Technical Program Manager Interview Questions

Shuchi A. - "A few months ago I joined a micro-services platform engineering team as their manager, at that time my team was struggling to deliver towards an upcoming production deadline for a customer facing product. Production date had been moved 5 times already and there were about 40% of product features which were remaining to be tested and signed off to move to production . I was made responsible to deliver the release of this product within the deadline and turnaround the software delivery throughput."See full answer

Scott S. - " Project Overview: Real-Time Risk Management System Objective The goal was to develop a real-time risk management system capable of processing and analyzing large volumes of trading data to provide near-instantaneous risk assessments. This system was crucial for enabling traders to make informed decisions while managing their exposure to various market risks in real-time. Complexity Factors 1. \\Data Volume and Velocity\\ \\High Throughput:\\ The system needed to ha"See full answer

Anonymous Mollusk - "My weakness was stage fright and talking in front of a large audience. This TPM role does offer me an opportunity to do both but not at the scale at which impacts my day to day role. Also over many years I have taken remedial action e.g. joined a Toast Masters club to overcome my weakness."See full answer

Anonymous Flamingo - "Handling projects out of my expertise: When faced with a project that falls outside of my expertise, I take the following steps: Identify my skills and knowledge gaps: I assess my own strengths and limitations, and determine which areas of the project may be outside of my comfort zone or expertise. Seek guidance and mentorship: I reach out to colleagues or subject matter experts who have relevant knowledge or experience, and ask for their advice and guidance on the project. Learn and adapt"See full answer

Anonymous Capybara - "using a relational database isn't a good choice for this system! we need more availability here than consistency (CAP theorem)"See full answer

Jatin S. - "A project charter is a formal document that authorizes a project and outlines its objectives, scope, stakeholders, and key details. It serves as an agreement among stakeholders and provides a clear foundation for the project by defining what needs to be done and why. Typically, the project sponsor issues the project charter to the project manager or team, formally initiating the project. A project charter typically includes the following key elements to ensure a comprehensive and clear unde"See full answer

Balaji G. - "My Answer. Please let me know your feedback. I have led many projects throughout my career. So, whenever I lead the project, I first try to clarify the goals and values delivered. For example, I was in charge of Data Analytics projects at my employment at a Startup. The team’s goal was launching the MVP. First, I discussed with the CEO to define the clear goal and scope for each of the projects. Next, I identified all the key stakeholders and received their inputs on the project's different a"See full answer

James H. - "I broke the vehicles down by regions in the world. Designed a wireless api interface to sync with a database backend that linked to google maps through another service and api."See full answer

Adib M. - "Clarifying question(s) Is the upcoming deadline an internal milestone or is it an external facing deadline (ie. compliance/ product launch / feature release)? What would be the repercussion/Is there any possibility of moving the deadline (if needed)? Do we know any details on the team member, Jane in terms of how long the sick leave is likely to be? Is it a fever or is it something bigger that could have her out for much longer? Situation: Jane taking sick leave and the project has an upcom"See full answer

Alfredo M. - "First, I'd like to ask some clarifying questions and try to narrow down the scope of this question. Among them I would like to ask: Are we looking to optimize for a specific goal or metric? Eg: we want more users/queries or are we looking to increase revenue? Are we testing over a specific aspect of Bing? EG: UI, search quality results, recommendation engine, etc. Duration and size of the test. Available resources or constraints (teams, technology, budget) Now, to ass"See full answer

Anthony F. - "Asked clarifying questions to know if this was a program already in existence, how long the problem had been, causes and how the problem was brought to attention. Using that information, went through a framework (provided generally below): Making sure to review documentation/existing contracts/vendors/plans. Review budget and timeline for the program. Review resources available. Review the data (or gather) and the scope of the project (city center, suburbs, few blocks, whole city, etc). Set mee"See full answer

Abdurhman M. - "If you effectively listen and understand their point of view, then take action to address the issue quickly. Don't let too much time slip between the conflict and the resolution. If resolving the concern will take more time, communicate the current status and next steps with the stakeholder."See full answer

Mahesh L. - "Preparing for a significant security compliance change can be overwhelming. The most efficient way to achieve GDPR compliance is through interdepartmental collaboration and the use of technology solutions that automate and validate business needs such as policy compliance, data security and required reporting. As the deadline looms, most organizations should already have started assessing the business impact, devising a company-wide implementation plan and addressing additional resource needs. E"See full answer

Alemayehu m G. - "I would try to understand their perspective, focus on the issue, find common ground, brainstorm solutions, and agree on a course of action."See full answer

Y C. - "One way to develop project metrics is around what problem the project is trying to solve within a particular timeframe, at a cost of x dollars and with y quality Scope: Did the project deliver as per the problem statement - over and beyond Resources metrics: Planned resources were utilized to contribute to the success Budget: Did the cost of the project implementation be under the budget or over? Schedule: In-flight milestones were completed on time or not as per the plan Was the proje"See full answer

Adib M. - "Clarifying question: Do I know of this other team? Have i worked with them before? Do i know the TPM of this team B? 1) Schedule 1-1 TPM of this other team (Team B) with the agenda to better understand Team B project 2) State that you came to know that Team B is working on what sounds like a project similar to your team and you want to understand more about it to see what is common /what is different, what are the objectives and who the stakeholders are and so on. Also, important to know how f"See full answer

Gomathi S. - "I product manage customer care - while I belong to the ecommerce platform team. customer care is not a direct contributor for revenue and the feedback i received during my career progression was unless i contribute to revenue i cannot be on promotion track. this is difficult feedback to act on as its not by job responsibility. worked with my manager on 2 fronts - 1) create a succession plan so i can take on additional responsibility that contributes to revenue and 2) create a plan on how care ca"See full answer