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The Hired Guns Interview Questions

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Suppose there exists a new airline named Jetco that flies domestically across North America. Jetco recently had a study commissioned that tested the boarding time of every airline, and it came out that Jetco had the fastest average boarding times of any airline.

What factors could have biased this result, and what would you look into?

What could potentially bias the average boarding time in favor of an airline that only flies domestically?

What could potentially bias the average boarding time in favor of an airline that only flies domestically?

Boarding Times Bias

A new airline came out as the fastest average boarding times compared to other airlines.  What factors could have biased this result and what would you look into?

You are testing hundreds of hypotheses with many t-tests. What considerations should be made?

What is a key disadvantage of the F-test when compared to multiple t-tests?

What is a key disadvantage of the F-test when compared to multiple t-tests?

Hundreds of Hypotheses

You are testing hundreds of hypotheses with many t-tests. What considerations should be made?

Let’s say we have a table with an <code>id</code> and <code>name</code> fields. The table holds over 100 million rows and we want to sample a random row in the table without throttling the database.

Write a query to randomly sample a row from this table.

Input:

<code>big_table</code> table

<table>
<thead>
<tr>
<th>Columns</th>
<th>Type</th>
</tr>
</thead>

<tbody>
<tr>
<td><code>id</code></td>
<td>INTEGER</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td><code>name</code></td>
<td>VARCHAR</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>

Write a query to randomly sample a row from a big table.

Random SQL Sample

The Hired Guns Salaries by Position

The Hired Guns are seeking a dynamic Product Manager to lead Customer Engagement for a brand-new product team that’s transforming the retail e-commerce experience from the ground up for a giant in both e-commerce and brick-and-mortar retailing.
The Nitty Gritty
The backstory on the organization and why they need to hire you!
As Product Manager of Customer Engagement, you’ll be among the team members who own social shopping, gifts registry, style lists, and much more for an iconic retailer that’s experiencing colossal digital growth. You’ll take a forward-thinking approach to discovering innovative ways of capturing the customer where they are in their buyer’s journey. You will be responsible for surveying and understanding the customer’s needs, while also contributing to new strategies aimed at streamlining the customer’s product experience. Plus, you’ll take the lead in working closely with product reviews and cross-functional teams to build and execute the long-term product roadmap to make customer engagement the best it can possibly be.
Why You?
How you’ll know if you’re a fit…
This is a very specific role that requires you to have deep product management experience (at least 5 to 8 years) with specialization in customer engagement. It goes without saying that you have a customer-first mindset when it comes to all product creation and execution. Perhaps you have previously worked in the fashion, retail, or e-commerce space, and this has given you solid intuition into how to engage and retain customers within the product experience (think social shopping, product reviews, gift registries, fashion and style lists). You flourish in a team environment and enjoy working with cross-functional collaborators as well as outside product and tech vendors.
The Inside Skinny
Why you should quit your job right now and join this organization!
If you’re looking for a super-specific role where you own all customer engagement within the product process at a booming ecommerce site, then this is the role for you. You will have a lot of freedom to ideate and execute best practices, while working alongside an amazingly talented team. If this sounds like your dream job, we want to hear from you today.

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The Hired Guns are seeking Senior Product Managers, Omnichannel for a top-ten e-commerce retailer that’s looking to build out a team focused on omnichannel initiatives. We need seasoned product-management pros who have experience in both strategy and execution for digital products.
The Nitty Gritty
The backstory on the organization and why they need to hire you!
For this retailer to win, they need Senior Product Managers who can conceptualize the ultimate customer shopping experience, organically and without artificial boundaries. It will be your job to break down the kind of silos that keep other brick-and-mortar players from delighting their customers with a truly seamless experience, and to leverage the company’s physical presence to offer distinct advantages over online-only competitors. You will be the champion of the omnichannel product vision and roadmap, evangelizing your ideas to the business’s leadership and working closely with stakeholders to gain the support and resources to execute. You’ll be the chief idea-creator, trend-watcher, and data-gatherer for all things omnichannel.
Why You?
How you’ll know if you’re a fit…
With at least 5 years of experience in customer-focused product management, you’ve worked for a great brand with a stellar digital experience. Or perhaps you’ve been part of a startup that revolutionized retail or omni customer experience. (Or ideally, both!) During that time, you’ve developed a specialty, and a well-defined point of view, in cross-channel commerce and how to improve the holistic customer experience to drive the transaction.
You thrive on complexity and a certain degree of creative chaos. Because omnichannel touches so many functional areas, you’ve become a diplomatic genius in communicating across departments and navigating matrixed organizations. At the same time, there’s no one who sees things quite the way you do, so a tremendous value-add is your enjoyment of getting tactical and hands-on. Despite your creative flair, solid instincts, and problem-solving acumen, you know that the best decisions are driven by hard data, and you know how to get it and use it.
The Inside Skinny
Why you should quit your job right now and join this organization!
Our crystal ball shows us you’re a person who is passionate about seeing the retail experience from the modern customer’s point of view, but who has been frustrated by the brick-and-mortar versus e-commerce empire-building at other big retailers where they’ve worked. Here’s your opportunity to finally do it right!

