazing article! Thank you! Time-consuming read but has a lot of case studies. This is a quick and dirty guide or could be used as a refresher. Shorter book!! Alessandro has interviewed over TPMs in the last two years. Listen to his take on what he looks for in TPM candidates. Hardware: Chip Manufacturing. Common questions include Describe a situation where used your leadership skills to help your project team meet a difficult challenge.
Describe a situation where you should you technical aptitude and solved an issue. Describe a situation where you negotiated a win-win situation.
Describe a situation where you changed the process to make it better and more productive Describe the most complex project you have managed from start to finish and what were the challenges you encountered during your path. How have you managed risk in a project? What was a tough situation you faced and how did you overcome it? How would you handle non- productive developers?
If you do not get traction form a fellow TPM on another Team what would you do? How do you motivate your team of developers? What are the main things you would look for when you are running a cross-team Program?
Was your loyalty ever challenged? Give an example of such a scenario and what you did about it? An example of a win-win situation you have negotiated. Give an example of a challenging situation you had and how you handled it Describe a situation where you were the voice of the customer? Give an example when you took ownership of a program.
A situation where you think target where unachievable and how you overcame it How do you add value to an already high-performance team What is the thing you are most proud of? How did you handle it? If you had to do it over again, would you do it any differently? How do you plan for a project or program?
What in your opinion are the three constraints of a project or program? What are the tell-tale signs that your project or program is going to fail? How have you contributed to the success of your programs? How would you increase the efficiency of your development team? How would you describe the critical path and float in a program?
How do you deal with stress, pressure, and unreasonable demands? What are the tools you would use to ensure your program will succeed? If you come about an early delay in one of your milestones what would you do?
Describe a situation when you had conflicting responsibilities and how did you handle it? How do you decide if you would like to you traditional project management vs Agile methodologies? How would you manage cross-team dependencies and deliverables? Describe a time when your project failed. What are the various states of a project? The importance of data and how you have used data analytics in previous roles You missed a project deadline.
How would you handle it? What are the different types of agile methodologies that you have used and know about? What are the core components of Scrum that you think are most valuable and what things do you feel are not so valuable? How would you describe the most effective standup? What are the best methods of sizing during a planning meeting What kind of preparation is necessary before you start a sprint planning meeting?
How would you decide your sprint length? How do you calculate velocity? And how important is this? Where does calculating velocity not make sense? Have you ever used Kanban? Describe the situation where kanban makes sense and what are its advantages? Differentiate between cycle time vs Lead time?
What are the key components of having a successful Agile team? Difference between a burn-up and a burndown chart?
Various Agile tools you have used? How would you describe a spike in scrum? Why is CI, CD important? What is your take on documentation within a Scrum team? How do you manage dependencies within an agile development team?
What is your take on the SAFe framework? What is your take on MVP? When does a scrum team fail and why? What are the primary advantages of using Scrum? Common problems of estimation during a planning session. How do you split large epic stories? Give an example. If so describe the experience and the hurdles you faced. How do you prioritize when you groom your backlog or Take stories into your sprint? Everything system design.
If you are looking towards more product-centric roles I would recommend reading- Swipe to Unlock: A Primer on Technology and Business Strategy — A very interesting read. Humor interview Questions for a Technical Program Manager. Here are some of my favorite questions to ask : What in your opinion what are the most challenging aspects of this role or team?
How big is the team what are their backgrounds and experience? What does a typical day look like for the tech program manager at your organization? What are the primary skills you are looking for? About The Author. Amit GOldie on July 9, at pm. Hi Mario, I just picked up your course on Udemy. Regards, Amit. Anonymous on July 9, at pm.
Vinod on August 20, at pm. I am not able to get certificate after completion of this full course. MJ on August 8, at pm. Kedarswar Swain on July 30, at pm. Anonymous on April 24, at am. Excellent blog, kudos to all your efforts and hard work. This is a great preparation tool. Mario Gerard on September 26, at am. Anand Prajapati on September 25, at pm. Dear Mario, First i would like to express my appreciation on your effort to help the community like ours.
I am unable to find the total reading time of your below course? There are lot of topics. Best Regards,. MKN on April 23, at pm. Vinay on February 14, at am. Simply great. Thanks a lot for this. It is so full with great info. Lots to learn. Understanding Algorithms on December 28, at pm. Pandora coupon on December 20, at am. Kako si ogledate zasebne profile na Instagramu on December 19, at am. C on December 4, at pm.
Youtube to mp3 on November 9, at pm. Gonzalo on October 25, at am. Supriya on October 9, at pm. Stavan Dholakia on September 29, at pm. Articulate and High Quality. Thanks Amigo.
SJain on August 12, at pm. Ritu Agarwal on August 3, at am. Extremely useful article! Thank you so much! Great piece!!! Thanks for compiling and sharing.
