I applied online. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at Twilio (Dallas, TX) in Oct 2021
Interview
Hiring Manager Round, followed by 5 intense back-to-back PM interview rounds.
I applied for the job through LinkedIn, my profile had an exact match to the job description as posted on LinkedIn.
Though I did not get any useful feedback from Twilio while they did not consider me, here are some thoughts which I want to share with all of you who are thinking of applying for the PM role at Twilio.
First of all the virtual interviews scheduled in one single day - were too exhausting despite the fact that I provided a pretty open slot spread between 2 days.
I applied for the job considering that Twilio has good policies and good culture and diversity. I was very open from the beginning about my salary expectations and told the recruiter that I have a competitive offer of the same range and same title from another company, but I would like to work for Twilio because as an outsider I see Twilio as a good company. I had my first round with the hiring manager and feedback for that round was that I did extremely well.
After that, I was put on the full loop of 5 rounds of interviews and this is excluding my initial screening with the hiring manager.
All interviewers were happy when I answered their questions, and staged the same like Facebook and Google interviews. They all saw my profile as the perfect match for the job, and I think I did fairly well at the Interview and I am saying this because I also hire PMs and I know what kind of answers I get while I am on the other side of the table.
The interview was bidirectional.. so when I asked them questions, I never got any mind-blowing answers/responses from any interviewers. At the end of the exhausting interviews, the recruiter told me that I did not make it because my experience is not enough for the Staff PM role, and also I am demanding a high salary which they can’t provide.
Clearly, the hiring manager has some pre-decided candidate on her mind, or since I've asked for a better salary so she decided to interview me to show that she did her thorough hunting and can reject me later. I am not bitter that I didn't get the job but I am frustrated about wasting 8hrs of my time. I was very clear about my salary expectations and role and communicated that so if you were not able to meet that - Hiring manager could have said clear no to me after the first round itself. Also one of the interviewers was very rude to me the entire time. So my impression of Twilio being one of the good places to work has changed to I’ll never apply again after the nasty interview process I had to go through.
When a recruiter from Twilio tries to impress you with their Diversity goals or how great the culture is - please don't buy that. Also if you are seeking a job in the current market , I will advise you to spend your precious time exploring other options , because in the same amount of time you can find a job at any other better companies where the interview process is friendly and hiring managers and committees are not as confused and biased as Twilio.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Scripted.
1. Design Doordash for me.
2. Raising the bar
3. 2 Technical Manager Rounds
4. 1 round with another PM
5. Hiring manager
I applied through an employee referral. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at Twilio (Chicago, IL) in Apr 2024
Interview
The process moved very quickly, and I got the feedback same or next day. As for the stages - (1) Manager Screen, then (2) Hiring Manager. If you pass hiring manager, you get to the (3) final stage which consists of 4 back-to-back interviews with team members - Design, Product, Program, and Engineering.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
How do you collaborate with designers?
Tell me about a time you experimented
Your most innovative project, how you led it, how did you work with engineers. They want to hear how you communicate in writing since this is a big thing.
Asked me about a project which was highly related to the role - just walk through what I did, what was the result, would I have done anything differently, why or why not?
Program manager wanted to hear how I run projects. Should have been prepared with a LOT more detail - he wanted to dive into how I wrote the PRD in detail.
Emailed saying they closed the position for 2 months and then reopened it. Really made me skeptical of the org. structure if they weren't sure whether or not they needed the role in the first place.
I applied online. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at Twilio
Interview
Five interviewers from various functions across the company.
There was disagreement among my interviewers about what the role for which I was interviewing "should be," making a transition from one interview session to another fairly difficult.
One interviewer even felt that many of the responsibilities for which I was interviewing should be under their purview.
Offer was lost to an internal candidate, which I heard also occurred to a former colleague for another area of R&D this winter.
Company seems to be in a high state of transition.
Two interviewers mentioned difficulty "getting anything done" due to the lack of processes across teams, especially between original Twilio and the recent acquisitions.
So there was some discussion on being able to get things done without authority over others. They emphasized, repeatedly, the lack of processes and that the company doesn't really seem invested in changing this.