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This agency, which has of recent been making serious waves in the field of advertising technology and services, is on the lookout for an experienced, high-energy product manager to develop and execute on a strategic vision for its programmatic buying tools. If your own recent history includes some intricate, fast-moving ad-tech projects that showcased your ability to launch, package, market and support new products and features, and if you’re ready for the next big bite of the apple, this is the gig you need to be chasing.
Your focus will be on enhancing the agency’s buying platform in any ways you can think of: product, tech support, certifications, new features, reporting and visualization tools — anything that will improve clients’ ability to purchase ads programmatically. As with just about any project management role, you’ll be doing some serious collaboration, with Product, Engineering, Executive, BzDev, Sales, Marketing, Data Science. You’ll welcome — nay, plead for — input from all quarters in a full-on effort to roll out the very best platform in the industry.
Obviously you’ll be gathering product requirements from a plethora of sources. You’ll create product strategy documents, including success metrics, and create stories for the engineering teams to develop. You’ll have a hand in product development, quality assurance and launch, and once a product goes into field you’ll monitor its performance and gather feedback in order to optimize its function. And finally, you’ll build out the training documents that end-users will rely on, and handle any support issues that arise.
You’ve done more than a couple of years of product management by now, with an Agile/Scrum orientation, some goodly portion of that having taken place in the ad tech field. At this point, you know the ins and outs of how agency programmatic buying works, including the peripherals: reporting, billing, fee structures. You’re completely comfortable with ad serving technology, RTB, DSP and SSP, and familiar with dashboards and digital visualization tools.
You’re becoming an expert on juggling priorities, and you pride yourself on your ability to turn a vision into reality despite the slings and arrows and thousand shocks that flesh is heir to. A key to your success is a deep-in-the-bones commitment to teamwork and collaboration; you consistently and automatically see your colleagues’ input as augmenting, not diminishing, your efforts, and while you’re certainly assertive enough to stand your ground and push things along, you’ve always got your ears open for a fresh approach or incremental improvement on process.
Minimum Requirements Exceptional communication skills are crucial for this role, so be ready both to tell about them and display them.
Experience in product management with an Agile/Scrum orientation.
Experience in the ad tech field.
Knowledge of agency programmatic buying, reporting, billing, and fee structures.
Comfort with ad serving technology, RTB, DSP, and SSP.
Net Net
This is a great opportunity for an up-and-coming product manager to take on a juicy, high-profile role at an agency that’s truly crushing it. Put together your trajectory and that of the company, and you see nothing but deep blue sky.
All qualified applicants will receive consideration without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, creed, age, sexual orientation, veteran status, marital status, disability, or any other status protected by applicable law.

