Questions you should ask in a product manager interview

Interviews can be overwhelming on its own, there’s a lot of preparation, anxiety, and all-around unknowns on how it will go. The role of a product manager differs from company to company and can even vary between organizations within the same company. When interviewing for product management roles, it is equally important that you interview the company that is interviewing you so you can better understand what product management means to them and how it works for this role. In this post we go through five critical questions you should ask during an interview.

1. Learning more about the role and team
2. Competitive analysis and market knowledge
3. Understand the product leadership and strategy
4. Assess collaboration and team environment
5. Managing the product roadmap
6. Expectations for release cadence

Learning more about the role and team

Learning about the role and the team allows you to understand what expectations this group has of a product manager. Although there are clear delineations between product managers, program managers, project managers, product owners and even product marketing, many companies do not have distinct roles for each of these functions. There are some questions you can ask to ensure you understand how they separate the roles within their organization:

1. Can you provide more insights into the specific responsibilities and expectations for this Product Manager role?
2. What is the composition of the Product Management team, and how does it collaborate with other departments within the organization?
3. Are there project managers engaged throughout the product life cycle?

It’s important to ask questions about expectations so that you know which functions they expect you to do. Unclear or unmet expectations can lead you to burnout in your new role, and your new company will be disappointed in your growth.

Competitive analysis and market knowledge

You should be able to do a preliminary product analysis and market knowledge if the product already exists. This may not be possible if the product is new, and the company is looking to get it off the ground. Regardless of what stage the product is in, you need to know who your competitors are. It will score you a few interview points if you can mention some of the competitors you have researched, but it’s great to ask the hiring manager who they see as their competitors, and why.  Here are a few questions that you can use as a reference to get these answers.

1. Where do you think [product] is positioned in comparison to other competitors?
2. How does the company approach competitive analysis in the [product name] space?
3. What strategies are in place for maintaining a competitive edge, and how does this role contribute to them?

Competition exists for every product and without a strategy on staying ahead of the competition or regularly assessing them, it can result in the product being deprioritized or even removed as an offering. As a product manager, growing your product is a key function and keeping a competitive advantage is essential.

Understand the product leadership and strategy

Without a vision the people perish, or in this case, the product. While part of the product manager’s role is creating that vision, you should understand where the vision is in relation to the organization and company overall goals. Knowing where your product fits allow you to understand how critical (or not) your product is to the bottom line, how visible it is to management, and how you can align with crafting the product strategy.

1. Can you describe the current product strategy and major initiatives related to product X?
2. How does this role contribute to shaping and executing the overall product strategy?
3. What is the vision for the product offerings, and how does this role align with that vision?

If the responses are that this is a critical product for the growth of the company, it’s even more important for you to understand what your product team looks like. This will let you know how much support you have in creating and delivering a great product.

Assess collaboration and team environment

If this is a critical product for the growth of the company, you would expect a fully staffed product team? Maybe. Assessing collaboration and team environment is necessary to also understand the expectations the company may have for you in this role. Here are some questions you can ask to get an idea of what the team structure looks like:

1. Given the criticality of this product to the company’s growth, can you describe the typical collaboration dynamics with engineering, project management, product marketing, sales, support, and other product managers?
2. What strategies or practices are in place to ensure effective communication and alignment across these departments?
3. Is there a dedicated engineering team to this product?
4. How does the organization prioritize user experience (UX) in product development, and what role does this position play in ensuring a world-class user experience?

These questions are a great way for you to assess how much support you will get from others for your product. If there aren’t any project managers, that’s likely a role you will take on. For question 3, this lets you know if the product uses shared resources with other products. This could be a challenge for you when it comes to prioritization for your feature requests.

The opposite is equally true, if the product is not as critical to the growth of the company, it may not be a fully funded product and you may constantly get your features cut because of higher priority items.

Managing the product roadmap

Owning the product roadmap is a function typically owned by the product manager. Depending on the organization or the criticality of the product, the roadmap may also be influenced by other factors including senior management. Understanding how much ownership you have over the roadmap and strategy is a fundamental alignment you should have. Questions that you should ask to get a grasp on the ownership of this function:

1. How does the organization prioritize features and enhancements on the product roadmap?
2. What methodologies or frameworks are used for product prioritization, and how does this role contribute to that process?
3. Is the roadmap publicly released to customers?

The management of the roadmap allows you to have a plan and strategic alignment on the direction of the product. It provides accountability for releases and a great measurement of progress. Roadmaps should also be flexible and understanding how much flexibility you have or how many stakeholders need to sign off on it, allows you to better align expectations.

Expectations for release cadence

Depending on the product, releasing a new product or new feature can be a lot of work. Not just with the development aspect but engaging with other teams such as user experience for design, marketing, support, and content team. This can be a lot of stakeholder management so knowing if this is something you need to do monthly, quarterly, or semi-annually will help you understand the workload. Here are some questions you can ask to better understand the expected release cadence.

1. How often do you release new features or enhancements to the product?
2. What does the release process look like, and who manages it?
3. How do you receive feedback from customers on each release?

While releasing new features to your product is a great delight for customers, you should also enquire about bug fixes. Every product has bugs. Knowing if your company prefers to build new features versus fixing features gives you an idea of where their priorities are when it comes to managing the product.

Understanding how success is measured

Measuring the impact of a product is something that should be done. Another way to gauge the criticality of a product to a company is to see what measures they have in place to measure overall success. Once you know how it’s measured, those are metrics that you can work on to continue to grow.

1. How is success measured for this role and the product offerings?
2. Are there key performance indicators (KPIs) or metrics that are particularly important in evaluating product success?
3. Do you have any measurements on how your customers feel about your product?

One of the skills for successful product managers is empathy. Question three is a great way to visualize how your company values customer sentiment. Knowing what your customers think of your product can help you develop more innovative offerings, making sure you are meeting and exceeding their needs. If they do not have a measure for it, this should be one of your first tasks so that you can get a baseline in understanding where your customers are today and how you can improve on the product.

Interviewing is a two-way street; you need to understand expectations before accepting any role. The questions highlighted in this blog post are just a sample of the types of answers you should get clarity on before starting a new role. While these questions are tailored towards getting you to better understand the role and the product, it also provides the opportunity to learn more about the company’s culture, and expectations, and to see if they align with your own goals and aspirations.

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