Google product manager behavioral interview (Top 5 questions)

Summary

In this mock interview, Mark, a former senior Google product manager, interviews Akshat, who has experience with Google Stadia and Messages. They discuss Akshat's builder mindset, his desire to work at Google due to its global impact and challenging problems, and his experiences with product leadership and resolving team conflicts. Akshat emphasizes the importance of understanding the market, user empathy, and effective communication for a successful product manager role.

Takeaways

• 😀 Akshat emphasizes his passion for building and tinkering, which aligns with Google's culture of innovation.
• 🌐 Akshat highlights the unique challenges of building products for a global audience at Google, considering diverse needs and constraints.
• 🔍 He discusses the importance of building for scale at Google, where even small features can impact billions of users.
• 💡 Akshat appreciates Google's focus on tackling hard problems, such as self-driving cars and quantum computing, which presents unique learning opportunities.
• 🛠️ Demonstrating product leadership involves making bold decisions, like rewriting a messaging engine, to solve critical issues.
• 🤝 Akshat shares an experience of resolving team conflict by setting clear criteria and objectives, leading to a consensus-based decision to sunset a project.
• 🔄 He stresses the importance of empathy and high EQ in product management, especially in navigating emotionally complex situations.
• 🗣️ Strong communication and conflict resolution skills are vital for a product manager to maintain team morale and collaboration.
• 🎯 Akshat believes that a good product manager must deeply understand their market, users, and the company context to set up the team for success.
• 📊 Establishing objective criteria and KPIs is crucial for making data-driven decisions, especially when resolving conflicts or evaluating product performance.
• 🏆 The mock interview showcases the qualities and skills valued by Google, such as problem-solving, leadership, and the ability to work on complex, global-scale issues.

Q & A

What is the role of Mark in this mock interview?

Mark is playing the role of the interviewer in a Google product manager mock interview.

What is Akshat's background according to the interview?

Akshat used to be a product manager at Google, where he worked on Google Stadia and Messages.

What does Akshat consider himself to be at heart?

Akshat considers himself to be a builder at heart, with a passion for creating and tinkering with things.

Why does Akshat want to work at Google, according to his answer?

Akshat is attracted to Google because of its global impact, the challenge of building for scale, and the opportunity to work on hard problems like self-driving cars, quantum computing, or AI breakthroughs.

What was the core issue with the messaging product Akshat mentioned?

The messaging product had reliability issues where messages were getting lost or going to the wrong place due to a buggy core engine brought in through an acquisition.

How did Akshat approach the problem of the messaging product's reliability?

Akshat decided to spend 50% of his time working on the core reliability issues and helped create a plan to completely rewrite the messaging engine, which was approved and led to improvements in reliability.

What was the conflict that arose with the experimental product 'Skypass'?

The conflict arose when the team felt that Skypass was not showing signs of traction and was a drain on resources, leading to disagreements and finger-pointing among team members.

How did Akshat resolve the team conflict over the Skypass product?

Akshat came up with a set of criteria for running an experiment with Skypass. If the product didn't meet the criteria after a quarter, the project would be wound down. This approach gained the buy-in of the entire team and provided objective data to support the decision to sunset the project.

What does Akshat believe are the key attributes of a good product manager?

Akshat believes that a good product manager needs to understand the market, the user, the company context, and have high EQ, strong communication, and conflict resolution skills.

What is the purpose of the mock interview in the script?

The purpose of the mock interview is to demonstrate common behavioral questions that might be asked in a Google product manager interview and to provide insights into how to answer them effectively.

What advice does Mark give on answering the question 'Why do you want to work at Google?'

Mark advises focusing on Google and not just oneself, emphasizing how one can help solve Google's big problems and highlighting the unique challenges and opportunities that working at Google presents.