Google product manager interview: the only post you'll need

Today, we’re going to cover everything you need to know to prepare for product manager interviews at Google.

We’ve analyzed 323 interview questions from real Google candidates on Glassdoor, as well as information from other platforms in order to put together this guide. Here, you’ll find practice questions, a look into the process, and a preparation plan.

Use the guide below to join the ranks of our many successful candidates.

Let’s get started.

• Interview process and timeline
• Example questions
• Product insight
• Analytical
• Behavioral
• Strategic insight
• Craft and execution
• Preparation tips

Click here to practice with Google PM ex-interviewers

1. Interview process and timeline ↑

What's the Google PM interview process and timeline? The process takes four to eight weeks on average and follows the steps below. Note that the process at Google Cloud Platform follows a similar process.

1. Resume, cover letter, referrals
2. Phone screens (one to two interviews)
3. On-site interviews (four to six interviews)
4. Hiring committee recommendation
5. Senior leader review
6. Compensation committee recommendation
7. Senior executive review
8. You get an offer!

Note that these steps are similar, but not identical, to the process for Google APM interviews. 

If you are interviewing for a product leadership position (VP, Director, Group PM), learn more about the process and how to prepare here.

1.1 What interviews to expect?

First, it's important that you understand the different stages of your PM interview process with Google. In most cases, here are the steps you'll go through:

• Resume screening
• Phone screen with recruiter: one interview
• Phone screen with PMs: one to two interviews
• On-site: four to six interviews

Resume screening

First, recruiters will look at your resume and assess if your experience matches the open position. This is the most competitive step in the process—we’ve found that ~90% of candidates don’t make it past this stage.

You can use this free guide to help tailor your resume to the position you’re targeting. 

And if you’re looking for expert feedback, you can also get input from our team of ex-Google recruiters, who will cover what achievements to focus on (or ignore), how to fine tune your bullet points, and more.

Phone screens

Next, the phone screens last about 30 minutes and are typically carried out first by a recruiter and then by one or two PMs. The aim of the call is to check that you meet the basic requirements for the position and stand a chance of getting hired. Recruiters tend to ask more behavioral and resume questions, while PMs tend to jump straight into product design, estimation, and strategy questions (more on that below). If Google is really excited about your profile they might send you on-site straight away and skip this screening step.

On-site interviews

On-site interviews are the real test. You'll typically spend a full day at a Google office and do two interviews in the morning, then have lunch with a fellow PM and do three interviews in the afternoon. Each interview will last 30 to 45 minutes. Most of the interviewers you meet will be product managers, but occasionally you might also interview with an engineer who will assess your technical skills and ability to communicate with developers.

You may also complete the on-site interviews virtually, via Google Hangouts. In this case you would follow the same process, using online tools to present your thoughts, omitting the lunch meeting.

The interviews are very structured. Each of your interviewers will evaluate you on four main attributes (role-related knowledge, general cognitive ability, leadership, and Googleyness), take copious notes, and then file a detailed report. The lunch interview is meant to be your time to ask your questions. Google won't be evaluating you during this time, but we recommend that you behave like if they were.

For extra help, take a look at our list of 15 top PM interview tips.

1.2 What happens behind the scenes

If things go well at your on-site interviews here is what the final steps of the process look like:

• Interviewers submit feedback
• Hiring committee recommendation
• Senior leader review
• Compensation committee recommendation
• Final executive review
• You get an offer

After your on-site, your interviewers will all submit their feedback and grade your answers to their questions. This feedback is then reviewed by a hiring committee, along with your resume, internal referrals, and any past work you have submitted.

At this stage, the hiring committee makes a recommendation on whether Google should hire you or not. That recommendation is reviewed and validated by a Senior manager before your candidate packet is sent to a compensation committee which will decide how much money you are offered. Finally, a Senior Google executive reviews a summary of your candidacy and compensation before the offer is sent to you.

As you've probably gathered by now, Google goes to great lengths to avoid hiring the wrong candidates. This hiring process with multiple levels of validations helps them scale their teams while maintaining a high caliber of employees. But it also means that the typical process lasts four to eight weeks and sometimes much more.

1.3 How many PMs does Google hire every year?

At this point you might be wondering what your chances are. The good news is that Google is growing quickly and needs an increasing number of engineers and PMs every year.

