Job Search Step 9: Technically Complex Decisions
To my surprise, I am getting a lot of requests to interview for Product Manager, Technical roles. One recruiter prepared me for the concept of the Technical Interview and the expecations (this is common for Amazon and other companies). Most of the questions are technical behavioral questions.
In today’s article, I will focus on how to address these question types.
What They Test
The most important things they are testing for are:
Technical Complexity
Level of Difficulty
Quality Standards
Time Line
This means you need to pick stories that are (1) technically complex, (2) something you generally remember and (3) a product where you can speak to pushing back on engineering in some way.
What They Look For
As you tell your story, they will be grading you on:
What was your role in the technical discussion?
What was the outcome (can be positive or negative)?
How did you influence the technical discussion?
Did you push back on engineering?
How did you prioritize?
What was your discovery process?
Can you talk about defining the requirements? (Do you know how to give the right requirements for technical products?)
What was the launch plan? (Did this fall behind schedule?)
Sample Questions
Tell me about a complex product where you disagreed with engineering about core product decisions.
Explain the architecture of your most recent product.
Tell me about a product you worked on that was technically innovative.
How to Prepare
For Amazon, I need to be ready for deep poking questions. This means I really need to be able to talk through most of the above questions in significant detail. This means, I need to reach out to my engineering friends for 2 technical products I worked on to prepare.
Ideally, I need to find someone who will ask difficult poking questions.
If you are reading this because you hoped I would focus on case questions, check out this article on technical case questions.
