Breaking Down the Google APM Interview Process
From incoming Google APM Austin Mejia!
This breakdown of the Google APM interview process is courtesy of Austin Mejia, an incoming Google APM. Kudos to Austin for sharing his experience 🙏.
Austin also shared a few more of his hacks on landing interviews with us that we plan to release as part of the full Aspiring PM Guide (coming soon!).
Here’s a quick preview of what we have in store over the next few months:
Interview experiences from other incoming Lyft and Coinbase APMs
A first 30/60/90 days product onboarding guide
Some great resources to consider when thinking about a career in Web3
A product management interview bootcamp - fill out the interest form here!
And more…
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My Interview Experience at Google
I ended up interviewing at a few different companies, but for simplicity sake (and to save myself a LOT of writing), let’s just focus on my experience at Google.
Application Drops
The application for APM dropped early fall 2020–can’t remember the exact date (August 1st?), but I applied the first day for sure. I had a referral as well.
I heard back from a recruiter a week or so later that I made it to the first interview and scheduled it for two weeks out. Immediately I double-down on practicing, running 4 mocks a week.
How Google Interviews Work
Interview 1
My first interview was August 25th - a single 45 minute interview that was split into two smaller mini-interviews, all with the same person. The first interview was a basic design exercise, and the second was a product execution interview on whether YouTube should develop an E-Commerce marketplace.
I honestly thought I bombed this interview. My answers certainly weren’t bad, but I knew I wasn’t performing at my best level. I was crushed for the two weeks afterwards, until I surprisingly got the email saying I moved on to the final round. Shaking off the feeling of the first round, I plowed ahead and began to prep for the Superday.
On-Site (aka The Superday)
My Superday was on October 8th. I borrow this term from banking and consulting because 1) I think it describes the emotion and feeling of the interviews more than an on-site and 2) my on-site was completely virtual, so not really true-to-name.
These interviews are a sprint and a marathon: 5-and-a-half hours across 6 interviews, with a 30-minute break in between. The bright side is that your interviewers have no knowledge of your previous interview performance, so each one is a fresh start! Here’s how mine went:
Interview 1, Technical: This one was very fun for me, since I have a strong engineering background. My interviewer was an engineering manager and incredibly high-energy, really a pleasure to chat to. My interview was a systems design question that required baseline knowledge of how server-client systems work, space and memory optimization, and some memory usage approximation. I ended up finishing both the main question and an additional challenge question my interviewer prepared with 20 minutes to spare, which we mostly spent on just chatting. It felt great to start the day with a win like this.
Interview 2, Behavioral: This was a pretty standard “tell me about a time when you ___” sort of interview. I never feel fantastic about these, but it went over without much of a hiccup. Not much to say here, but overall went as well as it could have!
Interview 3, Design: This was a really fun interview, with a very high-energy interviewer. My question was all about making a bathroom for the blind which is (fortunately a standard question). I remember feeling good about this one!
Interview 4, Execution: I honestly can’t remember anything about this interview. I think it was average overall.
Break
Interview 5, Design: This interviewer asked me about my favorite product, and eventually asked me how I could build a better one. I always ask if I can talk about non-technical products, because my favorite answer–and genuinely favorite product–is my water bottle (I could talk about my baby for hours, but that’s another article) . I could tell going with a non-digital product intrigued my interviewer, which I think played in my favor.
Interview 6, Execution: This one opened the same way as the last one: tell me about your favorite product. I told the interviewer I had received this question before, but they insisted it would go in a different direction. I again answer with my water bottle, and the interview turns into a market assessment question considering the pros and cons of going after a high-end or low-end market. Totally unexpected but engaging.
I don’t think anyone can walk away from the Superday feeling good–it’s a grueling to be so nonstop, and I could definitely feel it affecting my performance after the 4th one. I think it was only made worse that I had to do it all from my bedroom; I had to make sure I was standing up and doing a few jumping jacks between calls just to stay sane.
