4 questions you should ask when interviewing for a product role

People like to say that interviews are a chance for you to evaluate the company. I don’t know about you, but interviews rarely actually feel that way. When 95% of the time is spent on questions asked of you, it doesn’t quite feel like you have any opportunity to evaluate them back. Plus, at most companies, the questions you ask in the interview are used as additional data points in your evaluation.

In my last wave of interviews, I had the chance to refine my post-interview questions, so I could evaluate roles in a respectful way. Four main questions helped me understand what I might be signing up for if I joined the team.

1) What challenges will I face in this role?

This question led to the discovery of the most red flags during my career of interviewing. I typically ask this of a peer, whether they’re another product manager or a member of the product design or development team. Through this question, I have filtered out roles in my search like the team who struggled to make an impact (an IC product manager often is not the one you hire to fix this) and the team with constant executive fire drills distracting them from making progress (nobody enjoys working in a culture where every morning is a fire drill).

2) What is the 2-3 year vision for the product? What are its differentiators?

I ask this question not only because, at surface level, it’s important to understand about a product, but also because it’s a great way to determine maturity of product strategy. I typically ask this of multiple people at multiple levels to compare answers, but always ask this of the hiring manager. Product teams can often form a vision from the bottom up (IC product managers fully own the roadmap), top down (executives dictate the roadmap), or a combination. I find that I work best on a team with a combination where I can think creatively about the strategy, but with enough high-level vision to help me ladder that strategy to larger goals. If a hiring manager cannot clearly articulate a vision or differentiators, then it’s a clear sign that the organization builds their vision from the bottom up. If I hear different responses to the question from different people, then it’s a sign of misalignment and/or unclear communication from leadership.

3) How is the team structured?

I’ve worked on product management teams organized by points in the product lifecycle (i.e., one person works on competitive insights and sales enablement while another works on backlog grooming with the development team and another works on post-launch insights), functionality in the product (i.e., each person owns a different API or feature, directly aligned with a development team), and customer problems/markets (i.e., one person owns an end-to-end problem that spans multiple features of the product and development teams). My ideal role would be owning the full product lifecycle for a customer problem, but where development teams and the micro-services in their scope align with functionality for that problem, forming as independent of a backlog as possible. Asking this question helps me understand how close to that ideal scenario I would be. It also gives me an opportunity to ask who owns QA for the development team (each developer vs a designated QA role) and how design and user research are organized (integrated with the development teams vs an agency model vs no user research or design).? The answer to those are not deal breakers, but I’ll know how mature they are around testing, research and design.

4) Tell me about a time when you had to coach an employee?

If the hiring manager asks you behavioral questions, why not ask them the same? If I don’t feel supported by my manager, I will not like my job, no matter what other factors are going well. While you can’t control re-orgs or that manager leaving after you join, you can control who you will work with in the most critical first few weeks at the company as you build trust with others. If you ask hiring managers directly “what is your management style”, you will usually hear buzz words and their theoretical definition of a good manager. To avoid the fluff, I ask them a behavioral question for real examples. I ask this about an employee struggling in the role as well as an employee exceeding expectations. I want a manager who does not give up too quickly on an individual, and I want a manager who recognizes talent and is able to make room for their growth. I also feel I am senior enough in my role where I prefer a manager with management experience.

Ultimately, it’s a challenge to evaluate a company, and it will take time even after joining to know if it was the right decision. New roles require taking a leap; these questions help me take a calculated leap, so I’m most likely to find a place where I am happy. From my experience, exponential growth in my career can only come from a role where I’m happy.