The Google Product Manager Interview

Looking to get hired as a product manager at Google? 

Why wouldn’t you - after all, not only is it a chance to work at Google, but also, your work could potentially impact millions of people around the world!

If you get selected, that is. 

Google enjoys a notorious reputation as one of most tricky places to interview for, and the competition is no joke either. 

You need not worry though, because we are here to help! 

If you are one of the few people selected for a product manager interview at Google, preparing strategically will go a long way in helping you ace it. 

In this guide we will cover each and every aspect of the Google interview process you need to prepare for.

From the evaluation criteria to the kind of questions you can expect to be asked, this is everything you need to prepare for the most important interview of your life! 

Please do keep in mind that the details mentioned here do not apply to Associate Product Manager (APM) roles - this guide is meant only for candidates applying for Product Manager (PM) and Senior Product Manager (Sr. PM) roles at Google. 

 

Background

What does a Google product manager do?

First things first - Google product managers are the people in charge of all Google products and features. 

They lead design, engineering, and business teams to help conceptualize, build, and eventually launch products that are then used by people all over the world. 

A typical Google product manager is someone who is:

• Extremely versatile

• Technologically astute

• Design-oriented

• Strategic thinker

• Data driven

• Analytical 

This is mainly because Google does not look for specialized PMs. Rather, according to an email from the company to candidates for the position, Google wants people who “can easily float through our evolving product lines.”

What is the Google interview process like?

If you’ve been shortlisted for a product management position at Google, you should prepare yourself for a long interview process that takes place over several weeks. 

Not only does the process require multiple interviews with various people (we will cover all of this later on), you can also expect a few in-between stages where you won’t hear from anyone. 

These can last anywhere from a few days to a couple of weeks, and even though it can be disconcerting, it’s nothing to worry about. 

Also, if you know anyone who works at Google, you should tell your recruiter (with that person's permission of course) - the recruiter will send those Google employees a form to fill in regarding how well they know you and what they know about how you work. All this information gets added to your interview profile and can prove to be quite valuable later in the process. 

While we will be going over a lot of the questions you can expect later on in this guide, you should keep in mind that you probably will not be asked complex technical or mathematical questions. 

These are generally reserved for engineering positions at Google. 

As for the fearsome complex brain teasers that Google interviews are infamous for, the good news is that according to their hiring FAQs: “brain teaser questions didn’t predict how well someone would do on the job so we no longer ask them”.

Instead, your interview may include structured, hypothetical questions regarding issues with existing Google products and how you might handle them. 

How much can you expect to make as a Google product manager?

Product manager salaries at Google generally range from $200K to $400K, while Senior PMs can expect to make as much as $500K and upwards. 

In addition to the base salary, bonuses at Google are typically targeted at 15-20% of the base salary, while annually granted equity is generally between 45-60% - which is quite hefty, compared to industry standards.

There are two major factors that decide how much you make as a product manager at Google. 

The first one is your level. Within the product manager band there are multiple levels. 

The level you are at is determined by both the quantity and quality of experience you bring over to Google, as well as your performance while you're there. 

This is what the different levels within the PM band and their compensations look like:

However, there is also another important factor that decides how much you make - the group you are joining. 

For instance, product managers at a certain level in the Google Cloud group may get a different salary as compared to PMs at the same level at YouTube.  

Interview Process Structure

 

Now that you are up to speed on all of the background information you need to know, let’s take a look at the way the interview process is structured. 

Timeline

The entire Google product manager interview process is structured over a 4-8 week (on average) timeline. Over the course of this duration, you can expect to go through the following processes: 

1. Resume and referrals

2. Phone screens (2 interviews)

3. On-site interviews (4-6 interviews)

4. Hiring committee recommendation (Behind the scenes)

5. Senior leader review (Behind the scenes)

6. Compensation committee recommendation (Behind the scenes)

7. Senior executive review (Behind the scenes)

8. Job offer!

Interviews

Next, let’s take a look at the different interview stages that you will go through. 

