Google Project Manager interview questions

This review is specifically for a product manager position at Google. I consider Google to be the Harvard of product management. Similar to Harvard, Google is extremely hard to get into but if you get in, you are pretty much set for life, you work with the smartest people on the planet, so many doors open up for you, you will likely become very wealthy, and you can make a huge impact on the world. The Google interview process takes 6-8 weeks from initially talking to a recruiter to accepting an offer. It feels like a marathon and the entire time - particularly up until you are approved by their Hiring Committee - you need to bring your A+ game. They are looking for a reason to reject you so you need to ace every single phone screen and interview. Any small misstep on your part and you're out. If you truly want to work there, I strongly recommend spending as much time as you can preparing by practicing sample questions over and over before your interviews/phone screen so, during those interviews, it's feels like second nature. I was very fortunate to get 7 offers including offers from Google, Amazon, Facebook, and 4 other tech companies. I accepted an offer from a late stage startup where the role and opportunity was a near perfect fit with what I was looking to do next in my career. Here's the end-to-end process I went through at Google to get an offer: 1. Recruiter reached out to me over email 2. I chatted on the phone with the recruiter 3. I had a phone screen with a product manager at Google who interviewed me on product design, product strategy, and analytics 4. I had an onsite interview with 4 product managers and 1 software engineer 5. Google asked me for internal Google references (people who I worked with in the past who now work at Google) 6. Google took my feedback to the hiring committee and they approved me for hire at a specific level 7. I received a doc from roughly 15 teams in Google who were hiring product managers with a description of their projects and the role they were hiring 8. I selected my top 3 teams 9. I talked with the hiring manager and team members from my top 3 choices and then ranked my choices 10. I had a mutual match with my top choice 11. In a normal situation, my package would then be taken to an SVP who'd approve it and I'd get an offer. But in my case I wanted a higher level so the hiring manager had to submit a Statement of Support to the hiring committee to approve the higher level. The hiring committee approved it and the recruiter emailed me my compensation package. The next step was for the SVP to officially approve it, but I ended up accepting my other offer before that step completed. Google's hiring committee initially turned me off since I felt like I was being judged by a bunch of people who never met me. But I later realized, the committee prevent hiring managers from bringing in less qualified candidates in order to fill a role and ensures Google gets the cream of the crop.

An on-site interview in MV that has in-person and virtual interviewers (even though all of the interviewers were nearby on-campus in MV). You check-in, someone comes to get you, you interview back-to-back for several 40-45min sessions. Someone comes to get you for lunch. Then more back-to-back interviews. Though they claim it's super unique, that part of the process is very similar to other tech company interviews. The only difference is that it is 100% analytical and tech focused. It's also very rushed. Surprisingly, the majority of my interviews were rapid fire questions rather than a conversation. None of which were "give me a time where" or "when have you ever". Don't expect questions to get to know what you've done, how you did it, what you've proven. It's not a part of the process, don't expect anyone to want to get to know about your experience, accomplishments, failures, etc. They don't talk about any of that. The interview process might have been conducted a bit smoother as there were several tech issues and coordination issues throughout my interview day. The interviewers could have been more "present" and less rushed as well, but they might have been trying to make up for the time lost in-between each interview due to the various technical and coordination issues that popped up throughout the day. I was also fortunate to participate in their prep-interview session prior to the on-site and phone interviews. I nailed the phone interview and did well in the prep session. But, the on-site was kinda different. Overall, it was a positive experience because it was fun talking to each of the folks and talking through their questions, but it was challenging. Listing this as a "Negative" experience (cuz of the process breakdowns and all that weirdness), but as I said it was positive cuz...well... people were nice, the questions were fun/challenging, I got to see the campus and the food really was good!