Demi James on July 6, at pm. Arun Dhwaj on June 18, at am. Its amazing blog Mario. Hari on June 9, at pm. Hussein F Zahran on May 22, at am. Excellent article, it can help me in my future transition to a TPM role. Komal on April 29, at pm. Great information! One of the best write ups for cracking the TPM Interviews..
Excellent summary … Thanks for the same. Will bookmark and go over few times. Krishna Akella on March 12, at pm. Justin Nixon on March 8, at am. SKH on February 23, at am. Ruth on February 12, at pm. Niel Harmond on February 6, at pm.
This is amazing! You have got everything covered. So thankful. Shank on January 20, at pm. Shank on January 20, at am. Emily Stewart on January 2, at pm. Great blog post, and I like all the resources. You might want to share it with your readers! Mario Gerard on December 30, at pm. Parth on December 29, at pm. Dipanwita on December 6, at am. Detailed and very helpful article. DilipKumar dkotapothula14 on November 21, at pm. Excellent Write-up!! Amit K on November 3, at am. Mario Gerard on November 1, at pm.
Kalyan — thank you for that. Will look into the red is caching link. Kalyan on November 1, at pm. Mario, amazing information.. Anonymous on October 3, at pm. Thank you for much for this comprehensive blog!!!! Michael Peters on September 15, at am. Naveen Aggarwal on August 12, at pm. One of best interview preparation blogs I have read! Great work. Sasha on July 25, at am. Really comprehensive review and a looooot of study. Saurabh on June 28, at am. Sathya on June 23, at pm.
Nice, detailed article. Chris Nyles on May 18, at pm. Anonymous on May 9, at am. Sunil on April 14, at am. This is the best resource out there for TPMs!! You Rock!! Pradeep Samuel on February 20, at am. Excellent Article!! Very helpful and a detailed writeup!! Vik on February 10, at pm. Detailed and helpful article. Thanks for sharing. Mahesh marasimhan on September 30, at pm. This is great and really helpful. Supriya Dixit on September 11, at pm. Abhishek Sharma on September 11, at pm. This is really Great Write up Mario!!
Nizzly Annette on August 29, at pm. Ravi Kiran Bhamidipati on August 10, at pm. WoW, such detailed article. Thank you for helping me in my interview preparation. Jack on July 27, at pm. Very detailed article thank you! Leave a reply Cancel reply Your email address will not be published. Pin It on Pinterest. Memcached or Redis. You should expect typical behavioral and resume questions like, "Tell me about yourself", " Why Google? Your recruiter will usually let you know who you are interviewing with, what type of interviews you should expect, and share resources to prepare for them.
You'll go through one or two initial 45mins screens which usually happen over the phone with a current Google TPM. The types of questions you'll be asked are the same as during the onsite. Be prepared to cover: program management, technical and leadership questions. More on that below. The role of the phone screen is to make sure it's worth bringing you onsite. Your interviewer will therefore try to make sure there isn't an area where you are particularly weak and don't stand a chance to meet the hiring bar.
Onsite interviews are the real test. You'll typically spend a full day interviewing with Google TPMs and software engineers. Each interview will last about 45 minutes and cover one of the following topics:. In most cases you'll have three program management, one technical, and one leadership interviews. But for particularly technical positions you might get two program management, and two technical interviews.
The lunch interview is meant to be your time to ask questions about what it's like to work at Google. The company won't be evaluating you during this time, but we recommend that you behave as if they were.
In some cases, Google may ask you to do a follow up interview after your onsite to drill further in one of the three areas listed above.
This means you're close to getting an offer but the company wants to double check you're meeting the hiring bar for a given criteria e. At the end of each interview your interviewer will grade your performance using a standardised feedback form that summarizes the attributes Google looks for in a candidate.
That form is constantly evolving, but we have listed the main components we know of at the time of writing this article below. In the first section of the form the interviewer fills in the questions they asked you. These questions are then shared with your future interviewers so you don't get asked the same questions twice. Each interviewer will assess you on the four main attributes Google looks for when hiring:.
Depending on the exact job you're applying for these attributes might be broken down further. For instance, "Role-related knowledge and experience" might be broken down into "Program management" and "Technical judgement" for a TPM. In this middle section, Google's interviewers typically repeat the questions they asked you, document your answers in detail, and give you a score for each attribute e.
Finally interviewers will write a summary of your performance and provide an overall recommendation on whether they think Google should be hiring you or not e. If things go well at your onsite interviews here is what the final steps of the process look like:. After your onsite, your interviewers will all submit their feedback usually within two to three days. This feedback will then be reviewed by a hiring committee, along with your resume, internal referrals, and any past work you have submitted.