The Homework Assignment 🖊️
At the same time that I was preparing for the Superday, I also had to do the homework assignment–a short design and execution exercise that has to be completed within 3 days of receiving it, but is recommended to take no more than a few hours to complete. I was told by an APM who grades these assignments that its quite apparent who puts in more time than what is recommended and they scale their grading accordingly. Take this as you will, but I ultimately spent about 5ish hours on mine.
My assignment was to proposes a new product offering designed to help individuals find apartments in a new city, remotely. You have the option of making either a deck or document, and I chose a document–this is totally personal preference, and I feel like I could better structure my thoughts in a doc rather than some slides. This, however, doesn’t mean you can’t incorporate visual elements, as I added a few mocks on what a rough interface would look like (included below for me to cringe at).
Despite the unusual format, the homework assignment is essentially a product design interview and execution interview combined into one: I followed an entire design framework in generating the proposal, and included execution components such as risk, competitors, market, etc. throughout. I ultimately pitched an accessibility-focused platform that emphasized metrics and transparency.
My best advice for the homework is to look at competitors in the problem space, see what they do really poorly, and build a product that does just that. Keep writing brief, and elaborate on visuals just enough such that your reader understands what you’re aiming for.
One last note here: Superdays and homework assignments, though two separate components, are technically part of the same “round”. This means you submit and will get the yes/no to move on to the final round based on both. What’s worse, Google will not specify which one you did not pass if you don’t make it to the final round. I have absolutely no idea why this is structured this way, but my best guess is that it’s a huge filter to finals rounds because of the seniority of people you interview with. Regardless, you’ll know you passed both when you get the recruiter email to schedule your final round.
Final Round
The final round was my most interesting interview of them all. My recruiter told me that if you make it to this round, you’re practically at the finish line. This interview is simple: a 30-minute chat with a high-ranking employee, usually a Director or VP. It is, however, completely different from all your other rounds. Not only is there no set topic for the conversation, but the interviewer will get access to your entire application file; up to this point, none of my interviewers could see my performance from other rounds. This turned out to be super relevant.
My interview was with a senior director for Google maps, who in all honesty was incredibly nice. She opened with my favorite interview question of all time:
“Tell me every reason you can think of why traffic cones have a hole in the top.”
I love this question for its simplicity and uniqueness. It’s concise and to the point, but also flips the traditional design question on its head: instead of asking you to design a product to solve a problem, it asks you what problems might be solved by a product’s design. I now use it in all of the prep sessions I run with friends.
After 15 minutes of discussion, my interviewer went over a few questions about my application. That’s when she asked me why I gave the same answer twice in two different interviews (interviews 5 and 6). I legitimately panicked here and thought I had gotten caught in something I wasn’t supposed to do. I explained my rationale which she seemed to accept, and we ended with a few short Q’s I got to ask her.
Getting the Call 🥹
Four days before I got the Google APM call, I was rejected in the final round of a different APM program. This really got to me, since I thought I really nailed the interviews and was a great fit. Luckily, this sulking did not last long as I got offered Google APM later that same week. The elation I felt was indescribable, and my roommate and I went out that night to celebrate over dinner.
Final Thoughts
To this day, Google APM is the most extensive interview process I have ever gone through. While I think I did a good amount of work to prepare, I fully acknowledge I got insanely lucky. Anyone who insists luck did not play a large factor is kidding themselves–there were likely hundreds of candidates more qualified/capable than me, and I don’t think you can take rejection as any indicator of competency. Don’t get me wrong, I think I’m completely qualified to do this role and I have no imposter syndrome whatsoever; all I’m saying is that humility is absolutely crucial in this process.
Lastly, I want to share one piece of advice–don’t let the outcomes of any APM application define you. Most of these programs have interview processes that are optimized to prevent false positives–people who get the role but are unqualified for it. It is way more catastrophic for the company to make a bad hire and have to deal with them than to let a good hire go by. This means any application process is going to have plenty of false negatives (people qualified for the role but get rejected). I have so many talented, brilliant friends who do not get the roles I know they should be able to land. If you get the role: incredible! Go celebrate ASAP. If not: keep your head up, your dream job is still just around the corner.