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The Hired Guns are seeking an expert Lead Product Manager, Events Platform to develop and execute a winning product strategy that supports print-on-demand revenue and margin goals for a growing $20-million startup within a billion-dollar global organization. Cha-ching.
Salary range: $165,000 to $200,000 per year
The Nitty Gritty The backstory on the company and why they need to hire you!
This print-on-demand startup is growing at a rate of 400% and sits within a well-funded billion-dollar market leader in the personalized products space. In response to their swift success, they’re looking for a highly savvy Lead Product Manager who has experience executing products from concept to launch.
They want you to help build out a new events platform that can drive new business via events providers and distributors. Your role will be vital in helping to monetize existing customer bases by enabling those users to add customizable print-on-demand products to their carts. There is a tremendous opportunity here!
Why You? How you’ll know if you’re a fit…
The ideal candidate has 5+ years of product management experience in a similar role. You take a proactive approach to product management, and you have the ability to be incredibly adaptable in a fast-paced environment. You easily build strong relationships with internal and external partners, and you’re unafraid to set high standards and goals for your team. You have experience working cross-functionally with existing business partners and can work with third-party vendors to drive technology implementation.
You’re great at monitoring the competitive landscape and identifying opportunities and capability gaps. You’re highly adept at defining use cases, business requirements, and acceptance criteria for engineering. You prioritize development objectives that significantly improve the company’s competitive position. In short, you’re a product rockstar and a humble leader who can inspire a team – and org at large – to new heights.
The Inside Skinny Why you should quit your job right now and join this team!
This is a high-visibility role at a start-up business unit of a multi-billion dollar company. If you do the job right, you’ll have a plethora of growth opportunities at your fingertips. We want to hear from you today.
The Hired Guns does not and will not discriminate in considering and referring candidates for employment, or in its treatment or advancement of its employees, and will not tolerate harassment, on the basis of race, color, religion, gender (including gender identity and expression), sexual orientation, national origin, age, disability, or any other status protected by applicable federal, state or local law.

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The Hired Guns are seeking a Senior Product Manager, Search / SEO to join a brand-new product team that’s rethinking the retail e-commerce experience from the ground up for a giant in both e-commerce and brick-and-mortar retailing. Come to the party packing solid experience optimizing product search at several innovative companies, along with your own creative ideas about how to make search and discovery the backbone of the online shopping experience.
The Nitty Gritty
The backstory on the organization and why they need to hire you!
As Senior Product Manager, Search / SEO, your experience building e-tail products and your keen understanding of the retail e-commerce customer experience will enable you to hit the ground running. You’ll look at the current roadmap and see existing search-related projects through to completion, drawing on your ideas and utilizing data analysis to improve on existing initiatives and set search innovations of your own into motion.
Informed by your keen ability to identify and understand customer problems, you’ll measure and analyze the impact of existing search and browse functionality with an intense focus on the customer journey, then identify opportunities to innovate and improve, providing additional benefits to the customer. By building strong internal relationships with the sales, user experience, technology and central marketing organizations, you’ll drive implementation of successful new merchandising strategies that ensure that customers are served the most relevant results, thereby increasing their likelihood of purchase.
Why You?
How you’ll know if you’re a fit…
You’re the ideal Senior Product Manager, Search / SEO if you’ve got an eclectic track record of developing various types of cool products from start to finish for a variety of companies. “Job hopper” is not a minus for this role: we want someone who isn’t just churning out the same kind of projects over and over, but instead is pushing the envelope of their capabilities and always up for new challenges. You’re an integrated product thinker who knows how to connect the dots to come up with new ideas and expand them based on data and observation.
Nuts and bolts, you’ve got a solid 7 years of product management experience under your belt. You have a strong interest in fashion and an eye for merchandising that informs your approach to product development; ideally you started out in a different realm of the retail business, or maybe you are coming from hospitality or travel. Perhaps you’re a business analyst, vendor manager, or developer (solid technical chops are very valued). DTC, e-tail, it doesn’t really matter which side you’ve been on, as long as you come with insight into the customer journey, especially as it pertains to search and SEO, as well as a disciplined, data-driven approach to product development. Experience with mobile is very desirable.
The Inside Skinny
Why you should quit your job right now and join this organization!
You’re a person who is passionate about users and the retail experience and has lots of original and innovative ideas. You take an integrative and unconventional approach to product that not everyone knows how to appreciate. Well, you’ve found your home: this team will value the explorational career path you’ve traveled thus far and will encourage you to continue expanding your thinking to make unforeseen advances in search and discovery!
The Hired Guns does not and will not discriminate in considering and referring candidates for employment, or in its treatment or advancement of its employees, and will not tolerate harassment, on the basis of race, color, religion, gender (including gender identity and expression), sexual orientation, national origin, age, disability, or any other status protected by applicable federal, state or local law.

