Product Managers Interviewing Engineers
If you’re a product manager, how do you run a product interview for engineers? What do you ask in the interview? How do you evaluate the interview?
I’ve done a lot of product interviews over the years. However, I rarely, if ever, have interviewed engineers as a product manager. Recently though, I was asked to be more formally involved in interviewing engineers. Not knowing how to proceed with an interview, I put together a framework that I hope makes sense for a product interview for engineers.
Hiring the right engineers on your team is super critical, especially in early stage startups. At a high level, I consider the following attributes are important:
- Collaboration
- Communication
- Product decision-making
- Ability to see the larger picture
1. Collaboration
Why: The engineer will be working closely with you and the rest of your team and you want the engineer to work well with not just engineers, but everyone on the team.
Some questions to ask
- How did you and your teammates/PM work together on a specific project?
- How did you give/get feedback from others?
- Was there a time when you and your PM /stakeholders disagreed about something?
What to look for(the expectations will vary for junior vs. senior engineers)
Junior engineers
- An ability to collaborate with stakeholders outside of engineering (product and design)
- Ability to modify decisions based on feedback
- Shows signals of teamwork and valuing different opinions
Senior engineers (In addition to those mentioned for junior devs)
- Ability to collaborate well through conflict with various stakeholders
- Ability to disagree and commit
- Evidence of working successfully cross-functionally across a variety of groups/stakeholders
2. Communication
Why? This is more obvious as communication in teams where things are moving quickly is critically important.
Some questions to ask
- How did you and your PM stay on the same page regarding tasks work?
- Tell me about a time, when you had to explain a complex technical part to someone who was less technical?
- Beyond these, keep an eye out for candidate’s communication within the interview itself
What to look for
Junior engineers
- Ability to communicate technical language/concepts by simplifying it
- Understands product requirements and has an ability to translate that into technical components
Senior engineers (In addition to those mentioned for junior devs)
- Sets context and clearly articulates ideas/principles
- Shows an ability to communicate in less technical ways — ability to explain complicated technical concepts and situations in easy to understand ways
- Leads initiatives to present ideas and actively shape product direction
- Some evidence of good written communication
3. Product decision-making
Why: In fast moving environments, you’d want engineers to be able to enable product decision-making, and find faster or more creative ways to accomplish product and business objectives.
Some questions to ask
- Was there a time when you had to cut down on scope to deliver something quickly?
- Was there a time when you came up with a short term work around for a problem?
- Tell me about a time when you worked with product to help them make a technical decision
- Was there a time when you had to deliver something in a time crunch?
What to look for
Junior engineers
- Ability to execute quickly in light of goals
- Examples of some instances where candidate worked with PM to help them make technical decisions
Senior engineers (In addition to those mentioned for junior devs)
- Ability to navigate through complex technical decisions and technical projects and help make product tradeoffs
- Ability to devise creative solutions to ship faster
- Clear signal of being able to work with product to come up with creative solutions
4. Seeing the larger picture
Why: You want engineers to not just execute on projects but clearly understand why something is important, understand the objectives of the area/product/company and help make the right decisions.
Some questions to ask
- What are you working on now (or some sample project)?Why does/did it matter? How did it affect the user(s)?
- What was the overall vision? What were the goals?
- How did the team measure success?
- What were the most important aspects of this project?
What to look for
Junior engineers
- Ability to understand product goals, KPIs
- Ability to frame projects in context of the larger team mandate
Senior engineers (In addition to those mentioned for junior devs)
- Ability to articulate importance from a product/business standpoint
- Ability to set complicated technical projects in context of the larger product vision
- Being a cathedral builder vs. a brick layer
- Clear articulation of the vision and mission of product/product area
5. Potential other areas
Beyond these, you might get a better sense in the interview in a few different ways:
- Work through a real product case/sample problem with the engineer
- Dive into specific areas that are of interest (front-end UI design etc.)
