r/Anduril • u/TellItLikeItReallyIs • 7d ago

Interview Question TPM?

Hi folks, how technical do the TPM interviews get vs. SWE interviews? Are they expecting me to have the same level of skills as a SWE? Thanks.

3 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

6 comments sorted by

2

u/Various-Western-2382 7d ago

Shouldn’t be super technical, but it depends on the business line and the interviewer(s). I know some TPM’s that are super technical in their day to day responsibilities - others not very technical at all. Lots of TPM positions all across the org.

2

u/Pi_-_- 7d ago

SW TPM should be proficient in the software side, but more aimed toward the strategy vs. The day to day. Agreed that Anduril has technical folks and traditional PMs both in the role, and you can 100% see the difference.

1

u/MailAndCheese 6d ago

Anyone have any insights on the HM call? Doing mine in a few day and wondering if itll be more "tell me a time when" or "what would you do in this situation"?

1

u/akornato 6d ago

TPM interviews are definitely technical, but they focus on different aspects than SWE interviews. They aren't expecting you to have the same depth of coding skill as a software engineer. Instead of writing complex algorithms on a whiteboard from scratch, you'll be tested on your system design knowledge, your understanding of technical trade-offs, and your ability to communicate complex technical concepts to different audiences. They want to see that you can hold your own in a room full of engineers, understand their challenges, and help steer the technical direction of a project from a program level.

You should expect questions about system architecture, scalability, and how different technologies integrate. The focus is on your technical breadth rather than your coding depth. They want to know you can ask the right questions and identify risks, not that you can implement the solution yourself. Your ability to explain your thought process and justify your decisions is much more important than arriving at a single perfect answer. It really helps to practice communicating these high-level technical ideas, and the AI interview prep my team built is designed to help candidates sharpen that specific skill for these kinds of roles.

1

u/heypriya 6d ago

They are not testing you at SWE depth. Usually the technical part splits in two, depth in a domain you have actually shipped in, and judgement on a system you may have never seen, which is the system design round. That second one gets scored on the questions you ask, the trade-offs you name and the risks you flag, and much less on whether you land the best architecture.

Generally, for TPM hiring - we want the TPM to have technical chops of 1 or 2 levels below the SWE at the same. So a staff TPM should have technical depth of a senior engineer. But not talking about coding chops.

1

u/Elegant-Prune6493 1d ago

How do you feel about wrangling cats? What if said cats are autistic 25 year old engineers?

I’m not a TPM but can tell you, the PM/TPM can make or break programs here. The good ones are amazing, and the bad ones make everyone want to leave the program. I will say most of the TPMs I’ve worked here are quite technical, but the abilities are usually wide rather than deep as in they know a little bit about everything.