At this stage, the hiring committee will make a recommendation on whether Google should hire you or not. If the hiring committee recommends that you get hired you'll usually start your team matching process.
In other words, you'll talk to hiring managers and one or several of them will need to be willing to take you in their team in order for you to get an offer from the company. In parallel, the hiring committee recommendation will be reviewed and validated by a Senior manager and a compensation committee who will decide how much money you are offered. Finally, if you are interviewing for a senior role, a Senior Google executive will review a summary of your candidacy and compensation before the offer is sent to you.
As you've probably gathered by now, Google goes to great lengths to avoid hiring the wrong candidates. This hiring process with multiple levels of validations helps them scale their teams while maintaining a high caliber of employees. But it also means that the typical process can spread over multiple months. We believe in data-driven interview preparation and have used Glassdoor data to identify the types of questions which are most frequently asked at Google.
Google TPMs design and execute programs from end-to-end. It's therefore important that they have a strong ability to plan, prioritize and deliver projects. This is the part of the interview process where you need to show you think about programs in a comprehensive way e. We've listed typical questions you can expect in this interview below and grouped them in seven subcatories to help you organize your preparation.
All the questions listed are from TPM interview reports available on Glassdoor. Notice that almost all questions on the list can be asked as hypothetical questions e.
How do you manage programs from end-to-end? Tell me about a time you managed a program from end-to-end. Although the two phrasings are similar they require different answers. For hypothetical questions, you should explain your hypothetical approach to the question asked e. I would do XYZ to manage a program. And for behavioral questions, you need to take an actual example from your past and explain what you did e.
I did ABC to manage my program last year. This might sound obvious, but it's a common mistake candidates make in interviews that's easy to avoid. Google TPMs tend to work on very technical programs. They need to be able to engage in system design discussions with engineers and to discuss the merits of architecture A vs. This is the part of the interview process where you need to show that you have thorough technical knowledge and can discuss architecture concepts in a clear and structured way.
In addition, unlike most smaller companies, Google's products have millions of monthly active users. Google's systems therefore need to be able highly scalable. As a consequence, you should expect part of the design discussion to focus on performance, efficiency and scalability. As mentioned previously, system design questions are usually either about diving deep into the design of a system you've previously worked on e.
Tell me about the design of the most complex project you've worked on. Or about designing a new system from scratch e. How would you design Netflix. For more information about system design interviews, consult our comprehensive guide. Technical explanation questions aim to test the depth of your technical knowledge, and your ability to communicate that knowledge in a simple way. A typical example would be: "What happens when you enter a URL in your browser? Your interviewer will usually ask you technical questions based on the projects and technologies listed on your resume.
You should therefore brush up on the technologies you've used in the past. In other words, a TPM with a software development background will be asked different technical questions than a TPM with a background in machine learning, embedded systems or hardware engineering.
Coding questions aren't systematically asked but are still regularly mentioned in interview reports. If you're currently an engineer then you'll probably be asked to write working code.
But, if you are currently in another role than engineering then pseudo-code will most likely be fine. Also, notice that the questions asked are much easier than the Leetcode questions you can expect in Google software engineer interviews.
They need to be able to communicate clearly, work with others efficiently, build trust and relationships, etc. In addition, TPMs usually don't have direct authority over most of the resources they work with. They therefore need to be able to lead teams by influencing and motivating others, resolving conflicts when they arise, driving alignment, etc.
This is the part of the interview process where you really want to show that you are good at working with others and driving successful cross-functional collaboration.
Be prepared to talk about situations where you've troubleshooted program bottlenecks, negotiated design components with engineers, adapted your program when requirements changed, etc. We've listed common examples that you can expect in this interview according to data from Glassdoor. Again here, you should be ready to answer both hypothetical questions e.
How would you do XYZ , and behavioral questions e. Tell me about a time you did XYZ. Finally, we've also included typical behavioral questions e. Now that you know what questions to expect, let's focus on how to prepare. Most candidates fail to do this. But before investing tens of hours preparing for an interview at Google, you should take some time to make sure it's actually the right company for you.
Google is prestigious and it's therefore tempting to assume that you should apply, without considering things more carefully. But, it's important to remember that the prestige of a job by itself won't make you happy in your day-to-day work. It's the type of work and the people you work with that will. If you know TPMs who work at Google or used to work there it's a good idea to talk to them to understand what the culture is like.
In addition, we would recommend reading the following resources:. As mentioned above, you'll have three types of interviews at Google: program management, technical and leadership. For program management interviews, we recommend starting with our program management primer. Also, take a look at the following video, which outlines how Google thinks about program management.
Once you've watched this video or studied the summary above, we recommend brushing up on program management basics. This will give you an opportunity to refresh your memory on all key aspects of project management including: scope, schedule, resources, cost, quality, communication, risk, stakeholders, etc.
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