Zoox Technical Program Manager Interview

This initial step involves a brief overview of your resume and delves into situational and behavioural questions. For instance, they might throw a curveball like, "What if someone on your team hates writing documentation?" How would you approach this scenario? 

This is also a chance for the HR to understand your background in management and evaluate your interpersonal skills.

Example questions could include:

What interests you about the TPM role at Zoox?

Can you provide examples of your experience managing complex technical projects and teams?

How familiar are you with the autonomous driving industry and the challenges it presents to TPMs?

In this phase, you'll face a mix of technical and behavioural questions. They may inquire about your experiences in technical project management to get insight into how you navigate challenges and contribute to team dynamics. For instance, they might inquire about a specific project where you had to balance technical complexity with team collaboration.

Here, your responses should demonstrate not only your technical proficiency but also your ability to lead and collaborate effectively within a team.

• How would you approach managing a complex project with multiple stakeholders and tight deadlines?
• Can you explain a time when you had to make trade-offs between project scope, timeline, and resources?
• Describe a situation where you had to work closely with engineers to resolve a technical issue.
• How do you prioritise tasks and manage a project with multiple stakeholders?
• Can you provide an example of a project you've successfully delivered on time and within budget?

For this round, you should prepare for an extensive session with other Technical Program Managers (TPMs). This half-day interview initially includes a presentation on a problem you have solved in the past; it goes on for about 30 minutes and typically involves sharing a case of a challenging technical issue you have successfully addressed in the past or say, a difficult vendor you've dealt with. 

The next 30 minutes are dedicated to a maths/puzzle, where you collaborate with a “partner” to solve logic problems like optimising a process or solving a complex algorithm.

The on-site round is the most comprehensive, involving around six interviews with various stakeholders, including other TPMs, engineering managers, and the SVP of Engineering. 

The interviews typically include the following aspects:

• Technical Project Retrospective: 
• Be ready to discuss end-to-end about a product, platform, or system you've worked on. 
• You'll need to create a high-level architectural diagram and talk about potential tradeoffs when evaluating technical options. 
• Expect questions related to CS fundamentals, design/architecture, system design, scalability, distributed systems, web services, and program management approaches.
• Architecture, product and system design: 
• This segment focuses on high-level product design questions. You might be asked to design a system from scratch or discuss systems you've worked on previously.
• This part is intricate and usually spans 30-45 minutes, requiring a structured framework for addressing the questions.
• Dive deep into topics like architecture, MVP thinking, scaling, technical decisions, trade-offs, caching, CDNs, and database choices. 
• Program Sense: 
• This round assesses your understanding of program management elements like ideation, risk management, prioritisation, resource allocation, conflict resolution, and stakeholder management. 
• Make sure you demonstrate your ability to think comprehensively about programs, considering resources, risks, stakeholder expectations, costs, and deadlines. 
• To excel in the "Program Sense" portion of the interview, it's important to draw on real-world examples from your experience that demonstrate your ability to navigate complex program management scenarios.
• Partnerships and Leadership: 
• Here, they're interested in your experience bridging the gap between engineering and less technical cross-functional teams. 
• Expect questions on how you build relationships, resolve conflicting priorities across teams, gain buy-in from resistant peers, and tackle personal challenges. 
• Questions often involve multiple parts, like setting up a scenario, asking for your approach, and then tweaking the scenario. For instance, you might be asked, "What’s the first thing you would do to learn about your assigned area if documents are off-limits but meetings are an option?"
• Approach this with confidence, delve into Zoox and AV tech specifics, and aim to convince the interviewers of your competence and trustworthiness.

• What is your favourite trait of a project manager?
• How do you deal with a difficult vendor who cannot deliver within the timeline previously agreed to.
• What is your favourite trait of a project manager?
• Tell me about yourself and your work experience?
• Design a system for a ride-sharing app that handles millions of concurrent users.
• Draw a high-level architectural diagram for a large-scale e-commerce platform and discuss trade-offs you'd consider in choosing between microservices or a monolithic architecture.
• Discuss a real-world example where you had to make critical decisions regarding architecture, technical trade-offs, and scalability.
• Reflect on a time when a project didn't go as planned
• How do you prioritise tasks when managing multiple projects simultaneously?
• Describe a scenario where you successfully bridged the gap between engineering teams and less technical cross-functional teams.