Top Product Manager Interview Questions
Introduction
If you have interviewed with different companies for product management roles, you notice that their interview process may vary. Still, the type of product manager interview questions they asked are the same. In product management interviews, the questions will be a mix of behavioral and case questions. The focus of this article is on case questions and not behavioral questions. We will discuss the most frequently asked case interview questions and how to use this information to optimize your preparation.
Top Questions Asked in PM Interviews
On StellarPeers, members share questions asked at interviews. We took a sample of 825 interview questions shared from Jan 2022 to Feb 2023 and created frequency distributions for Google, Meta, and other companies (46 other businesses). Figure 1 below shows the percentage of the share of questions asked at these companies. Most of the questions were from Google (~35%) and Meta (~40%), while 25% were attributed to the other 46 companies.
We categorized questions based on names that best describe the type of knowledge the questions test. Based on these categories, we created frequency and percentage distributions for Google, Meta, and what we call a generic company. We use the term ‘generic company’ to refer to any other company other than Google and Meta. You can find these distributions at the bottom of this post.
Implications for Your Interview Preparation
Based on these distributions, we compared the top 5 question types asked at Google, Meta, and generic companies. As a result, we share the following observations and implications.
| Generic Company | Meta | |
|---|---|---|
| Product Design (52%) | Product Design (60%) | Product Design (48%) |
| Metrics (15%) | Metrics (16%) | Estimation (19%) |
| Technical (8%) | Goal Setting (13%) | Technical (12%) |
| Growth (5%) | Trade-offs (7%) | New Market (6%) |
| Problem Diagnostic (3%) | Problem Diagnostic (3%) | Problem Diagnostic (6%) |
| Product Critique (2%) | Product Testing (1%) | Metrics (4%) |
Note: We colored question types that were shared by these companies to highlight commonalities.
Most Popular Types of Product Manager Interview Questions
Observations:
- Product design is the most popular interview question at Meta, Google, and other companies.
- Metrics is the second most popular interview question at Meta and other companies. But it is less popular at Google.
- Technical questions are the third most popular questions at Google and other generic companies.
- Problem Diagnostic questions are asked at a similar frequency across all companies but rank lower than product design, metrics, and technical.
Implications:
- Most of the top tech companies like Google and Meta have slowed down their hiring dramatically, starting January 2023. Therefore, you should focus on preparing for question types asked at generic companies (less known, small, and medium-sized companies): Product Design, Metrics, Technical, Growth, Problem Diagnostic, and Product Critique.
- If you are interviewing with Meta, prioritize preparing for these questions: Product Design, Metrics, Goal Setting, Trade-offs, Problem Diagnostic, and Product Testing.
- If you are interviewing with Google, prioritize preparing for these questions: Product Design, Estimation, Technical, New Market, Problem Diagnostic, and Metrics.
Questions Types Companies Have in Common
Observations
We found commonalities in the question types and how they rank in frequency (based on our distribution) across Meta, Google, and generic companies.
Across all:
- Product Design is #1 for all companies (Google, Meta and Generic)
- Metrics is #2 for Generic and Meta, and #6 for Google
- Problem Diagnostic is #5 for all companies (Google, Meta and Generic)
Between generic companies and Meta:
- Product Design is #1 for both
- Metrics is #2 for both
- Problem Diagnostic is #5 for both
Between generic companies and Google:
- Product Design is #1 for both
- Technical is #2 for both
- Problem Diagnostic is #5 for both
- Metrics is #2 for Generic and #6 for Google
Implications
If you plan to interview with Google, Meta, and other companies, we recommend interviewing with Google first and then with Meta. The reason is that Google and many other companies have more question types in common, including a technical interview which Meta does not require.
Technical questions can be system design or technical knowledge questions and require a very different type of preparation than other question types. Therefore preparing simultaneously for both the Google and the Meta interviews is hard because your prep time will be spread thin across two very different types of interviews.
Instead, preparing for Google first will also prepare you for other companies other than Meta. After your first round with Google, you could focus on the Meta prep. In addition, Meta’s approach to product design and execution is influenced by its mission and product development practices. And this approach affects how they evaluate interview answers. Preparing for a Meta interview requires a more nuanced focus that considers their way of making products. For this reason, we have separated frameworks to interview questions into three buckets at StellarPeers: Meta, Google, and generic companies.
Strategy Questions
Observations
Google and generic companies ask strategy questions (e.g., Growth and New Market entry questions). In contrast, Meta almost never asks these types of questions.
Implications:
- If you are interviewing with Google or generic companies, spend time preparing for strategy questions.
- If you are solely interviewing with Meta, you don’t need to focus on strategy questions.
Summary
We researched the different types of questions that Google, Meta, and other companies in the tech industry ask in product management interviews. And we observed the following:
- Three types of questions are asked across all companies: Product Design, Metrics, and Problem Diagnostic.
- Google and generic companies (other than Meta) ask technical questions.
- Meta does not tend to ask strategy questions (e.g., market growth, new market entry), while Google and other generic companies do.
Based on these findings, we provide the following recommendations for your product management interview prep:
- Plan to interview with Google and generic companies at the same time. The first reason is Google and companies other than Meta include a technical interview in their interview process; Meta does not. The second reason is that interviewing with Meta requires a more nuanced preparation to consider Meta’s specific approach to product design and execution.
- Focus your interview preparation on targeting generic companies (small and medium companies that are not Fortune 500) until Meta, Google, and other top tech companies start hiring again. The types of questions you should prioritize if you are preparing to interview with a generic company are: product design, metrics, technical, growth, problem diagnostic, and product critique.