Babel Street is dedicated to enhancing safety and productivity through advanced AI-powered products. Their mission-critical applications convert vast volumes of multilingual data into actionable insights, supporting industries like financial services, healthcare, legal, law enforcement, and the global public sector.

As a Product Manager at Babel Street, you’ll collaborate closely with business, sales, and technology teams to define and execute the corporate product vision. Your role demands passion and drive, requiring deep industry knowledge and a keen understanding of client needs. By shaping detailed requirements and leading cross-functional teams, you’ll play a pivotal role in Babel Street’s future. For those passionate about making a difference, this opportunity provides a unique chance to significantly impact the company's trajectory and safeguard critical assets worldwide.

Use Interview Query to prepare for your interview and get a head start on joining this innovative company.

Submitting Your Application

The first step is to submit a compelling application that reflects your technical skills and interest in joining Babel Street as a Product Manager. Carefully review the job description and tailor your CV according to the prerequisites.

Tailoring your CV may include identifying specific keywords that the hiring manager might use to filter resumes and crafting a targeted cover letter. Furthermore, don’t forget to highlight relevant skills and mention your work experiences.

Recruiter/Hiring Manager Call Screening

If your CV happens to be among the shortlisted few, a recruiter from the Babel Street Talent Acquisition Team will make contact and verify key details like your experiences and skill level. Behavioral questions may also be a part of the screening process.

In some cases, the Babel Street Product Management hiring manager stays present during the screening round to answer your queries about the role and the company itself. They may also indulge in surface-level technical and behavioral discussions.

The whole recruiter call should take about 30 minutes.

Technical Virtual Interview

Successfully navigating the recruiter round will present you with an invitation for the technical screening round. Technical screening for the Babel Street Product Manager role usually is conducted through virtual means, including video conference and screen sharing. Questions in this 1-hour long interview stage may revolve around Babel Street’s product development methodologies, Agile/SCRUM practices, and requirements gathering techniques.

In some cases, take-home assignments related to product strategy, market research, and competitive analysis may be incorporated. Your ability to translate user needs into actionable product requirements, and your analytical skills, will be assessed during this round.

Onsite Interview Rounds

Followed by a second recruiter call outlining the next stage, you’ll be invited to attend the onsite interview loop. Multiple interview rounds, varying with the role, will be conducted during your day at the Babel Street office. Your product management skills, including roadmap prioritization and stakeholder management, will be evaluated against the finalized candidates throughout these interviews.

If you were assigned take-home exercises, a presentation round may also await you during the onsite interview for the Product Manager role at Babel Street.

Quick Tips For Babel Street Product Manager Interviews

• Understand Babel Street’s Mission: Babel Street focuses on transforming data into actionable insights across high-stakes industries. Familiarize yourself with their products and how they apply AI-driven analytics in these sectors.
• Highlight Agile Experience: Babel Street values the Agile and SCRUM methodologies in product development. Be ready to discuss your past experiences with Agile frameworks and how you've implemented them successfully.
• Be Analytical and Detail-Oriented: The role requires strong analytical capabilities to translate user needs into detailed requirements. Practice showcasing your ability to prioritize tasks and manage product decisions with data-backed insights.

Typically, interviews at Babel Street vary by role and team, but commonly Product Manager interviews follow a fairly standardized process across these question topics.

• Write a SQL query to select the 2nd highest salary in the engineering department. Write a SQL query to select the 2nd highest salary in the engineering department. If more than one person shares the highest salary, the query should select the next highest salary.

• Write a function to merge two sorted lists into one sorted list. Given two sorted lists, write a function to merge them into one sorted list. Bonus: What's the time complexity?

• Create a function missing_number to find the missing number in an array. You have an array of integers, nums of length n spanning 0 to n with one missing. Write a function missing_number that returns the missing number in the array. Complexity of (O(n)) required.

• Develop a function precision_recall to calculate precision and recall metrics from a 2-D matrix. Given a 2-D matrix P of predicted values and actual values, write a function precision_recall to calculate precision and recall metrics. Return the ordered pair (precision, recall).

• Write a function to search for a target value in a rotated sorted array. Suppose an array sorted in ascending order is rotated at some pivot unknown to you beforehand. You are given a target value to search. If the value is in the array, then return its index; otherwise, return -1. Bonus: Your algorithm's runtime complexity should be in the order of (O(\log n)).

• Would you think there was anything fishy about the results of an A/B test with 20 variants? Your manager ran an A/B test with 20 different variants and found one significant result. Would you suspect any issues with the results?

