I applied through an employee referral. I interviewed at ShipStation (Austin, TX) in Sep 2020
Interview
The process was very thorough. I had an initial interview with my hiring manager to get a sense of fit. After that I went through a series of five one-hour interviews with various teams and potential coworkers. One of these included a product roadmap challenge and presentation to product leadership. Another included an interactive product development exercise around customer interview and quick iteration skills. Finally a few calls were more cultural fit calls with members of related teams.
It was a lot of interviews but gave me a really good sense of the kind of team I'd be joining and what would be expected of me.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
There was a roadmap project for prioritizing competing initiatives that I had to present to product leadership and defend my decisions.
I applied through an employee referral. I interviewed at ShipStation (Austin, TX) in Aug 2020
Interview
Recruiter contacted me via email to schedule an initial call with the Director.
Initial call was with the hiring Director. We scheduled 30 minutes and he asked to extend. We spoke about my background and experience and he answered questions for 90 minutes.
Recruiter set up 4 Zoom calls with pairs of Product Managers / Directors / Engineers for the following week.
I was also given a project to build a roadmap for a 3 month period given a set of tickets and available information on impact and level of engineering effort.
The Director call was a role play to walk through my process for gathering requirements on a new product. They were excellent partners and never let me flounder. The remaining calls were excellent 2-way information exchanges. The final call was a review of my 3 month roadmap with me defending/explaining my choices.
The following day I had a 30 minute call with their CPO. He gave me a no fluff summary of the position and why they thought it might be a good fit. They wanted to make sure it would work for me.
I had an offer from the hiring Director 15 minutes after the call.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Why would you prioritize X bug over Y feature?
How do you handle competing requirements with deadlines?
Are you comfortable speaking directly with clients?
All of the questions were relevant and if you've been a PM then my suggestion is be honest and explain your approach. They are as interested in how your mind works as any particular answer.
I applied online. I interviewed at ShipStation (Austin, TX) in Apr 2017
Interview
Typical onsite interview with a review of my background and behavioral questions. Overall they were friendly.
After the interview I followed up with thank you emails, but never heard back. A few weeks later I met someone else who applied. They said they never heard back and neither had friends who had had interviews there.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Tell me about a time when you had to address an issue with an unhappy customer.