I applied through an employee referral. The process took 2 months. I interviewed at Lyft (San Francisco, CA) in Sept 2015
Interview
Incredibly slow and frustrating process. I had three different phone screens that each would ask one question, then would require a week or two wait between the next steps. First two were simple, generic PM questions of the "walk me through how you'd design..." style. Third interview was supposed to be the technical screen, where I was asked a question that I thought was a. well outside the scope of this position, and b. unnecessarily technical. I replied that I didn't think this was the PM's role, to give specific technical guidance to an engineering team (and that in my experience, doing so compromises the trust between a technical lead and the PM) but he pushed that he'd want to know how I would structure the endpoint. Went ahead and answered as best I could, was told that my final solution is how he too would solve it, then was sent an email the following day telling me that I'd been passed over.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
If you were building a link-shortening tool where one link could send a user to one of multiple different destinations. How would you structure the data so that on the server-side of things, the API response was incredibly fast. Speed is king.
the interview process was multiple steps: recruiter screen, hiring manager, round 1 product sense / execution, then round 2 leadership. there are a lot of prep materials provided which made the process much better and smoother
Recruiter screen, then 45 min product sense, 45 min execution - repeat these rounds 2 times, then hiring manager screen, then offer. All remote interviews. Recruiter stays in touch throughout. Overall smooth process.
I applied through a recruiter. The process took 3 weeks. I interviewed at Lyft (Montreal, QC) in Sept 2025
Interview
Rounds: 1) Recruiter 2) Hiring manager 3) Product Sense 4) Product execution 5) Cross-functional partnership 6) Leadership
Recruiter was extremely personable and was good at marketing the company and its values. Same with the hiring manager. For the PMs or TPMs interviewing you, it's a bit of a gamble as to whether they'll be there to scrutinize you or to have a back-and-forth. They do read off a script to ensure they cover their bases, but some interviewers will facilitate and have better conversations while others are really examining you and not helping you. It's a bit unfortunate as we'd expect PMs to challenge each other and confirm/deny assumptions.
The process took 3 weeks. The recruiter provides documentation on how the interviews are conducted, with tips and documentation. They request the behavioural and technical interviews to be ideally condensed within a single meeting of 3 hours, which is exhausting. Intense process resembling FAANG's process considering the size of the company.
Interview questions [4]
Question 1
During execution interview: Design a metrics dashboard for Spotify
During product sense interview: You're a PM for bikesharing. The company owns dockless bikes. We notice a high number of improperly parked bikes. Resolve the challenge.
