[HN Gopher] I Messed Up My Google PM Vibe Coding Interview
___________________________________________________________________
I Messed Up My Google PM Vibe Coding Interview
Author : taubek
Score : 44 points
Date : 2025-07-12 19:20 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (old.reddit.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (old.reddit.com)
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| Hmm... reading between the lines, here, it looks like Google is
| out to save a bit of dosh. Instead of hiring a PM and some
| developers, they just hire a vibe-friendly PM.
|
| Sign of the times, I guess...
| ls-a wrote:
| Based on the current state of AI that's strange. They must be
| 100% sure that vibe coding will eventually replace engineers
| for them to go in that direction. Which is also strange because
| i don't see it still. Isn't it too early to replace engineers
| with vibe coders
| Kapura wrote:
| not if you're trying to impress your bosses to get a
| promotion.
| PradeetPatel wrote:
| Exactly, you align your business objectives with the vision
| of your managers and the industry trend.
|
| Right now it appears that most industry leaders have fully
| committed to AI. It would be foolish (career wise) to speak
| openly otherwise.
| tkiolp4 wrote:
| If there's something worse than an average engineer doing vibe
| coding, that's a pm doing vibe coding. What's next? Marketing
| guys automating backups?
| moomoo11 wrote:
| Or just a technical product manager.
|
| Honestly, the biggest mistake IMHO was hiring non technical
| product managers and putting them in charge of technical teams.
| They're almost always annoying af, useless, and tbh "people
| skills" only go so far because it's mostly a systems problem
| that communication falls apart.
|
| Having worked at successful tech companies (that IPO'd), I have
| never met a non-technical product manager who was any good or
| worth remembering.
|
| The best thing happening in tech right now IMO are the layoffs
| affecting PMs and other "manager" types. We all know they add
| very low value because their actual role is "scapegoat" when
| their projects fail (mostly due to them in the first place). It
| is also why they were almost always the only ones fired prior
| to AI revolution.
| polotics wrote:
| I distinctly remember having to agree to some non-disclosure when
| I ventured this way a long while ago
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| From what a couple of other commenters mentioned, the post
| might just be a red herring, so there's nothing actually being
| disclosed...
| jekwoooooe wrote:
| I look forward to the day these vibe coded vapid applications are
| in prod and everything collapses
| abxyz wrote:
| Buried in the comments the OP acknowledges that this was
| specifically an AI role and that the OP was unprepared to be
| asked to vibe code in the interview, not that the OP was
| surprised the role itself involved vibe coding. We are reading it
| as if this was a PM interview and vibe coding was sprung on the
| OP -- and that's why it is interesting -- but it was actually
| just someone who didn't expect an interview for an AI role to
| involve demonstrating the skill.
| layer8 wrote:
| I still find it bewildering that vibe coding would be
| considered a core competency for a PM.
| consumer451 wrote:
| I have no idea if this is why they asked about it, but I can
| imagine it could be a great skill to create functional
| prototypes to share with actual devs.
| spzb wrote:
| I find it bizarre that it's considered a competency for
| anyone.
| ls-a wrote:
| The sad thing is everyone will follow this interview
| practice like they did before with other ridiculous
| questions
| stavros wrote:
| I find it bizarre that people can be bothered to write code
| by hand any more.
| NitpickLawyer wrote:
| I wouldn't call it bewildering. We're already seeing _some_
| capacity of models to take PRDs and turn them into PoCs. We
| 're not far from being able to literally test PRDs by how
| well the models implement them. In other words, how well can
| a PM write inputs makes a difference. And we're close to
| having quasi instant "scoring" for that.
| alephnerd wrote:
| The whole point of hiring a PM is to have an SME who truly
| UNDERSTANDS customer and user painpoints.
|
| If you are the PM for building AI products, you better dang
| know how to use AI productivity products.
|
| The era of MBB and process driven PMs is dead. We are back to
| the pre-2013 era of PMs as domain experts first and foremost.
|
| As an ex-PM, thank goodness.
|
| Process oriented PMs are useless. Process is a tool, not a
| product competency. UNDERSTANDING who a customer is and the
| problem they are facing is what matters.
