202107121551 interviewing companies
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Questions to ask
- What is your decision making process?
- How many number 1 priorities do you have right now?
- how is your relationship with Engineering? What about UX? And Marketing/Sales?
- if you could wave a magic wand and change one thing about your product/service, what would it be and why?
- (when talking with engineers) what is the process from turning an idea from PM into shipped product?
- how are PM's success measured?
- How are product decisions made / autonomy of an individual PM?
- What excites you about the team?
- What is the most frustrating part about the team?
- What was the most surprising bit about the team when you joined?
- Ratio of PMs to engineers?
- (this may be specific to the business) how do PMs interact with customers? What is the relationship with sales / services / support like?
Resources
My questions for prospective employers (Director/VP roles) - Jacob Kaplan-Moss
What does success in the role look like?
- 6 months/1 year from now, if I’m successful, what will be different about team and business?
- How do you measure success?
- What were the metrics before?
- How do you expect them to change?
- How will I be measured and how often?
- What would you want me to accomplish in my first six months? First year?
What’s my boss’s (or board’s) expectations for me?
- What’s their greatest concerns about the role as it relates to the business’s goals/plans?
What are the strengths and weaknesses of the org as it currently exists?
- What are the biggest challenges for the role and its org?
- What are the biggest strengths currently in the org reporting up to this role?
- Staff review:
- who’d be reporting to me?
- for each of them: strengths & weaknesses
- any performance issues I should know about?
What’s the degree of managerial discretion in the role?
- How do decisions get made?
- Does this role have hire/fire power? What’s the process?
- Does this role have discretion over the budget?
- What processes/procedures are company-wide, vs can be set by the role?
- What’s the org’s budget?
- Does this role have discretion over the budget?
What’s the history of the role?
- Is this a new role or an open seat?
- Why did the predecessor leave?
- Are you considering internal candidates? Why or why not?
What are the businesses goals for organization?
- How does this role fit into that?
- How are these goals set? By whom and on what cadence?
What’s the business’s financial picture look like?
- How does this role fit into the financial picture?
- Would my org be a profit or cost center?
- What’s the funding situation of the business?
- Burn rate?
- Or profit/loss?
- What’s the business’s exit strategy?
D&I is important to me; what is the org doing here?
- What’s the current demographics of the company?
- … of the executive leadership?
- … engineering?
- … my potential group?
- What’s the organization doing to create an inclusive workplace?
- What’s the org doing to improve diversity?
Tell me about the executive leadership team:
- Who’s on it?
- Would I be on it?
- How does that group make decisions and communicate them to the rest of the org?
- If I needed to bring something to ELT, how would that work?
Tell me about the organizational structure…
- … below me (my reports)?
- … above me (my management chain up to the CEO)
- … any dotted lines to be aware of?
- … to my side (my peers under my direct manager)?