LinkedIn Technical Program Manager Interview Guide

The interview process starts with a 30-40 minute interview with the recruiter. This interview call is aimed at assessing your cultural and experiential fit for the role at the company. The interviewer may ask questions regarding your background and previous work experience in the relevant domain, and may also discuss previous projects you have handled. You should be thoroughly prepared with your CV. Also, have a crisp and convincing answer ready for questions such as "why do you think you are best for the role?" or "why should we hire you?"

The recruiter screen is followed by a telephonic interview, known as the phone screen. This interview may be conducted by a LinkedIn hiring manager or a LinkedIn TPM lead. This interview is roughly 1 hour long. Here, the questions are mainly of two types - technical, and behavioural. The technical questions cover topics such as:

• System design
• Program sense
• Product sense
• Program management. 

The behavioural questions will test your motivation for the role and various aspects of your personality. The interview will also test your leadership skills, and how well you are able to adapt to the work culture of the company. Questions will mostly be situational and open-ended. Expect the interviewer to engage in a back and forth with you over the questions asked. The trick here is to be confident in your replies and speak your mind.

Most asked interview questions in the Phone Screen

Technical Section

• Design an end-to-end user onboarding for an app?
• How would you design an AI data product?
• What steps would you take to improve engagement on LinkedIn?
• How would you design a database schema for a certain configuration manager?
• What is your favourite app and how would you improve it?
• Walk me through an example of an end-to-end program management project you've run.
• If you visit a Bitly URL in your web browser, what happens behind the scenes?
• Give an example of the technical complexity you dealt with and what your contributions were.
• How would you measure LinkedIn's success? What metrics would you employ?
• Can you give an example of a specific project where you identified project risk and were able to mitigate it?
• Tell us briefly how you go about executing a project.
• Have you handled multiple teams within a program?
• Can you share an experience where you worked on improving a system without being asked by the customer?
• Have you heard of change management? How do you approach it?

Behavioural Interview Section

• Think about the last time you experienced a breakdown in communication. How did you right the ship?
• Share with us an experience when you faced scope creep. How did you tackle this situation?
• What is the toughest decision you faced and how did you overcome it?
• Tell us about a time when you disagreed with the entire team and why?
• How did you manage when a project deadline was missed?
• In the past, how have you dealt with team members who aren’t giving their best at work?

The on-site interview is a full-day event. It comprises of 4-5 interviews, each lasting about 1 hour.  Each of these 5 interviews is going to test specific areas, mentioned below:

• Technical Skills
• Leadership and Portfolio Management
• Execution
• End-to-end Program Management 
• Behavioural aspects

The interview panel consists of a Product Manager, a Technical Program Manager, and the Hiring Manager. The questions in the onsite round are going to test your knowledge and understanding of the concepts in-depth.

Technical skills will mostly cover system design, product design, and product sense questions. Each of these interview scores is going to be counted to assess your overall performance  

• LinkedIn technical interviews have a sharp bias towards product sense and program management,  so be well prepared for these.
• For the behavioural questions, keep a few stories around your previous job/projects ready. This can be regarding the difficulties you faced, your achievements, and the overall experience. Use them in your answers to the situational questions.

Most asked questions in the onsite round

Technical Skills

• Tell us about the most complex design project you've worked on?
• What is the difference between TCP and UDP? Describe the TCP protocol.
• Design the front end of an online cupcake selling company.

Leadership and portfolio management

• Walk us through a conflict you resolved in your team.
• Have you ever disagreed with your team/manager? How did you handle the situation?
• Have you ever worked with a difficult team member/stakeholder? Share your experience.
• Tell us about a project you worked on where goals were ambiguous and kept changing frequently.
• How would you bridge the gap between engineering and less technical cross-functional teams working under you?

Execution

• What do you find harder - generating an idea, or its execution?
• How do you go about completing a project where the resources are scarce and there's a stiff deadline?
• Describe and differentiate between a continuous deployment system and a continuous build system.

End-to-End Program Management Questions

• When pursuing a project goal, how do you deal with failure?
• You’re working on a project and suddenly the company announces a change of project goals. How do you adapt?

Behavioural aspects

• Describe an experience when an idea you had that wasn't agreed with.
• How do you earn the trust of your team members?
• How do you motivate your team?