Here are three questions I’ve found to help break through to more insightful realizations about a company’s product management structure.

How do decisions get made at the company?
This question, along with follow-ups like “What happens if there’s a disagreement between the engineering team and the product team?” or “Who presents to executive leadership?” reveal interesting organizational details about the company that are critical to understanding the product management role. Product management actually varies an incredible amount from company to company, so understanding who the key drivers of decisions are will help clarify a PM’s role.

For example, Google X is known to be a very heavily engineering-driven culture, while other marketing-heavy companies may include more key decision makers from sales and marketing teams.

Lastly, this question also reveals the company culture around conflict and consensus. It’s better to work for a company that embraces conflict and open discourse in a way that ensures everyone at the company feels like a stakeholder in the mission.

If you could change the product roadmap for the company, what would you do differently?
Asking these sorts of questions can break through the veneer that many employees display in the recruiting process. Use this question to get to know the individual perspective of the employee, as well as understanding what the current tensions are in the company. Chances are, this employee isn’t the only one who feels this way.

After asking this question, try to understand the company’s perspective on its current direction, and what the incentives are for the decision. Is the company aligned with its stated mission and goals? Does the employee feel heard about their disagreement, or does the company culture foster silent dissent?

What skills are most important for a product manager in this role?
As mentioned previously, product management varies vastly from company to company. But product management can also vary vastly from role to role, depending on your manager and what specific product you’re working with. Understand what your future manager and co-workers expect from this role. Are they expecting heavy data analytics work? Execution and project management skills?

Use this question to both understand how well you will meet the expectations of the team, as well as what skills you’ll learn as you develop in the role.

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