Once your resume has made it past the first round of screening, these are the following rounds of interviews you can expect:

• Phone screen with recruiter

• Phone screen(s) with Product Managers

• On-site Interviews (4-6 different interviews)

Here is a detailed look at each. 

Phone screens

Phone screen interviews are phone calls meant to confirm that you meet the basic requirements for a PM position, and are a candidate who has a decent chance of getting hired. This includes verifying your qualifications, skillset, experience and role-related knowledge. 

These calls last for around 30 minutes, and first carried out by a recruiter, and then followed up by one or two PMs. 

The recruiter will primarily be concerned about your resume and experience, and will also ask you behavioral questions. PMs on the other hand may directly ask questions regarding product design and strategy. 

However, if Google is eager to hire you, they may skip the phone screening step entirely and directly bring you in for the on-site interview. 

If this happens, it’s a really good sign!

On-site interviews

Once the phone screens are completed, the real evaluation begins. On-site interviews traditionally take place at a Google office, where you will likely spend a full day. However, due to Covid-19, the interviews will take place remotely via Google Meet. 

The first two interviews take place in the morning, followed by lunch with a Google PM (again, this will be virtual due to Covid-19), and finally 3 interviews in the afternoon. 

Each interview will typically last 35-45 minutes, and while most of your interviewers will be product managers, you may also get an engineer who will be assessing your technical skills. 

Remember, even though they might not seem like it, the interviews will be very thorough. Each interviewer will evaluate your answers, take extensive notes and will prepare and submit a highly detailed report about your performance. 

While we cover the evaluation process in detail below, the on-site interviews are meant to gauge your strengths in four different areas - cognitive ability, leadership skills, role-related knowledge, and your “Googleyness” which means whether or not you will fit in with the culture.  

The lunch interview will be more relaxed and is generally meant as a time for you to ask questions (Google will not be evaluating you at this time), however, we highly recommend that you still consider it an evaluation. 

 

Interview Question Types

 

During all of these interviews, you will be asked many different questions that will cover a wide range of subjects. 

However, the good news is that all of these questions can be divided into 6 main groups:

1. Product Design - Creative and critical questions about Google products like Gmail, YouTube etc and even non Google products such as Uber or Netflix. You might even be asked to design a product for another company.

2. Product Strategy - Questions regarding Google’s vision and various markets like mobile, ads, product roadmaps etc.

3. Estimation - Questions meant to test your ability to work with numbers, such as market size, potential etc.

4. Technical Knowledge -  Questions relating to your technical knowledge and understanding

5. Data Analytics - Questions meant to test your ability to obtain, interpret, and communicate data such as metrics to track for given products or situations

6. Behavioral Analysis - Questions regarding your experience as a PM, motivations and leadership style

The phone screen interviews will include product design, technical knowledge and behavioral questions, while the on-site interviews will include all of the above. 

You do not need to worry about these because not only will we cover all of these question types in detail (along with sample questions for each) later on, we will also help you prepare for each of these in the preparation section below. 

Evaluation Process

Who evaluates you?

The very first people to evaluate you will be your interviewers. These will be fellow Google PMs and may include an engineer or two if required.

However, that’s not all. 

Once your interviewers have graded your answers to their questions, they will prepare extensive feedback reports and submit them to the hiring committee. 

Hiring committees usually consist of 4-5 Googlers who are either peers or managers at different levels and again, may also include a cross-functional member (such as an engineer). 

Once the hiring committee has assessed your candidate packet - the feedback from your interviewers, your resume and references, and any samples you have provided - it will make a recommendation on whether you should be hired or not. 

If you are recommended for hiring, the recommendation and your candidate pack will then be reviewed by a senior manager (or leader, as Google calls them). 

If they decide you’re a good fit, your application will be sent over to the compensation committee that will decide how much money you will be offered. 

Once decided, your candidate pack goes to executive review for final approval. 

As you might have noticed, Google puts in a lot of effort where hiring is concerned. According to Google, the reason for so many layers of evaluation is to “help make sure we’re holding true to our hiring standards as we grow”.

This is the main reason why the entire hiring process at Google can take several weeks. 

How does Google decide whether or not you’re the right fit?

