As a product lead, I have been part of hiring processes across organizations for the last 8-9 years. As a product manager, I enjoy being part of the hiring process for engineers in my team. This is the strongest lever to build a kick-ass product team. As a product manager, I typically don’t have a reporting relationship with engineers. Hence my role in the process is twofold. Firstly to provide the candidate a high-level overview of what work looks like and sell the team. Secondly to have an open conversation with the candidate to assess the non-technical aspects of their profile.
I broadly touch upon the following 4 areas in my conversation with the candidate.
Motivation: What gets them going?
I love to hear people’s stories on how they got into tech. What did they learn from different roles? What gets them going? I look for people who can reflect honestly on what happened and can talk about it.
Product Teams: How do they collaborate and communicate?
This is a crucial part of the conversation for me. At the crux is the need to understand their collaboration and communication styles. I typically present them with scenarios to understand how they would unblock themselves and the team. Not one style works for all teams, but sometimes you do have a feel for if a communication style fits with a given team or not. Can they adapt their style as per situation? This is especially important when you work as a distributed team. Managing stakeholders, giving clear handoffs is very crucial. This is followed by a high-level sanity check on the understanding of agile practices. Some thoughts on previous experiences, and feedback on what did and did not work is covered. Another key aspect that strong product teams value, is an openness to participate in giving and receiving feedback.
Uncertainty: How do they deal with ambiguity?
As with many product teams, there are times when requirements are unclear. There are times when we have complex technical and business cases. There are times when the team needs to do urgent fixes incurring tech debt. Has the person experienced this before? How does the person handle this? Does the person jump in to resolve the ambiguity? Do they like being hands-on/off the problem clarification stage? Do they like to do due diligence before they start work? How do they react in fast-moving environments? Typically phrased as behavioral questions such as Tell me about a time when you helped a teammate etc or a sample case to probe how they would react.
Curiosity: Do they understand the larger picture?
A lot of other skills could be overlooked if they show a genuine curiosity about whatever they are interested in. And try as one might, you cannot fake this in interviews. Does the person understand what their work contributed towards? Do they realize how it all came together? Have they gone through your company’s website and formed an opinion on what is it that the team or role does? Do they have any ideas for you?
Conclusion
For all these questions, there are no right or wrong answers. The answers are evaluated differently based on the organization fit, team that is hiring for, the seniority of the candidate, the current team culture, and our plans for the team.
I love being part of the hiring process. I do however have a hidden agenda. I speak to genuinely understand how product development cultures across companies work and more importantly how engineers perceive it. This feedback is hard to get from other peer product managers and hence very valuable.
