Google program manager interview: the only post you'll need to read

Program manager interviews at Google are really challenging. The questions are difficult, specific to Google, and cover a wide range of topics.

The good news is that the right preparation can make a big difference and can help you land the job at Google (or Google Cloud). We have put together this ultimate guide to help you maximize your chances of success.

And if you're targeting a technical program manager position (which is a closely related role), then check out our separate guide on Google TPM interviews.

Here's an overview of what we'll cover in this guide:

• Process and timeline
• Example questions
• Program manager questions
• Behavioral questions
• Role-specific / technical questions
• Preparation tips

1. Interview process and timeline

1.1 What interviews to expect

Google's program manager interview process is extensive and can be quite time consuming. It typically takes 3-8 weeks to go through the process, but it's not uncommon for it to take much longer (i.e. 6+ months). Here's an overview of the interview steps you'll face along the way. If you're interviewing at Google Cloud Platform, you can expect similar steps.

1. Resume, cover letter, and referrals
2. Recruiter phone screen: one interview
3. Program manager phone screen: one or two interviews
4. Onsite: typically four interviews

In addition to these interview steps, there are also some "behind the scenes" steps that have to happen before you get an offer. See the "What happens behind the scenes" section below for more on this.

But first, let's focus on more details about the interview steps you'll need to prepare for:

1.1.1 Resume, cover letter, and referrals

Step one is getting a Google interview in the first place. In this guide we're focusing primarily on the interviews, so we'll keep this portion brief. You’ll need a quality resume and cover letter that are tailored to program manager positions, and to Google more specifically. If you have any connections within program management or within Google, then see if they'd be willing to give you feedback on your documents. 

Once you have your documents together you can submit your application. And, if possible, it can also be helpful to get an employee or contact at Google to refer you to the recruiting team internally. 

1.1.2 Recruiter phone screen

After your application is accepted, you'll start your interview process with Google by talking to a recruiter on the phone. They are looking to confirm that you've got a chance of getting the job at all, so be prepared to explain your background and why you’re a good fit for Google. You should expect typical behavioral and resume questions like, "Tell me about yourself", "Why Google?", etc.

If you get past this first HR screen, the recruiter will then help schedule your first program manager interview. At this time, your recruiter will probably also give you some additional details about the next interview and the person you're interviewing with.

1.1.3 Program manager interviews

Next, you'll go through one or two program manager interviews. Your first interviewer will usually be the hiring manager for the role, and sometimes you'll also have a second interview before you're advanced to the onsite interviews.

The types of questions you'll be asked in this round are roughly the same as the questions you'll encounter in your onsite interviews. In particular, you'll want to be well prepared for behavioral and program management questions. More on this below.

The role of this step is to make sure it's worth bringing you onsite. Your interviewer will therefore try to make sure there isn't an area where you are particularly weak and don't stand a chance of meeting the hiring bar.

1.1.4 Onsite interviews

Onsite interviews are the real test. You'll typically spend a full day interviewing with Google, and the interview questions you'll encounter will usually fall into one of three broad categories:

1. Program management questions, where you'll be asked questions about leading projects, working with cross-functional teams, and executing at various stages of the project lifecycle. 
2. Behavioral questions, where you'll be evaluated on your past work experience, your motivation for applying, your ability to handle conflict, and more.
3. Role-specific / technical questions, where you'll be assessed on skills and experience specific to the role or functional area that you're applying for, this could include questions that assess your technical knowledge.

[PRE-COVID] In addition to these interviews, you'll usually also have lunch with a fellow program manager while you are onsite. The lunch interview is meant to be your time to ask questions about what it's like to work at Google. The company won't be evaluating you during this time, but we recommend that you behave as if they were.

In some cases, Google may ask you to do a follow up interview after your onsite to drill further into one of the areas listed above. This means you're close to getting an offer but the company wants to double check you're meeting the hiring bar for a given criteria.

At the end of each interview your interviewer will grade your performance using a standardised feedback form that summarizes the attributes Google looks for in a candidate. The form is constantly evolving, but below we have listed the main components we know of at the time of writing this article.

A) Questions asked

In the first section of the form the interviewer fills in the questions they asked you. These questions are then shared with your future interviewers so you don't get asked the same questions twice.

B) Attribute scoring

Each interviewer will assess you on the four main attributes Google looks for when hiring:

1. General cognitive ability. This is often referred to as "GCA" by Googlers. The company wants to hire smart program managers who can learn and adapt to new situations. Here your interviewer will try to understand how you solve hard problems and how you learn.
   
2. Role-related knowledge and experience. This is often referred to as "RRK" or "RRKE" internally. The company wants to make sure that you have the right experience, domain expertise, and competencies for the position you're applying for. For instance, if you're applying for a program manager position within Google Cloud, then you'll probably be expected to understand the cloud computing industry, in addition to program management best practices.
   
3. Leadership. Google looks for a particular type of leadership called “emergent leadership.” You'll typically be working in cross-functional teams at Google, and different team members are expected to step up and lead at different times in the lifecycle of a project when their skills are needed.
   
4. Googleyness (i.e. culture fit). The company wants to make sure Google is the right environment for you. Your interviewer will check whether you naturally exhibit the company's values including: being comfortable with ambiguity, having a bias to action, and a collaborative nature.
   

Depending on the exact job you're applying for these attributes might be broken down further. For instance, if you were applying to be a TPM then "Role-related knowledge and experience" might be broken down into "Program management" and "Technical judgement".