So what exactly does Google look for in their product manager candidates? And how do they decide whether you fit in or not?

As we mentioned earlier, there are basically four different areas that you will be evaluated on: 

1. Cognitive ability: Your approach towards problems and how you solve them. You will be evaluated on your thought process and how you use presented data to make and prioritize your decisions. 

2. Leadership: Product managers are expected to lead and work with multiple teams across various stages of the product’s life, from launch to release. As such, your communication and team mobilization skills are assessed. 

3. Role-related knowledge: Google not only wants to know your experience as a product manager, but also your strengths and how they will both impact your future contribution to the company. 

4. Googleyness: While it may seem light, this final part is anything but. Google prides itself on its culture. As an organization that depends on its teams working and growing together, it’s very important that you fit right in. 

Google Product Manager Interview Questions

 

Since you are now familiar with the Google product manager interview and evaluation process, it’s time to take a detailed look at the questions you will be asked. 

In this section we will first describe each type of question, look at a few example questions, and finally discuss how you should approach and answer them.  

Product Design questions

As a Google product manager, your primary tasks will include designing new products and features, as well as improving existing ones. 

This is why product design questions tend to be some of the most asked ones in your interviews. These questions are designed to assess your creativity, user empathy, and design capabilities. 

Here are a few example product design questions that Google has asked previously: 

1. You are part of the Google Maps team. Autonomous fleet is a reality where autonomous cars are in production and on roads. Uber and Lyft want to show this in Google Maps. How would you design the product?

2. Build a product to buy and sell antiques&nbsp

3. How would you design a web search engine for children below 14 years old?

4. What is your favorite product How would you improve it?&nbsp

5. How would you improve Google Maps? 

As you can see, product design questions can focus on not only designing new products from scratch, but also improving existing Google products. 

Another question Google likes to ask is the 'favorite product' question. This is where they ask you what your favorite product is, along with follow-up questions such as 'where do you feel it's lacking?', or 'how you would improve it?' 

While these are only a few examples, you can find over one hundred product design questions posted by people who have appeared for the Google PM interview!

To tackle all of these different types of questions, you need set frameworks that you can rely upon when answering. 

Luckily for you, we have various product design question frameworks for you depending on the type of question asked - whether it's product improvement, case use of new technology or even a favorite product question!

Our prep course also includes our proven strategy on answering product design questions, as well as access to additional interview guides and hours of pre-recorded mock interviews to help you prepare! 

Product Strategy questions

As a PM, you will be responsible for the entire delivery roadmap for your products. This means that you need to be comfortable in thinking strategically about several key components that make up a successful product strategy. 

These include market relevance, competition, pricing, product timing, and more. 

Here are a few example product strategy questions that Google has asked previously: 

1. Tell me about a product you think won't be used in the next 3-5 years.  

2. How do you think travel will change?

3. How would you determine if a specific block in your neighborhood is suitable for a new grocery store?

4. Should Google get into the ticketing market? If so then what would you build?

5. Waymo is being asked to monetize beyond the ride-sharing use case, what should they do?

The list doesn’t end here. We have more such questions posted by people who have gone through the PM interview process at Google in our product manager interview questions repository.  

As you can see from the first two examples, sometimes product strategy questions can be really open-ended. To answer these (and any other kind of question), you need a specific framework that you can use to form your answers. 

The good news is we have frameworks for not only these, but all the different kinds of questions you can be asked in your interview. 

Estimation questions

Estimation questions are meant to assess your problem-solving and quantitative skills. Google wants to see if you can quickly crunch numbers and calculate estimations such as market size, number of customers, etc. 

Remember, your interviewers will be less interested in whether you got the numbers right or not, and more interested in how you got there in the first place. They want to know how you break the problems down, and how comfortable you are working with estimations like these. 

Here are a few example estimation questions that Google has asked previously: 

1. How would you estimate the space required for google photos?

2. What is the market for income tax software in the US

3. Estimate the daily watch time of cooking videos on YouTube

4. How would you go about finding out the number of red cars in China?

5. Estimate the number of incidents that could be reported by users of Waymo in the SF Bay area.

While these are only a few examples, you can find more estimation questions in our database of product manager interview qustions. The best part? All of these have been submitted by people who have gone through the Google PM interview process. 

