Updated by OpenAI candidates
Product Manager, ChatGPT Interview Experience
One interviewer literally opened with, “I don’t know why I keep getting booked for these,” and then asked me how I’d handle launching a new model if the first two years would lose $2 trillion. I was like, what is this, bro?
Interview process
I interviewed for two PM roles under ChatGPT, and I got in through a referral. The recruiter screen was short and very candid, but it was also a warning sign because she said the process changes constantly, and most of what she told me about the format ended up not matching reality. I then did two one-hour case interviews: one was a strong, practical discussion about how I would launch a new model in ChatGPT, and the other was chaotic after being canceled and rescheduled multiple times and then assigned to someone outside the team who seemed unclear on what he was testing. After those rounds, I was told I was not a fit for the search role, but they were still considering me for the growth role. Right now I am waiting to hear whether the final will be the old onsite panel in SF or the newer case-project-plus-presentation version.
- Recruiter screen
- Technical interview
- Final round
Interview tips
I would prep for practical rollout questions, not textbook PM cases. I would literally practice, if I had to launch a big OpenAI product tomorrow, how would I work through research, engineering, design, legal, trust and safety, and finance, and then have someone throw curveballs at me about what goes wrong in each lane. At the start of the round, I would explicitly ask whether they want a Meta-style structured answer or a more free-form discussion, because different interviewers seem to evaluate very differently. I also would not lean too hard on competitor analogies. I think they care more about whether I can make decisions under ambiguity, call out risks, and keep moving when there is no real playbook.
Company culture
My biggest takeaway is that PMs there feel much closer to general managers than traditional PMs. I got the sense you own a lot of the messy cross-functional work yourself, especially with finance, legal, trust and safety, research, and launch risk, because the org is still pretty lean and moving fast. The interview process also feels very uncalibrated right now: formats are changing, some interviewers run practical and useful discussions, and some seem to just default to whatever style they personally know. From a product standpoint, I personally did not get a super strategic, narrow-bets vibe. It felt more like a startup mentality of ship fast, do a lot, and stay ahead that way. I also came away feeling that SF is clearly the center of gravity, and if you are a PM outside SF, especially in New York, you probably get sidelined because leadership and most of the core builders are there.
Questions asked
Overview
I have not done the final yet. What I was originally told was a more standard onsite in San Francisco with engineering, design, a PM strategy or execution round, and then a culture fit conversation with the hiring manager. Then they told me some teams are moving to a case project where you present to that panel instead, maybe followed by culture fit, and they are still deciding which version they want for the growth role.
Question types asked
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