Went through IBM's PM interview loop for an IBM Cloud position, senior PM level. Sharing what actually came up because the IBM PM interview is its own beast compared to FAANG PM rounds.
Short context: IBM has multiple PM tracks. There's 'offering management' which is their term for product management in the enterprise software sense, and there's more traditional PM work in some of the newer product lines (watsonx AI, IBM Security). The questions below were for the Cloud / Hybrid track, which is the most traditional enterprise PM experience.
Round 1: Product sense 'How would you improve IBM's hybrid cloud migration tooling for enterprise customers who are mid-migration and stalled?' That's not a casual consumer product question. They want you to understand that the customer is a CTO or an architect, not an end user. Define the problem, segment the stalled customers by why they're stalled, propose solutions, prioritize.
Round 2: Metrics and execution 'You've launched a new dashboard feature in IBM Cloud. Six weeks in, adoption is 12% of target. What do you do?' Funnel question. Where is drop-off. What would you look at first. They wanted to see structured thinking more than the specific answer.
Round 3: Behavioral Heavy STAR. Questions I got: 'Tell me about a time you owned a product that had to be sunset. How did you handle customers and internal teams?' and 'Describe a time you had to make a build vs. partner vs. buy decision.'
That last one is very IBM. They do a lot of acquisition and partnership. Having a real story here matters.
What they don't do (unlike FAANG PM loops): Estimation questions in the traditional 'how many gas stations' sense. It felt more like a B2B product interview at a large consultancy than a consumer tech PM interview. Adjust your prep accordingly.