How to interview for Product Design Manager roles

Photo by Etienne Girardet on Unsplash

A lot of people are preparing for interviews recently due to massive layoffs happening in the tech sector. I noticed there wasn’t a lot of resources around how to prepare for product designer manager interviews compared to product designer roles(IC). This is a quick write up from my past experiences and tips from my mentors.

Difference vs. Similarity

1. Both IC role and manager role look for key product design axes such interaction design, visual design, execution excellence, strategy and communication.
2. Both roles require a portfolio for the interview.
3. Manager role involves a lot more conversations with recruiters and key leaders outside of the full loop.
4. Manager role includes more sessions around behavioral questions and leadership styles.

Interview Structure

1. Screening & Casual conversations
2. Portfolio & Presentation
3. Behavioral questions & Leadership styles
4. Your questions

Screening & Casual Conversations

You will spend a lot more time here compared to IC interviews. I noticed 3x more recruiter calls and pre-and post-interview conversations. As a manager, you would have an outsized impact on the company’s culture, direction and happiness of your reports. These conversations help you and the company determine whether you’re the right fit for each other. Bring your authentic self and ask lots of questions here.

Portfolio & Presentation

The structure of the presentation is similar to IC interviews. You’d present 2–3 case studies that you and your team worked on and communicate why this was an important problem and how you solved it. Given you wouldn’t have directly worked on the pixels, highlighting your unique contribution is important (i.e. how you helped the team.) I personally like adding a bit about my leadership styles+ org and people contribution here as well.

Behavioral Questions & Leadership Styles

This portion is much bigger for the manager role vs. IC role. I added common questions I’ve been asked below.

Recruiting & Development

• How did you develop or grow the product design organization during your time?
• How do you determine the design staffing needs and advocate for those in the design org?
• What is your management philosophy and style? What does success look like for you as a product design manager?
• How do you approach coaching and career development for your direct reports?
• How do you help your teammates understand what success looks like for them?
• How do you assess the health of your product design organization?
• Can you describe your approach to recruiting and hiring for product design?
• Tell me a time when you had to confront underachieving employees
• How do you help the team when they are not making progress?
• Tell me a time when you helped a designer grow
• How do you find opportunities for senior designers?
• How do you find opportunities for designers who doesn’t fit into the traditional mold?
• Tell me how you balance unplanned work priorities

Design Process

• How would you describe your design process?
• Can you describe changes to processes that you’ve implemented to push work forward within design and across product/engineering?
• What does a strong design process require at the beginning? At the end?
• When have you had to adapt to support changing business priorities?
• How did research influenced your directions during the design process?

Strategy and Collaboration

• How do you help the team focus on the right problem to solve?
• What projects of yours had the greatest impact?
• How do you help the team land on impactful strategy?
• How do you balance the technical constraints vs. user experience?
• How do you deal with it if the timeline of the design team doesn’t line up with the partner teams?
• Tell me a time where the you helped the team accelerate its velocity
• Tell me a time you disagreed on an idea
• How do you balance between user needs vs business needs?
• Tell me a time you helped the team align when people had different visions
• Tell me a time when you had to balance differing opinions between XFN stakeholders

Last but not least — Questions you ask

Interview loop by itself won’t give you enough time to have conversations with other leaders and XFN partners. Thankfully, I noticed that companies are a lot more generous with additional conversation requests when hiring a manager. Take this opportunity and ask critical questions that matter to you. Below are some example questions I asked companies when I was going through the interviews. I often ask the same questions to people in different roles to get diverse perspectives and to gauge potential misalignment.

• How do you determine what’s business critical?
• What’s your process for setting vision and roadmap?
• What’s the biggest challenge that the company is facing?
• What’s the biggest challenge (the design org or) designers are facing?
• How do you set up a new leadership up for success?
• What does a perfect candidate for this role look like for you?
• What’s your favorite and least favorite part of your job?
• What was the best and worst part of working with your previous design managers?

I find preparing for interviews to be actually a lot of fun. I often sit with these questions and notice how my perspectives evolved over time or find a growth areas. It’s a great opportunity for self-reflection. Hope this is helpful for everyone who’s prepping for Product Design Manager interviews. Feel free to drop questions below!