We also have a prep course that contains an interview guide on answering estimation questions, as well as access to additional interview guides and hours of pre-recorded mock interviews to help you prepare! 

Technical questions

While PMs are not supposed to be technical gurus like software engineers, you will notice that a typical Google PM is a lot more technical than average. 

Even though you will not be asked a lot of these (typically only one or two), the questions will be centered around your understanding of several technical concepts and whether or not you can explain them in simple terms. 

Here are a few example technical questions that Google has asked previously: 

1. How would you make the internet work in Mars?

2. When you type something on a browser how does it work?

3. How does the system design for Strava work? How long will I be able to store Stravas data on the phone while offline?

4. Imagine that you are building a budget management system that allows the advertiser to set a daily budget . Design a large-scale distributed system that exhausts the budget but does not overspend.

5. Quantify the number of linear road miles in Google Map.

These are only a few examples. You can find more questions (posted by people who have gone through the Google PM interview) right here in our interview questions repository! 

Our prep course also includes guides on how to answer technical questions as well as a unique glossary of all technical terms that you must know, such as latency, protocols, APIs etc. You also get access to additional interview guides and hours of pre-recorded mock interviews to help you prepare here! 

Data Analysis questions

As a PM, it is your job to analyze data to identify, assess, measure, and report different metrics in order to determine the success of your product and prioritize the right set of activities. 

This is why data analytics questions can be broken up into two specific categories: Metrics & Problem Solving.  

Metrics questions

These questions will be primarily concerned about what metrics you would choose to track in given situations, or how you would go about investigating changes in a certain metric for a product. 

Here are a few example metrics questions that Google has asked previously: 

1. What is your favorite app? Define the success metrics for it.

2. How would you measure the success of Google Calendar?

3. How would you measure the success of YouTube TV?

4. There's a 50% drop in number of Uber rides per day, diagnose the problem.

5. Google Maps had a 10% drop in daily active users. What do you do?

You can see more metrics questions in our database of interview questions. Our prep course also explains how you answer metrics questions. 

Problem solving questions

As a PM, it is also your responsibility to not only measure and report key metrics, but also to act fast and fix issues wherever they occur.

This is why these questions will be geared towards finding out how you would go about investigating and solving a metrics- related problem that has occured with your product. 

A good example of such a question would be:

"Long term retention has dropped because of your proposed sign-up changes. What do you do?"

We cover more problem solving questions like the example above in our prep course. The course not only includes our proven frameworks for answering problem solving questions, but also for answering all the different kinds of questions that are asked!

Behavioral questions

While the behavioral questions aren’t really as difficult compared to others, they’re equally important. 

Questions in this category will be mainly in regard to the following three themes: 

• Why you want to work at Google and as a PM

• Your past leadership and team experience, particularly conflict management and working with a diverse group of people

• Whether or not you understand what good PMs do

Here are a few example metrics questions that Google has asked previously: 

1. Tell me about one accomplishment. Why was it meaningful for me 

2. Why do you want to work at Google? 

3. Tell me about a time you had conflict with another team member. How did you deal with it? 

4. Tell me about a time you influenced someone in another team.

5. There’s a product that should be launched in two weeks and cannot be launched. What would you do? How would you tell the stakeholders?

Looking for more? Don’t worry! We have more behavioral questions with answers in our specially designed prep course! 

 

How to Answer Google Product Manager Interview Questions

How to answer product design questions?

Here is a simplified step-by-step approach that you should apply. 

1. Clarify the scope of the question. This is your chance to make sure that you have understood the interivew question and are clear on the scope of the question. 

2. List user groups and choose. Share your understanding and identification of the multiple user groups that the product or solution targets. Once you’re done listing each of these and the distinctions between them, choose the one you are targeting. Remember to include why you chose this group. 

3. List user needs. Provide a list of needs that your selected user group has. This indicates a good understanding of the customer base. 