We estimate that the number of PMs at Google grew from about 2,400 to 7,800 between 2013 and the end of 2021. At the time of writing this article, we estimate that Google hires roughly 1,000 new PMs per year, barring exceptional factors like hiring freezes and slowdowns.

Here are the steps we took to get to these estimates if you are interested in more details:

1. Number of employees: Google reports their number of employees every year in their annual report.

2. Number of engineers: At the time of writing, 40% of job ads for Google are for engineering positions. For each year we therefore multiplied the number of employees by 40% to get to the number of engineers.

3. Number of PMs: The typical ratio of PMs to Engineers at tech companies is between one to eight and one to ten. We've assumed one to eight here to convert the number of engineers into a number of PMs.

Google needs more and more PMs every year, which might lead you to believe that getting hired isn't that hard. But this actually isn't the case. Google hires less than 1% of applicants and is therefore one of the toughest employers to break into in the world. (Interestingly, this number grows to 5% if you are referred by a current employee.)

However, the good news is that cracking PM interviews is actually really manageable once you know what to prepare for. So let's take a look at the different types of questions Google will ask you.

2. Example questions ↑

The main difficulty with PM interviews at Google is that you will be asked a wide range of questions. We've grouped them in five buckets and analyzed how frequently they were asked by Google using questions reported by former candidates on Glassdoor.com.

Here are the results:

1. Product insight questions (34%)
2. Analytical questions (21%)
3. Behavioral questions (21%)
4. Strategic insight questions (14%)
5. Craft and execution questions (10%)

Note: These percentages are based on an analysis of Google Glassdoor interview reports from 2022 to 2018. As the craft and execution category was introduced in 2022, there may be a higher percentage of craft and execution questions in current interviews than represented here.

Let's step through each type of question, take a look at a few examples, and briefly discuss why Google asks these questions.

Note that we have edited some questions for language and clarity.

2.1 Product insight interview questions (34%)

Google product managers must be able to consider user experiences from the customer’s perspective and use that point of view to design and improve products. They should then convey a clearly defined product vision to stakeholders, and follow through on it.

Interviewers test these capabilities using product insight questions. In this portion of the interview, you will be expected to combine your understanding of the product space with technical and business considerations.

You’ll see that we divided the product insight questions below into three categories. For more in-depth information about how to answer each of these subtypes, take a look at our guides to product design, product improvement, and favorite product interview questions. 

Exercise: Watch the video below to see how an ex-Google PM answers the question "How would you improve Google Chrome?". Pause the video throughout so that you can construct your own answer and see how it compares.

2.2 Analytical interview questions (21%)

At Google, product managers understand the challenges that a product faces, absorb relevant information, and develop data-based conclusions on how to address them. This requires working with numbers to break down problems. 

Interviewers will test whether you’re able to do this using analytical questions. You’ll be tasked with estimating key market information and defining distinct metrics to measure success and failure. Your responses should be clear and well-structured, so that interviewers can understand your thinking process as well as your final solution.

We’ve divided the questions below into two categories: estimation and metrics. These two subcategories require individualized frameworks in order to step through your answers with clarity, so we recommend that you consult our guides on how to answer each type: how to answer estimation questions, how to answer metric questions.

Exercise: Watch the videos below to see how ex-Google PMs answer analytics interview questions. First, we’ll take a look at an estimation question. Pause the video throughout to practice making your own calculations.

Next, take a look at two ex-Google PMs answering the metrics question, “how would you choose metrics for YouTube?”

2.3 Behavioral interview questions (21%)

In order to get things done at Google, employees must work in cross functional teams and display emergent leadership. This requires effectively addressing difficult questions, handling pushback, thriving in ambiguity, and challenging the status quo when necessary.

Interviewers at Google will be assessing this by targeting two important qualities: Googleyness/leadership and cross-functional collaboration. They’ll target these two qualities using behavioral interview questions, which explore your past experiences to predict future behavior.

Googleyness and leadership focuses on whether you align with Google’s values and can lead and influence effectively. Cross-functional collaboration focuses on how well you can maintain a professional demeanor while engaging in high-pressure situations that require buy-in from a diverse range of stakeholders.

To learn a repeatable answer framework that you can use to answer behavioral questions that target Googleyness and leadership as well as cross-functional collaboration, read our guide to Google behavioral interviews.

Exercise: Watch the video below to see how an ex-Google PM answers five typical Google behavioral questions.

Exercise: Watch the video below to see how an ex-Google PM answers three typical Google cross-collaboration questions.

