Round 1: Interviewer: Recruiter (HR): Duration: 15 mins.
The interviewer started by explaining details about this role. What the full-time role would be like? Talked about the company in general—shared details about the roles and responsibilities.
- Tell me about yourself.
- Are you open to relocation?
- What is your Visa status? Would you require sponsorship anytime in the future?
- Do you have any offers with you yet?
- Why this role?
- Do you have any questions for me?
- Shared details on what to expect in coming interviews.
Suggestion: Have a brief company overview before this round. Confidence and clear communication is the key. Giving a few behavioural mock interviews will help.
Round 2: Duration: 30 mins
Interviewer: Senior Director of Product Management. The interviewer started by introducing herself and sharing insights on key roles and responsibilities of the role.
- Introduce yourself.
- Why Product Management?
- Explain your experience at Duke.
- Explain your experience with PwC.
- Explain your recent experience in Product Management.
- What experience do you have with Product road mapping?
- Have you written user stories?
- Have you worked cross-functionally before?
- Can you deliver strong recommendations/presentations to the board/senior executives?
- Where do you see yourself in the next 3 years?
- Do you have any questions for me?
Suggestion: Confidence and clear communication is the key. Ask good questions that should be user-centric.
Round 3: Duration: 45 mins
Interviewer: Director of Product Development. The interviewer started by introducing himself and sharing insights on key roles and responsibilities of the role.
Introduce yourself. Share any information that you would like in the next 5 minutes.
- What do you think of coffee?
- Do you have any hardware product management experience?
- If a user/customer gets upset, how would you approach retaining the user?
- How would you resolve conflicts and ensure the deadline is met when working with multiple teams and stakeholders?
- When dealing with subordinates, what kind of tasks would you delegate? How would you judge which team candidate is well equipped/suited for what kind of tasks in a team setup?
- How would you prioritize tasks from a defined roadmap?
- Why are you transitioning from Software development to product management?
- How do you do market analysis? What is your experience with go-to-market strategies?
- How do you do competitive analysis?
- Do you have any questions for me?
Suggestion: Confidence and clear communication is the key. Ask good and relevant questions.
Round 4: Duration: 70 mins
Interview panel: Senior Director of Product Management and Director of Product Development. The interviewers started by describing the format of this final round of interviews. It was a case-based interview.
Case Study 1:
We have a product which is Curtis brand of the coffee machine, let’s assume it is a dump product. The goal is to have a digital platform connectivity solution running wherein we can track the real-time status of machines in a dashboard. How would you envision or approach a dump coffee machine to achieve smart product features?
In simpler language, the question was; design a smart coffee machine.
Case Study 2:
Current Platform Background:
Currently Curtis brand of coffee machine is utilizing Microsoft Azure standard protocols for data housing. All data is transmitted via the LTE network. Dashboards are managed through PowerBl (3-4 hour refresh cycle for dashboards). Plans for live data monitoring via Azure Workbook to be implemented by mid-year 2024. Roughly 60k+ units on the platform for the North American market at present, hopeful for 100k by EOY 2025.
Current Remote Capabilities:
- Old Generation Equipment: Digital platform capable of sending graphics only remotely with customer confirmation per machine to implement.
- New Generation Equipment: Digital platform capable of sending graphics/recipes/grinder adjustments and calibrations remotely with customer confirmation per machine to implement OTA software updates planned for release latest Q3 on New Generation equipment only.
- The current sales method for digital features is to pair with Preventative Maintenance or Managed Service contracts (previously low-market success selling digital features on their own).
Goal of Discussion (Questions):
- To minimize cost, what strategy would you recommend for the hardware solution on site, and what sort of flexibility would it need to have for future expansion?
- How would you recommend managing the network topology/data consolidation on site, given that the current platform for the other 2 brands sends data packets per machine via LTE to the platform backend?
In simpler language, the question was: To minimize cost without degrading the into of the product,
- What kind of data communication technology would you integrate into coffee machines placed in different cafes across the US? Give an understanding of how that tech would work.
- Explain how would you break down this technical problem of capturing real-time data from coffee machines across the US and utilizing that data in a dashboard.
The last question was: Do you have any questions for us?
Suggestion: Ask good and relevant questions.
For case study 1: Practice product design questions. Giving mock interviews is highly recommended.
For case study 2: Having some technical expertise/background would help. Some fundamentals of networks and communication, data structures, and database management would help.
Good Luck