The Tech Interview Behind the Scenes: Aleksandar Georgiev

A long, long time ago, in 2009 I started my career in the Customer Service department at Paysafe (It was still called Moneybookers back then). I transitioned internally to a Product Manager a couple of years later and it’s been “all about the product” ever since.

Throughout my career I’ve been labeled as “Product manager”, “Senior Product Manager”, “Product Owner”, “Head of Product”, “Lead Product Owner” but I consider myself as just a product guy.

Once I applied for a Product Manager position in a Bulgarian company. I had a scheduled interview with the owner of the company in their office building. I showed up dressed for the occasion.

At the reception, I was directed to the place where the interview would be conducted - the office gym. So, I was sitting on a bench, while the owner was doing squats and talking to me in his rest between sets.

I did not get the job.

The Product position is complex in terms of the necessary skillset, respectively, the qualities needed are diverse.

Having a product mindset is usually at the top of my list.

Confidence and ability to “stand your ground” by solid argumentation come in second as prioritization is one of the important aspects of the job.

Then self organization and the ability to clearly communicate set a candidate in the proper spotlight.

I focus the questions during the interview on the successes and failures of the candidate's past projects.

• What are the learnings from the failures?
• How did they measure success?
• What’s the smallest change they made that had the greatest impact?
• How did they decide to build this over that?

When we talk about a product position, the technical aspect of the questions mostly revolves around frameworks, prioritization techniques, toolset, feedback gathering and analysis.

For an assessment, I usually present candidates with a task, where they are required to take an idea from the business and roll with it. I expect to see a full assessment of that idea - “Should we do it or not? Why? How?”. Ideally I would receive a problem definition, market research, target audience, market fit, KPIs, MVP validation, roll out strategy and milestones.

What’s important here is to show a structured approach of defining the problem, hypothesis of the solution and a plan to validate that hypothesis.

The second, often overlooked by candidates aspect of the task is the presentation. I let them choose whether to submit a powerpoint, pdf, word, notion…However, how you package your work is just as important as the content. The information presented needs to be easy to consume and understandable which assesses the presentation skills and attention to detail. I am not talking about 78 slide presentations with fancy animations, but I need a little more effort than a few bullet points in a notepad.

The product person communicates with the business, the stakeholders, the dev team, the customers, leads demos, works closely with marketing and the sales team.

Communication skills can evolve a product or bury it. Even the greatest idea, if not properly pitched, never gets approved. If the product is not properly presented, it remains misunderstood and not used. 

Having a clear articulation, structured thought and providing clear and concise answers to the questions will tip the scales in favor of the candidate.

Cultural fit plays a factor, for sure.

Post Covid, remote work opened the doors to the world of talent. Respectively, we now work in a very diverse environment, where people are more aware and accepting of cultural differences.

What’s important is the work ethic, stress management and reaction to change. Everything else we can work with.

I’ve noticed a few repeating mistakes that less experienced candidates make. They all try to show everything they know, regardless whether it’s the topic of discussion. They tend to speak more and often get lost in their own words and eventually miss the point they wanted to make when they started speaking.

More experienced candidates tend to jump straight to a solution, when you present them with a problem.They use buzz words, mention techniques and tools they have used and are ready to deliver. Yet, they fail to take a step back and to validate if they are solving the right problem.

My advice:

When presented with a question or a problem, take a deep breath, think about it, structure your thoughts and then answer. Sometimes, “I don’t know, but I’ll check and get back to you” is the best thing you can say. 

Practice makes perfect. Most of the time, a less experienced person with a proper plan drives better results than an experienced person with “a gut feeling”.

Product people usually evolve to be such. We all come from different backgrounds - CS, QA, Designers, Business Analysts..All backgrounds have a bias to their already acquired skills and are lagging behind in others.

For example, Customer service background product people are usually great with collecting customer feedback by engaging directly with customers, but often lack the technical understanding that a Business Analays background gives. 

Find the area you feel less confident about and don’t run away from it.

You were in Busness Analysys? Then go to https://www.interaction-design.org/ and learn what Design thinking is and how to apply it to build great user experience.

You were a Designer? Then go to https://www.w3schools.com/ and learn some basic SQL to be able to pull reports from the DB and understand customer behaviour.

You are not in Product but you want to be? Then go to https://www.coursera.org/ and pick up Digital Product Management: Modern Fundamentals by Alex Cowan.

I cannot point out a worst or best interview.

In general, when the conversation is a real two way communication then we are in a good spot. However, if it feels like a Q&A session, then this isn’t an interview, it’s an interrogation.

Show up on time!

Be prepared to be put in a situation, where you need to show quick thinking, proper attitude and professional conduct.