2.4 Strategic insight interview questions (14%)

Google product managers can establish and adapt strategies by understanding the customer, the competition, external trends, and data from tracking metrics. They set the product vision and build the roadmap to deliver it.

With strategic insight interview questions, interviewers assess if you're comfortable thinking about the wide range of aspects good PMs need to take into account when making product decisions. This includes competition, pricing, marketing, time to market, etc.

Thinking through all these aspects requires creativity and a structured approach. For more information, check out our article on how to answer strategy interview questions.

Exercise: Watch the video below to see how an ex-Google PM answers the question "Imagine you're CEO of Uber: what's your 10-year strategy?". Pause the video throughout so that you can construct your own answer and see how it compares.

2.5 Craft and execution interview questions (10%)

Finally, in addition to gathering the right insights, setting the perfect strategy, analyzing the data, and making a plan, Google product managers must be able to execute on what they’ve planned. This requires knowledge of the product life cycle, prioritization skills, and delivering in moments of crisis.

Google interviewers test these abilities in the craft and execution round. They will test your experience in developing, maintaining, evolving, and sunsetting products, as well as how you act in the face of a crisis or unexpected change.

You may notice that we’ve also included some technical questions here. While the craft and execution category was initially introduced to replace the technical round, some roles will still require technical explanation questions to find out whether you understand the problem space well enough to contribute.

If you’re looking for more information about execution interviews, take a look at our complete guide. Note that this guide targets Meta’s execution interview, but can apply to Google’s interview process as well. If you're likely to be asked technical questions, use our guide to technical questions in PM interviews.

Exercise 1: Watch the video below to see how an ex-Google PM answers a typical craft and execution question. Pause the video throughout so that you can construct your own answer and see how it compares.

 

Exercise 2: If you are going to have technical questions in your Google PM interview, use the video below to practice. Pause it periodically to craft your own answer alongside the ex-Google PMs.

3. Preparation tips ↑

Now that you know what questions to expect, let's focus on preparation. 

Below, you’ll find links to free resources and four introductory steps to help you prepare for your Google PM interviews.

3.1 Deep dive into the product / organization

As you've probably figured out from the example questions listed above, you can't become a PM at Google without being familiar with Google's products and its organization. You'll therefore need to do some homework before your interviews.

Here are some resources to help you get started with this:

• Alphabet annual reports and strategy presentations (by Alphabet)
• Google strategy teardown (by CB Insights)
• Google org culture analysis (by Panmore Institute)

3.2 Learn a consistent method for answering PM interview questions

As mentioned previously, Google will ask you questions that fall into certain categories like behavioral, design, strategy, estimation, and metric questions. Approaching each question with a predefined method will enable you to build strong interview habits.

Then, when it comes time for your interviews, these habits will reduce your stress and help you to make a great impression.

If you’re just looking for a jumping-off point, you can start learning about the different question types you’ll need to master in the following blog articles:

• Behavioral questions
• Product design questions
• Product improvement questions
• Strategy questions
• Metric questions
• Technical questions
• Estimation questions
• Prioritization questions

Once you understand how to answer each question type, you also need to be able to communicate your answers clearly, under the pressure of interview conditions. That’s where practice comes into play.

3.3 Practice by yourself or with peers

In our experience, practicing by yourself is a great way to prepare for PM interviews. You can start practicing alone, asking and answering questions out loud, to help you get a feel for the different types of PM interview questions. It will help you perfect your step-by-step approach for each question type. And it also gives you time to correct your early mistakes.

You can find free practice questions on articles like this one or on YouTube.

If you have friends or peers who can do mock interviews with you, that's a great option too. This can be especially helpful if your friend has experience with PM interviews, or is at least familiar with the process.

3.4 Practice with experienced PM interviewers

Finally, you should also try to practice product manager mock interviews with expert ex-interviewers, as they’ll be able to give you much more accurate feedback than friends and peers. If you know a Product Manager who can help you, that's fantastic! But for most of us, it's tough to find the right connections to make this happen. And it might also be difficult to practice multiple hours with that person unless you know them really well.

Here's the good news. We've already made the connections for you. We’ve created a coaching service where you can practice 1-on-1 with ex-interviewers from leading tech companies like Google. Learn more about how an interview coach can give you an advantage, or simply  start scheduling sessions today. 

Keep reading: product manager interview articles