Study Guide: Product Owner Interviews for Transitioning Veterans

A practical guide for transitioning Veterans who want to break into Product Ownership / Product Management

Photo by Steve Halama on Unsplash

If you started reading this in the hopes that it’ll hand you a list of questions and their perfect answers, I can admit you’ll be disappointed. The purpose of this is instead, to assist self-motivated individuals with where to start, terms to Google, and possibly some helpful existing materials, in order to feel confident heading into your average Product interview.

If you have some Product experience (or a certification) this can serve as a helpful double-check or refresher to put your mind in the right place. If you have less product experience, use this as a guide on topics to deep dive into.

First things first; ‘Why do you want to be a product owner?’ or ‘What does a good product owner do?’ style questions

The purpose of these question types is usually to gauge that the interviewee has an understanding of what product ownership *is*, and your goal is to prove you know it.

Generally people are looking for a mix of 2 factors, Product specific skills, and general skills or competencies. Product specific skills refers to an understanding of the importance of all HBT factors (we’ll go more into these individually below). Common key Product competencies are things like, leading with unofficial authority, prioritization, teamwork, and strategic vision.

Here are some additional tools to get started:

1. Best Quick Read (article)— While at Capital One we tend to use the term ‘Human Centered Design’ instead of ‘User Experience’ they mean the same thing
2. Why is this a Job? #1 and Why is this a Job? #2 (articles)— this is better for digging into what a product owner really does and why they are important
3. Veterans as Product Owners #1 and Veterans as Product Owners #2 (articles)- I don’t think a SAFe certification is necessary (and can be overly rigid), but this is a good version of translating between agile speak and military speak
4. Overkill is underrated (article)— Frankly I don’t know Java/Python and it’s been 5+ years since using SQL.. however, these tips aren’t wrong in that some companies/hiring managers could look for that, particularly in more tech-heavy companies
5. Agile Overview with a focus on Product Owners (video) — This is best if you are less familiar with the agile process as a whole and does a good job of explaining common terminology and processes

Digging Deeper; ‘Tell me about a time when…’ or ‘Imagine a scenario where..’ style questions

After the high level questions interviews often progress to try and figure out your strengths and weaknesses on each of the more specific dimensions. There are hundreds of guides around behavioral interviewing (non job specific competencies), so I’m not going to cover that here. Instead I’ll focus on the HBT pillars since those are likely to be less familiar.

Note: I won’t define/link every term in this section, if something is unfamiliar (or interesting) to you, the good ole’ Google is your best friend for a deeper dive.

Human-Centered Design

This dimension is really all about ensuring that as a Product Owner/Manager you can determine customer needs, particularly when that customer doesn’t think/act/need like you. While some tools can be used in multiple instances, generally the tools/skills fall along 3 phases in the product cycle.

Initial customer definition: Whether your product is new, or you are simply new to the role, your initial goal is to always figure out who your customer is. Tools to do that include:

• Empathy Interviews
• Surveys
• Persona development
• Customer Journey Mapping

Will customers like my product/improvement idea: This is *key*. Product owners should *never* assume that just because they think they have the perfect solution / product / idea, their customers will agree. The real world may have budget or time constraints, but when you are interviewing you should always start with the assumption that you need to test your idea before it’s finished. Generally, these tools can also be used for ongoing monitoring to ensure that things are going as expected. Tools for this include:

• More customer interviews, likely revolving around a wireframe or prototype of the solution
• Beta testing
• A/B testing
• Usability testing —Both generally and also for those who are differently-abled in some way. For example, if you are building a website feature, does it work with screen readers?
• Click tracking, web metrics
• NPS surveys

What should we do next: If you are talking about an existing product / tool you may need to focus a bit more on looking for what’s wrong. While the tools above are great and all apply here, some more specific tools for this include:

• Unhappy path analysis and updated customer journey maps
• Empathy maps
• Review competitor products and/or your product review page
• Any number of Process analysis tools (six sigma, pareto diagrams, etc)

Business Need

If you are interviewing, you are about to work for a business. Generally that business needs to make money. This dimension is around making sure that is factored in to the decision making processes.

This part of the interview can be hard to prepare for due to the variation in ways people assess this, but if you can answer the questions below, you are likely in good shape.

• How do you size the market for a product?
• How does (Company X) make money?
• What is the mission statement of (Company X)?
• What is the bread-and-butter product of (Company X)? What is their newest product offering?
• What is the competitive landscape of (Company X)?
• What is the regulatory landscape of (Company X)? (i.e. what laws / legal requirements would be important)
• What is a conversion funnel?
• Why do companies do things for free?

Technology

This will HEAVILY vary based on the company / product / specific role you are interviewing for. At the risk of this whole article aging poorly, I’ve put some sample topics, but this is an area where it’s likely helpful to ask during initial conversations a question like “what are your primary technology tools”, and use that to guide your study / research.

Some sample topics to understand are:

• Machine Learning — at a high level what is it? What are some familiar examples of it in use? What are some areas you may guess that (Company X) uses it?
• OCR — at a high level what is it? What are some familiar examples of it in use? What are some areas you may guess that (Company X) uses it?
• What is tech debt and why is it important?

Wrap it Up

If you’ve gotten this far, you are likely fully prepared for your upcoming interview. If you are still sweating, reach out. Given that part of a Product Owner’s job is to be good at empathy, they tend to be a helpful bunch. Work your network, or reach out on places like LinkedIn, and you’ll be surprised at the helpfulness of the response.

Below I’ve included a final glossary of terms to check your general knowledge, good luck!

Glossary of Terms to Know:

• Backlog
• Sprint
• Story / User Story
• Epic
• Acceptance Criteria
• Product Roadmap
• MVP