• How would you set up an A/B test to optimize button color and position for higher click-through rates? A team wants to A/B test changes in a sign-up funnel, such as changing a button from red to blue and/or moving it from the top to the bottom of the page. How would you design this test?

• What would you do if friend requests on Facebook are down 10%? A product manager at Facebook reports a 10% decrease in friend requests. What steps would you take to address this issue?

• Why would the number of job applicants decrease while job postings remain the same? You observe that the number of job postings per day has remained constant, but the number of applicants has been decreasing. What could be the reasons for this trend?

• What are the drawbacks of the given student test score datasets, and how would you reformat them for better analysis? You have data on student test scores in two different layouts. What are the drawbacks of these formats, and what changes would you make to improve their usability for analysis? Additionally, describe common issues in "messy" datasets.

• Is this a fair coin? You flip a coin 10 times, and it comes up tails 8 times and heads twice. Determine if the coin is fair based on this outcome.

• How do you write a function to calculate sample variance? Write a function that outputs the sample variance given a list of integers. Round the result to 2 decimal places. Example input: test_list = [6, 7, 3, 9, 10, 15]. Example output: get_variance(test_list) -> 13.89.

• Is there anything suspicious about the A/B test results? Your manager ran an A/B test with 20 different variants and found one significant result. Evaluate if there is anything suspicious about these results.

• How do you find the median in (O(1)) time and space? Given a list of sorted integers where more than 50% of the list is the same repeating integer, write a function to return the median value in (O(1)) computational time and space. Example input: li = [1,2,2]. Example output: median(li) -> 2.

• What are the drawbacks and common problems in messy datasets? You have data on student test scores in two different layouts. Identify the drawbacks of these layouts, suggest formatting changes for better analysis, and describe common problems seen in messy datasets. Example datasets are provided in the image link.

• How would you evaluate whether using a decision tree algorithm is the correct model for predicting loan repayment? You are tasked with building a decision tree model to predict if a borrower will pay back a personal loan. How would you evaluate if a decision tree is the right choice, and how would you assess its performance before and after deployment?

• How does random forest generate the forest and why use it over logistic regression? Explain the process by which a random forest generates its ensemble of trees. Additionally, discuss the advantages of using random forest over logistic regression.

• When would you use a bagging algorithm versus a boosting algorithm? Compare two machine learning algorithms. Describe scenarios where you would prefer a bagging algorithm over a boosting algorithm, and discuss the tradeoffs between the two.

• How would you justify using a neural network for a business problem and explain its predictions to non-technical stakeholders? Your manager asks you to build a neural network model to solve a business problem. How would you justify the complexity of this model and explain its predictions to non-technical stakeholders?

• What metrics would you use to track the accuracy and validity of a spam classifier? You are tasked with building a spam classifier for emails and have completed a V1 of the model. What metrics would you use to evaluate its accuracy and validity?

What is the average salary for a Product Manager at Babel Street?

Q: What is the primary role of a Product Manager at Babel Street? A: The Product Manager at Babel Street supports the EVP, Product Management in defining and executing the corporate product vision. They collaborate with various teams to transform the product vision into reality, ensuring it aligns with customer needs and industry trends.

Q: What skills are required for the Product Manager position at Babel Street? A: Essential skills include experience with Agile and SCRUM, detailed user requirement development, strong verbal, written, and presentation skills, effective prioritization, and experience with JIRA or similar tools. Knowledge of Microsoft Applications and occasional travel availability are also required.

Q: What are some key responsibilities of this role? A: Key responsibilities include interacting with customers to identify problems, conducting market research, collaborating with development teams, supporting quality assurance testing, and conducting competitive analysis to support product roadmap development.

Q: What are the benefits of working at Babel Street? A: Babel Street offers comprehensive health benefits, competitive retirement plans, unlimited flexible leave, 12 paid federal holidays, and tuition reimbursement for continuing education.

Q: How can I prepare for an interview at Babel Street? A: To prepare, research the company and its products, understand the industries it serves, and practice common product management interview questions. Use Interview Query to enhance your preparation with tailored questions and insights.

If you want more insights about the company, check out our main Babel Street Interview Guide, where we have covered many interview questions that could be asked. We’ve also created interview guides for other roles, such as software engineer and data analyst, where you can learn more about Babel Street’s interview process for different positions.

At Interview Query, we empower you to unlock your interview prowess with a comprehensive toolkit, equipping you with the knowledge, confidence, and strategic guidance to conquer every Babel Street product manager interview question and challenge.

You can check out all our company interview guides for better preparation, and if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to reach out to us.

Good luck with your interview!