Coding at the Google Product Manager (PM) Interview

Many Google PM candidates are surprised when they’re asked to write code at the interview.  Recent Google APM & PM candidates confirm that this is true:

• “I just went through the interview process for the APM position this past winter.  There will almost always be one interview with a software engineer who will ask you to write code.” – Amar Anand
• “Went through the APM process on site & had the exact same. 4 interviews with PMs/APMs & then 1 dev interview (technical algorithms w/ real code on whiteboard) & 1 VP interview. Some of the PMs asked me algorithm questions – ex. “How would you make the image search faster.” – Jon Chui
• “Recently interviewed with Google (Q1 2011) and was asked to write a pseudo-code solution involving binary search trees.” – Anonymous
• “You’d probably have a detailed, in-depth technical discussion about some specific code.” – Anonymous

Read my book, Secrets of the Product Manager Interview, for more tips on the three categories of technical questions you might get at the Google PM coding interview along with reasons why you might not get a coding interview.