In this middle section, Google's interviewers typically document your answers in detail, and give you a score for each attribute (e.g. "Poor", "Mixed", "Good", "Excellent").

C) Final recommendation

Finally interviewers will write a summary of your performance and provide an overall recommendation on whether they think Google should be hiring you or not (e.g. "Strong no hire", "No hire", "Leaning no hire", "Leaning hire", "Hire", "Strong hire").

1.3 What happens behind the scenes

If things go well at your onsite interviews, here's what the final steps of the process look like:

• Interviewers submit feedback
• Hiring committee recommendation
• Team matching
• Senior leader and compensation committee review
• Final executive review (only senior roles)
• You get an offer

After your onsite, your interviewers will all submit their feedback, usually within two to three days. This feedback will then be reviewed by a hiring committee, along with your resume, internal referrals, and any past work you have submitted. At this stage, the hiring committee will make a recommendation on whether Google should hire you or not.

If the hiring committee recommends that you get hired, you'll usually start your team matching process. In other words, you'll talk to hiring managers and one or several of them will need to be willing to take you on their team in order for you to get an offer from the company.

In parallel, the hiring committee recommendation will be reviewed and validated by a senior manager and a compensation committee who will decide how much money you are offered. Finally, if you are interviewing for a senior role, a senior Google executive will review 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 can spread over multiple months.

2. Example questions

To help you prepare strategically for your interviews, we have used Glassdoor data to identify the types of questions which are most frequently asked in Google program manager interviews.

Let's dive in and look at the three broad types of interview questions you can expect:

• Program management questions (57% of questions)
• Behavioral questions (28%)
• Role-specific / technical questions (16%)

2.1 Program management questions

Google program managers design and execute programs from end-to-end. It's therefore important that they have a strong ability to plan, prioritize and deliver projects.

This is the part of the interview process where you need to show you think about programs in a comprehensive way (e.g. resources, risks, etc.) and have a track record of executing flawlessly.

And in order to make a strong impression on your interviews, you'll need to cover a lot of ground during your preparation. This is because the specific questions asked in program manager interviews tend to vary significantly depending the circumstances and the role or functional area you're applying to.  

As a result, we'd suggest practicing two broad categories of program manager questions to prepare:

• Program management processes
• Kick-off
• Planning
• Execution
• Monitoring
• Closing
• Program management skills
• Leadership
• Partnership
• Estimation
• Other

As you can see, each category has some sub-categories within it. But don't worry, they're actually fairly easy to remember when you understand what each category represents.

Let's begin by digging into the process questions, then we'll cover the skill questions later. 

2.1.1 Program management process questions

If you're familiar with project management, you may notice that the 5 categories listed under program management processes, are roughly aligned with the PMBOK project management process groups.

For our purposes, essentially all this means is that "process" questions are aligned with the lifecycle of a project (e.g. kick-off, planning, execution, monitoring, and then closing). 

Below you'll find several examples questions that you can practice with. All of the below are real program manager interview questions from Glassdoor, we've just edited the phrasing in some places to improve the grammar and clarity. Also note that we've added a few questions from other Tech companies to provide further practice materials. These questions are indicated with parentheses at the end of the question, all other questions listed here are from Google. 

2.1.2 Program management skill questions

The second broad category of program management questions to cover, are "skill" questions. These are commonly asked in program manager interviews to assess key skills, like leadership and partnership.

You'll see that these questions are different, in that they are not specifically associated with a particular stage of the project lifecycle. Instead, these skills could prove useful at any stage of a project.

Below you'll find several example questions that you can practice with. All of these are also real program manager interview questions from Glassdoor, we've just edited the phrasing in some places to improve the grammar and clarity. Also note that we've added a few questions from other Tech companies to provide further practice materials. These questions are indicated with parentheses at the end of the question, all other questions listed here are from Google. 

2.2 Behavioral questions

Google program managers usually work in cross-functional teams with other engineers, product managers, PMMs, data analysts, etc. They need to be able to communicate clearly, work with others efficiently, build trust and relationships, and resolve project issues (before or after they arise).

Your ability to perform these functions will be assessed using behavioral interview questions. Be prepared to talk about your top accomplishments, situations where you've resolved conflict, and your motivation for applying to be a Google program manager.

Below, we've compiled a list of example behavioral questions, and you'll notice that we've included a few subcategories. We've added the subcategories to make the list of questions easier to understand, but you don't need to learn the categories themselves. Just focus on practicing with questions from each sub-category and that will give you a great start on your preparation.

All of the below questions are real Google program manager interview questions from Glassdoor, we've just edited the phrasing in some places to improve the grammar and clarity.

2.3 Role-specific / technical questions

Google program manager interviews tend to focus on the two areas we've just covered above. However, not all program manager jobs at Google are the same, so you should also do your homework on the job description and any other details about the role that you can find.

You'll want to be prepared to speak knowledgeably about the functional area where you'd be working. If your role would be in a technical area, or if you'd be working closely with engineers, then your interviewers may also decide to ask you a few technical questions to evaluate your depth of knowledge and your ability to communicate about technical details.

Below you'll find several example questions that you can practice with. All of these are real Google program manager interview questions from Glassdoor, we've just edited the phrasing in some places to improve the grammar and clarity.

These example questions are focused on technical topics, specific products, or functional areas. When you begin practicing for your own interviews, you'll want to customize the questions below to a product or topic that is relevant to your target role.

3. How to prepare