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The Hired Guns are seeking a technical and forward-thinking Senior Product Manager focused on Search to transform the retail e-commerce experience from the ground up for a giant in both e-commerce and brick-and-mortar retailing.
The Nitty Gritty A high number of candidates may make applications for this position, so make sure to send your CV and application through as soon as possible.
The backstory on the organization and why they need to hire you!
The Senior Product Manager, Search is a key member of the Search and Algorithmic Discovery product team. You will be responsible for the user-centered ideation, discovery, definition and delivery of all search products. Using machine learning and artificial intelligence, you’ll take on the task of rethinking how to structure the internal product catalog based on previous browsing history. You’ll take a highly sophisticated approach to knowledge architecture to level up product discovery dramatically. You will be responsible for surveying and understanding the current backend systems and information structure and updating them to provide an end user experience that is personalized and delightful. Simultaneously, you’ll be planning the evolution to a new platform with cleaner and better-structured data that will allow easier and more sophisticated manipulation that benefits the customer’s product search experience. Plus, you’ll take the lead in working closely with stakeholders across merchandising, finance, marketing, enterprise technology, and other product teams to build and execute the long-term roadmap that makes the new search and browsing architecture a reality. In short, you’ll create front-end products using back-end algorithmic wizardry.
Why You?
How you’ll know if you’re a fit…
The Inside Skinny
Why you should quit your job right now and join this organization!
If you’re looking for a VERY specific Senior Product Management role where you can own Search for an iconic brand, then this is it. You’ll have a lot of power to ideate and execute cutting-edge tech to create a delightful customer experience. High impact, high visibility. If this sounds like your dream job, we want to hear from you today.
The Hired Guns does not and will not discriminate in considering and referring candidates for employment, or in its treatment or advancement of its employees, and will not tolerate harassment, on the basis of race, color, religion, gender (including gender identity and expression), sexual orientation, national origin, age, disability, or any other status protected by applicable federal, state or local law. #J-18808-Ljbffr

The Hired Guns are seeking a highly-skilled, customer-centric Product Manager, Mobile App to join a rapidly growing app team and help an iconic American retail brand reinvent itself with a digital-first mentality. Imagine yourself building innovations like virtual try-on, contactless checkout, and in-store AR / VR!
The Nitty Gritty
The backstory on the organization and why they need to hire you!
With more than 40 million active customers annually, more than 500 stores, and one of the largest e-commerce platforms in the US, this leading national retailer is uniquely positioned to become a premier destination for fashion brands seeking to reach relevant audiences with personalized content. Their online growth is soaring, but until recently, they put a lot more resource behind their web interface than their app platform. That’s changed now that they’re seeing the traffic and sales coming through the app blowing past their wildest expectations. They realize that they need someone with grit and hustle to join their hyper-collaborative app team as Product Manager, Mobile App to guide the creation of customer-centric in-store-app solutions.
Note: this role starts out remote, but beginning in 2022 it will move to hybrid (in-office one to three days per week). Goodbye Zoom fatigue … hello on-site perks!
Why You?
How you’ll know if you’re a fit…
You have a customer-centric, collaborative spirit, and you’re experienced at working in a highly matrixed organization. You have the analytical ability and technical depth needed to fully realize innovative mobile products. You proactively seek out and suggest solutions that will move the ball forward. You’re comfortable questioning the status quo, and you always advocate for the customer. You thrive most in an environment where not everything is cut-and-dried and set in stone; instead, you love to build teams and map out processes, as well as create products. And when it comes to those products, you have the exceptional knack of thinking strategically while at the same time focusing on building, delivering, and shipping.
The Inside Skinny
Why you should quit your job right now and join this organization!
This is a rare opportunity to help reinvent an iconic American brand. You will work alongside a super-collaborative, digital-first team, supported by a whole digital pyramid that’s committed to building for the future and advocating for its customers. Need we say more? If this sounds like the right fit for you, we want to hear from you today!
The Hired Guns does not and will not discriminate in considering and referring candidates for employment, or in its treatment or advancement of its employees, and will not tolerate harassment, on the basis of race, color, religion, gender (including gender identity and expression), sexual orientation, national origin, age, disability, or any other status protected by applicable federal, state or local law.

