my friend just finished his interview at OpenAI today

@productplaybook

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Why it worked

The video taps into a common point of curiosity and debate within the tech industry: the relative difficulty of different roles and interview processes. By framing it as a comparison between two highly sought-after roles at a prestigious company, it creates immediate engagement and invites audience participation.

Summary

The creator discusses the perceived difficulty difference between senior software engineering and product manager interviews at companies like OpenAI. She highlights that software engineering interviews often rely on well-documented LeetCode problems, while product manager interviews, especially for senior roles, require more specific domain expertise and company-tailored preparation.

Structure

1Introduction of friend's OpenAI interview
2Question about interview difficulty comparison
3Software engineering interviews: LeetCode focus, pros and cons
4Product manager interviews: domain expertise, less structured prep
5Difficulty of pivoting into specialized PM roles
6Conclusion on PM interview preparation challenges

Product placement

OpenAI: it is the company where the friend had an interview. Removing it would not change what happens in the video. It merely appears.

On-screen text

my friend just finished his interview at OpenAI today which is harder? senior+ software engineering interviews senior+ product manager interviews

Original caption

in 2026, which is harder to get: senior+ software engineering jobs or senior+ product manager jobs? jobs in AI, tech job market, leetcode, software engineering job interview, product management job interview, openAI job interview, working in AI

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Transcript

my friend just finished his interview at OpenAI today and I asked him how did it compare to the questions that you prepared for. He said, I feel so bad for product managers because your interviews are way harder than our software engineering interviews. And I'm like, what? You just finished one of the hardest interviews, I'm assuming, and he mentioned there were two differences. And so I want to get y'all's take on it. First is that software engineering interviews are mostly leetcode, which are case questions. And it's a double edged sword because they're pretty different from what you do in your day-to-day job as a software engineer. But what's nice is that leetcode questions are pretty well documented. And no matter what your background is, you can study for these and get better at them. Versus product manager interviews, the fewer case questions you get, the more senior you go, which is actually a bad thing. It's much more actual domain expertise. So if you haven't worked in a specific domain before, there's no amount of studying that you can really do to make up for it. For example, if I'm applying for research product manager roles, which means I work with research scientists to develop AI models, this isn't something you can just casually pivot into if I've never done this before. There's just no amount of studying that I can do even prepare for these roles. Another difference is that PM interviews, there's a lot more company specific prep that you have to do. If you get rejected and start interviewing for other companies, it really feels like