4. Prioritize. Choose which needs you are targeting and explain why. 

5. List solutions. Provide a list of possible solutions for each need that you are prioritizing. This is where you can showcase your creativity and ability to think thing and out of the box. 

6. Evaluate your solutions. Showcase your evaluation and execution skills by evaluating each of your solutions against a set of criteria and choosing the best one.

7. Summarize. Make sure you wrap up your answer by summarizing everything you discussed.  

This is a simplified version of our framework. For more information, you should read our detailed article on answering product design questions. Not only does it contain examples from actual Google PM interviews, the guide is part of an entire prep course that we have designed specifically to help you succeed! 

How to answer product strategy questions?

1. Clarify. Make sure you are clear on the scope of the question & have asked the necessary clarification questions. 

2. Determine priority. Identify a specific objective as the company priority. 

3. List choices. Once you know your objective, list all the strategic options that come to your mind.  

4. Discuss. Highlight the pros and cons of each strategic choice.

5. Choose. Conclude your answer by choosing the best strategic and identifying why you chose it. 

   You can find a more detailed version of the steps described above, tips and actual interview questions in our specially designed preparatory course! 

How to answer estimation questions?

Here is a simplified step-by-step approach for answering estimation questions. 

1. Clarify the scope of the question. Make sure that you have understood what you are being asked to estimate. 

2. Create your main equation. This is the equation that includes all the factors needed to calculate the final estimated number you are looking for. 

3. Break down this main equation into smaller, simpler equations. This will help demonstrate that you know how to simplify problems to identify the unknowns. 

4. Make assumptions but let your interviewer know the logic behind those. 

5. Calculate and solve all your equations till you reach your final answer.

6. Explain your logic (again) and do a quick sanity check to make sure you didn't make any calculation mistakes. 

This is a simplified version of our interivew guide on estimation questions. For more information and detailed examples, refer to the interview guide on answering estimation questions. This guide is part of our Google PM interview prep course, which is specifically designed to help you succeed in your PM interview!  

How to answer technical questions?

While you will not be asked more than one or two technical questions, they are still important and you must do well in them. Here is a simplified step-by-step approach for answering Technical questions. 

1. Clarify. Make sure that you are clear on what you are being asked do, design, discuss trade offs on, etc. 

2. Highlight attributes. Showcase your technical knowledge by highlighting the attributes (speed, cost, UX, etc) and trade offs that you have to take into consideration when evaluating your technical choices. 

3. Set a goal. Explain the product goal and priority that you are going to keep in mind when making your technical decision.

4. Prioritize the attributes given the goal you highlighted earlier.  

5. Choose & Design. Choose the technical path & design the product using the technical direction you have chosen.  

This is a simplified version of our interview guide on answering technical questions. 

How to answer metrics questions?

Here is a simplified step-by-step breakdown of how you should answer a metrics question. 

1. Describe the product or feature to showcase your understanding of how it works and the problem it solves. 

2. Define the goal that you'd like to focus on.

3. Go over the user journey and talk about the key behaviors that are relevant to the success of the product. 

4. List metrics for measuring the user behaviours that you highlighted earlier

5. Evaluate the metrics you have identified by a set of criteria such as reach or impact. 

6. Summarize your answer. Remember to highlight the key metrics you have identified and your evaluation criteria for each. 

This is a simplified version of our proven framework. To learn more, you should read our detailed article on answering metrics questions. 

How to answer problem solving questions

Here are a few simple steps you should follow when answering a data analytics problem solving question. 

1. Identify. The first thing you need to do is identify the problem statement. Sometimes, the interviewer will include it in the question (for example: user retention has dropped) and sometimes they will leave it open-ended and you will have to find it by asking the right set of questions. 

2. Present hypothesis. You need to look at all the internal and external factors that may have caused the issue (for example: time,new feature release, seasonality, bugs, bad PR, competition, etc.) to pinpoint the factor that is primarily responsible and where exactly is it that the problem began. 

3. Suggest actions. Explain how you suggest to address the problem. 

 

To find out more, you can study our detailed guide on answering problem solving questions.