|
| We build products and companies in order solve a problem, not
| the other way around. PMs and Founders with this mindset tend
| to succeed from an investment standpoint.
| cavisne wrote:
| Seems a bit off. Big tech interviews are very structured, the
| recruiter should tell you exactly what will be assessed. Might be
| a fake post.
| sunaookami wrote:
| Extremely fake like every Reddit post nowadays.
| growbell_social wrote:
| I expect this to become standard for many roles. This is the
| future. It's hard to say when or how but for anyone who has spent
| > 6 months, interacting with LLMs on a daily basis, it's clear
| this is the way.
| growbell_social wrote:
| Definitely got downvoted. The future can be unsettling but the
| faster we adjust the better.
| BSOhealth wrote:
| Seems like anyone surprised by this isn't tracking what
| big/biggish tech product leaders are already moving toward; the
| roles of PM, UX/design, and POC dev are going to blur
| dramatically over the next 1-2 years.
|
| Eventually, a solid CSM should be able to hear a customer pain
| point, spit out a quick POC, and begin a segmented rollout to
| validate it as quickly as possible.
|
| Also agree with suspicion around this post though... big tech
| interviews, especially in AI adjacent roles, are going to be
| structured well enough that this probably wasn't actually a
| surprise. I'd much more believe the reverse: "I was told I would
| have a technical/vibe coding component and didn't!" (much less
| exciting headline of course)
| alephnerd wrote:
| Absolutely! In fact, this used to be the norm before fhe MBBs
| and ex-IBs who did an MBA flooded the PM market in the 2012-15
| period thanks to Google's PM org.
|
| PMs who started before 2012 or after 2022 tend to have a
| product mindset ("I'm building a product to solve a problem").
|
| This requires domain experience - you can't learn this from an
| MBA. You need to have started of working in that field in order
| to become a truly strong product manager. Before the 2010s,
| most MBA PMs tended to be staff or principal engineers, sales
| engineers, or support engineers sponsored by their employer to
| attend part-time MBA programs like Berkeley Haas [0] or
| Stanford HCP MS&E [1]as a finishing school and return as a
| business minded engineer.
|
| Google and Twitter (back under Dorsey in 2010-11) changed the
| whole PM hiring process industry wide by prioritizing MBB
| personas and MBB-style interviews as one of their heads of PM
| at the time was a former Partner at McKinsey and brought the
| McK process into the tech industry, despite more product minded
| people like Salar, Marissa, and Sundar helping build core
| fundamentals of what became the Google behemoth (Xooglers,
| please correct me if the history is wrong - it's been 15 years
| and I do think I messed up some of the chronology).
|
| [0] - https://ewmba.haas.berkeley.edu/
|
| [1] - https://msande.stanford.edu/academics-
| admissions/graduate/ms...
| apwell23 wrote:
| how do you think role of an engineering manager will change?
| tra3 wrote:
| The author thinks they messed but there's no evidence of that. If
| the goal was to demonstrate building something with ai the
| interviewer shoul be able to see past the stress to the skills
| demonstrated..if they are willing.
| alshival wrote:
| Don't worry about it. I recommend not working for Google, Apple,
| Microsoft, Amazon, or any major tech company. You are disposable.
| Rather than take one for the team and put back some of their
| ridiculous salaries, they'll throw you off the boat and gaslight
| you to believe you are just inadequate.
|
| Nay. I found education, healthcare, and other industries that are
| not tech focused to be much more rewarding. You are the expert in
| those industries and are given a chance to lead.
|
| I build ML for healthcare orgs. Different things. An immunology
| prize needed a model to filter out applicants because they were
| overloaded. A nurse staffing agency wanted to measure burnout in
| nurses using the data they had. A speech therapy provider. A
| school district. And on and on.
|
| I'd rather work for them than bend the knee to Tesla's
| Technoking.
|
| Actually, there's a rumor that if you punch the world's richest
| man in the face, his wealth rubs off on you. You will spend some
| time in jail, but you will be rewarded. Make sure they catch it
| on camera.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2025-07-12 23:01 UTC)