Senior technical program manager Interview Questions
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Senior Technical Program Manager interview questions shared by candidates
what was most innovative technical work you have done
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We have developed Virtual Music Instruments for A.R Rahman. These are musical bands worn to hand and these generate midi tones and sent over Air (two variants Bluetooth, UWB). A third variant is again demonstrated by A.R.Rahman in many concerts, with technology based on camera. All of these variants are used by A.R Rahman in various concerts. Less
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We have developed Virtual Music Instruments for A.R Rahman. These are musical bands worn to hand and these generate midi tones and sent over Air (two variants Bluetooth, UWB). A third variant is again demonstrated by A.R.Rahman in many concerts, with technology based on camera. All of these variants are used by A.R Rahman in various concerts. Less
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We have developed Virtual Music Instruments for A.R Rahman. These are musical bands worn to hand and these generate midi tones and sent over Air (two variants Bluetooth, UWB). A third variant is again demonstrated by A.R.Rahman in many concerts, with technology based on camera. All of these variants are used by A.R Rahman in various concerts. Less
A vaguest ion that was asked in a very general way, but which the interviewer clearly had specific answers he was looking for: "what are four components that are included in every specification doc". That sounded a lot like a thing you would find at Microsoft and similar large companies where process is more strictly defined. I answered poorly, I think, perhaps because I haven't worked with that kind of spec in a very long time, and not on any projects that worked out well. Smaller orgs/programs/projects (startups and incubators, for example, where the outcome is always in flux, as I am accustomed to working with) can have poor specs, specs that are centered on marketing, planning documents that are made up of wireframes and time-based stage gates. In any case, I choked a bit, and the interview kind of skated around and became more specific as we went along. I don't think that is inappropriate, though, because Amazon does value and expect the ability to deal with ambiguity.
4 Answers↳
"what are four components that are included in every specification doc" This question is insane, and I would hate getting an interviewer that asks such a question. Correct answer can be: "1. Title, 2. Author, 3. Requirements, 4. Version". If the title "requirements doc" is not there, maybe it is not a requirement doc. Specific sections are: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Product_requirements_document Less
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The toughest interviewer with the "4 components" question was a dev, in fact. The TPM screen was not so academic, more about challenges and solutions, philosophy, team fit, familiarity with the specific technology and business. That was definitely the screen that didn't go well, although he was wicked smart and wasn't just trying to mess with the candidate or anything. Less
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What do you mean of Sepc ? If you mean a document which will be used for developing a feature of software i.e Use case sepc, user story, backlog item, It should contain at least following components : 1- Who is Actor / Role 2- What action will actor/role will take ? 3- Goal. Why actor do that ? what the software will provide for user. You may add acceptance criteria to the above list. Less
How many sensors do you need and where should they be placed to detect rotation/direction of a spinning disk?
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A single sensor will detect rotation speed, it will not show direction. Two sensors would detect rotation and could be used to detect direction if the sensors are also able to calculate speed; however they will not show direction unless the speed is known. The third sensor is needed to show direction by the sequence of the sensors being tripped if the speed cannot be determined. The placement of the sensors is only significant if you need to calculate uniformity of speed in the rotation. If uniformity of speed is not a concern then the sensors should be placed in the most economical position for installation, just not 180 degrees for the two sensor placement as you need a time differential in the speed/rotation calculation. Less
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2 at 90 degrees
Tell me what a critical section is used for in C++.
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It is used to sequence threads within a process boundary.
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A section of code which accesses shared memory such that only one thread should read/write from that location at a single time. Often mediated by semaphores or locks. Excessive use of critsecs negatively affects the performance of code running in a parallelized environment, since only one thread can access the critsec at a time. The more critsecs, and the longer each takes to execute, the less benefit you get from parallelization. If your entire program is enclosed in a critsec, it is effectively single threaded. Less
How do you balance the need/desire for delivery "commitment" with the effort and time required to be able to commit?
2 Answers↳
Through questions like this, interviewers are mostly trying to test your skillset (and its relevance to the role) as robustly as possible, so be prepared for multiple offshoots and followups. It could be a useful exercise to do mocks with friends or colleagues in DigitalOcean to get a real sense of what the interview is actually like. Alternatively Prepfully has a ton of DigitalOcean Senior Technical Program Manager experts who provide mock interviews for a pretty reasonable amount. prepfully.com/practice-interviews Less
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In short: you need to establish a _flexible_ process and working relationship based on trust between product, engineering and leadership which allows teams to progress to making "commitments" without fear of future backlash or issues arising from mistakes or blindspots. You need to work to iterate and improve this over time. Less
How do you solve conflict?
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* Conflict often arises when cross-functional teams fail to recognize and understand the trade-offs necessary to achieve outcomes. * In order to help team members be more self-aware and empathetic, you can walk through the process from the perspective of their own team and draw corollaries to other teams. * One thing some managers miss is providing opportunities for stakeholders to revisit and revise their agreements as the reality of implementation sets in. Less
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Situation where I had conflict with my manager, in my team etc
2 Answers↳
Just gave example from project experience
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As an Amazon employee who interviewed and hired a lot of people here, I've created a guide that has all the questions and winning answers from an Amazonian recruiter perspective. Please check it out at interviewjoy.com/services/interview-process-details/amazon-senior-manager-interview-questions/ Less
Are you looking to slow down? (Seriously and verbatim)
1 Answers↳
I'm sorry, am I what? No. I'm 50; not 90. Retirement is not on my radar :-)
