Interview process:
Applied for a Senior PM role on an internal AI product online. The recruiter was candid that the role was brand new and she had limited context from the hiring manager. She described the first round as a "technical interview," which I prepared for thoroughly given my 5+ years as a technical PM with experience collaborating closely with engineering and architecture teams.
What actually happened:
The interviewer shared their screen within seconds of introductions and asked me to write SQL from scratch. No context, no product problem, no conversation — just a live coding test for 3 questions. When I asked whether dashboards and tooling would be available on the job (a reasonable question for a PM role), I was told no. I was honest that haven't written SQL code in nearly a decade, but I walked through the logic clearly in plain terms. The interview wrapped up in under 20 minutes. A week later I received a rejection citing SQL proficiency as the reason.
What was missing:
None of this was mentioned in the job description. The recruiter had no knowledge of it either. She was doing her best with nearly zero guidance from the hiring manager. There was no product sense question, no strategy discussion, no hiring manager conversation which is unusual for a PM interview process regardless of level. Expecting a PM to hand-write SQL as a first-round filter, before any conversation about judgment, vision, or customer understanding, reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of the role.
Advice to Adobe
Brief your recruiters thoroughly before sending candidates into a process especially for new roles. If SQL is a hard requirement for a PM position, say so in the job description. A 20-minute coding screen with no introduction and no follow-up conversation does not evaluate product leadership. It evaluates syntax recall. These are not the same thing.