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The Hired Guns are seeking an experienced Senior Product Manager focused on Monetization to join a rapidly scaling startup-style retail media network making news headlines due to its innovative digital-first mindset and colossal success.
The Nitty Gritty
The backstory on the company and why they need to hire you!
Are you ready for a Senior Product Manager role where you’ll have a high degree of visibility and the opportunity to contribute to a high-growth business alongside some of the best-in-class Product talent out there? Are you customer-obsessed and data-driven? Are you looking to work at a startup-style e-commerce media network within a storied retail institution? Look no further!
As Senior Product Manager of Monetization, you will be joining a highly talented Product team working on new ad inventory and formatting as well as general optimization. A big initiative in your first year will be making on-site inventory available for programmatic buying. You’ll be responsible for doing a ton of customer research to develop empathy and identify critical problems to solve through product. You will help create a strategic near-term and long-term vision that will drive iterative value. Storytelling and socialization of product with business and technology stakeholders will be key. Use cases, journey mapping, hypothesis development and identification of KPIs, engagement and operational metrics will all be a part of your job.
If you want to level up your Product Management career within a well-funded, highly profitable startup-style business where the C-Suite really cares about your work, then this is the gig for you!
Why You?
How you’ll know if you’re a fit…
First of all, you’re 100% customer-centric. You’re capable of taking on product autonomously, and you have terrific stakeholder management skills. Ideally, you have 7+ years of experience in Product Management, preferably in a B2B2C marketplace with a focus on Monetization. It’s great if you are creating user journeys for advertisers and have deep knowledge of programmatic workings. Perhaps you come from a programmatic shop, publishing platform, entertainment, or fintech company – all of these backgrounds are welcome. If you’ve worked in a marketplace and had to balance buyer and seller demands, this could be the gig for you. Oh, and you must be great at using research to drive all your product discoveries and strategies. Leadership experience is certainly a plus here, as the Director for this role is always thinking about succession planning … Level up!
The Inside Skinny
Why you should quit your job right now and join this organization!
This is a unique opportunity to join an established company that is investing in development and growing digital business at scale. Take on this role, and you’ll gain first-hand experience defining the future of online commerce. With a constant influx of exciting and challenging problems to solve, you’ll never have a boring day at the office, and there will always be ample room for upward mobility and growth. Need we say more?
The Hired Guns does not and will not discriminate in considering and referring candidates for employment, or in its treatment or advancement of its employees, and will not tolerate harassment, on the basis of race, color, religion, gender (including gender identity and expression), sexual orientation, national origin, age, disability, or any other status protected by applicable federal, state or local law.

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The Hired Guns are seeking a Senior Product Manager for SEO to strategize, define, and improve SEO performance for the digital platforms of a top name in online and brick-and-mortar retail.
The Nitty Gritty
The backstory on the organization and why they need to hire you!
An extremely well-known brand in the retail space is creating the future of retail through a new customer-centric digital shopping experience, and they need a strategic Senior Product Manager to lead SEO. This position will strategize, define, and drive the roadmap to improve the SEO performance of two major retail sites while working closely with engineers, product managers, and data analysts to drive organic growth and revenue. In this role, which sits at the intersection of content, commerce, and technology, you will be tasked with helping loyal and new customers of this big-name e-commerce retailer find and buy the products they love.
Why You?
How you’ll know if you’re a fit…
You’re an experienced search engine optimization expert with measurable success in using SEO to increase on-site traffic and conversion. In your next role, you’re looking to dedicate the majority of your efforts towards improving site rankings and organic traffic and demonstrating your ability to directly impact revenue.
You have a passion for building products and achieving outcomes, a thirst for learning, and a desire for more autonomy over your domain. Your tenacity to get stuff done, empathy for the customer, and superb communication skills mean you’ve built a legacy of creating impact for brands.
You’re adept at leading cross-functional collaboration with engineering and data folks while also maintaining and optimizing the product function. You are expert-level when it comes to implementation, metadata, product pages, and search, and you’re ready for a leadership role where you can own SEO within a large and innovative organization.
The Inside Skinny
Why you should quit your job right now and join this organization!
This is a rare opportunity to enter into a senior product role at an iconic brand where problem-solving, freedom to build, and career growth are the pillars of their ethos. Plus, you’ll get the chance to collaborate with smart, talented colleagues in a fun, positive work environment.
The Hired Guns does not and will not discriminate in considering and referring candidates for employment, or in its treatment or advancement of its employees, and will not tolerate harassment, on the basis of race, color, religion, gender (including gender identity and expression), sexual orientation, national origin, age, disability, or any other status protected by applicable federal, state or local law.

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