Tell me about a time when you had to exert influence to drive a decision.

"I interviewed for a Senior Technical Program Manager role at NVIDIA, probably around the L5 or L6 band. The process was one hiring manager screen followed by a four-interview panel, with two rounds that were more technical and two that were more behavioral. What stood out to me was that it felt less robotic than some other big tech loops. I did not feel over-timed on every answer, and the interviewers actually interacted with me instead of just writing notes nonstop. At the same time, they absolutely expected strong technical depth in AI and cybersecurity plus solid TPM fundamentals around prioritization, KPIs, ambiguity, and cross-functional leadership. I came away feeling like they wanted someone who could speak both the technical language and the program-management language at a pretty high level."

"I interviewed for an SC2 software engineer role on Microsoft's Experience + Devices team, focusing on Copilot integration into the Microsoft 365 suite. After I applied, I got a standard engineer screen that was pretty easy, then they moved quickly into a 4-round final loop over 2 days, which felt like they were on a hiring drive. The weird part was that every final-round interviewer was principal-level, and almost every round, even the system design and hiring manager rounds, was still basically coding. The hardest round by far was a file system prompt where I expected a standard system design, but they wanted a low-level design coded up with classes and multiple use cases in 45 minutes. I still have no official outcome because the recruiter ghosted me for a month after the loop, so honestly, this ended up being the worst interview experience I have had with any company."