Pocket Gems Product Manager Interview Questions
& Process
Real candidates share what happened, how many rounds they had,
and how the experience turned out.
Based on 36 interview experiences · FREE TO READ
Candidate interview experiences
First-hand accounts from people who interviewed at Pocket Gems.
Pocket Gems
Associate Product Manager
Entry Difficult Negative experience No offer 1 round
Interview process
Recruiter call Technical screen Onsite
Interview formats
Technical Behavioral
I had a really bad interview experience with a hiring manager, who is a product manager and used to be a software engineer. The other recruiters were nice, but this manager was judgmental and rude. When I started the zoom interview with my camera on and a smile, he told me to turn it off. He answered my questions curtly and with meanness. The interview felt more like for a software engineer than a product manager, asking only engineering and math questions irrelevant to the role. I felt uncomfortable, unwelcome, and discriminated against. I want to warn others about this specific interviewer at Pocket Gems.
Confirmed questions2 questions
- Tell me about your experience with complex engineering questions.
- Can you solve these mathematical questions for me?
Pocket Gems
Associate Product Manager
Entry Difficult Positive experience Accept offer 4 rounds
Interview process
Recruiter call Take home Phone screen Onsite
Interview formats
Behavioral Technical Coding Case Presentation Group
My interview experience with Pocket Gems was tough but good. The recruiter I spoke with was super helpful and really cared about me as a person, explaining everything clearly. It kicked off with a recruiter chat, then I got a take-home assignment where I had to pick and analyze my favorite games, and also do a data analysis part that could use basic Excel/R skills. After sending in my homework, I got invited to phone interviews. These were standard PM interviews, focusing on metrics and hypothetical product questions, with a bit more math and a couple of brain teasers thrown in. Then came the final round, which was virtual because of COVID. I met six people from different departments, discussing game design, metrics, production, storytelling, and UI. The chats were challenging and fun. Oh, and Pocket Gems has two product paths: core gaming, which is heavier on math and game design, and casual gaming, which is more about standard app management, focusing on metrics and user behavior.
Confirmed questions3 questions
- What actions would you take if player engagement dropped last quarter?
- Can you design a new unit for StarCraft II?
- Here's a brain teaser about probability, can you solve it?
Pocket Gems
Product Manager
Mid Difficult Negative experience No offer 2 rounds
Interview process
Recruiter call Take home
Interview formats
Behavioral Technical System Design Case Presentation
So I first talked to the recruiter, and then she sent me this homework assignment. It had like 5 sections: Game Design, UX Design, System Design, Analytics, and Project Management. The recruiter also mentioned that PocketGems pays below market for PMs which was kinda weird, but I went ahead anyway. I thought it was a bit much that they gave me the homework before I even talked to anyone in product management, like, I know homework is a thing now, but it should come later, and I should at least get to present my work and answer questions instead of just getting an email rejection. For the analytics part, they just gave us a bunch of data and wanted insights, no specific problem to solve. They rejected me after I spent my own time on a presentation. The project management part was about shipping a magazine, which felt totally unrelated to product management and not a real-world scenario for a PM, plus I had to do extra research. I didn't get to present so I couldn't clarify anything. And then they didn't even give any useful feedback when they rejected me, just something curt and vague. Total waste of my time, I didn't learn anything from it.
Confirmed questions8 questions
- Can you list 20 of your favorite games, describing briefly why you think each is well-designed (one sentence or keywords is fine). Make sure to include core, casual, and mobile games.
- Pick a game from your list and explain what makes it great and how it stands out in its genre.
- Select a game from your list and identify the components that contribute to polished second-to-second interactions, providing examples and explaining how they make actions feel satisfying.
Pocket Gems Product Manager Interview Questions
Quoted word for word from Pocket Gems interview reports.
“What number should a student guess to maximize their chances of winning, given that an instructor gives each student a number between 0 and 100 and the winner is closest to 2/3rds of the mean?”
Read reports →“Imagine you need to buy a car: gas, hybrid, or electric. Here's the info: Gas: $20k upfront, $4/gallon. Hybrid: $23k upfront. EV: $30k upfront, $0.20/kWh for electricity. What else do you need to know to decide?”
Read reports →“When considering saving money, would you choose a diesel car or a hybrid vehicle?”
Read reports →“How do you get out of a square maze of unknown size most efficiently, starting at the bottom left and exiting at the top right? What if the size is known?”
Read reports →“Can you compare the cost of an electric car versus a gas car using a logic puzzle?”
Read report →“If you had $100 to start, and each slot machine spin costs $1, what's your strategy to win a slot machine competition?”
Read report →“What's your strategy for increasing your odds of hitting the jackpot on a slot machine?”
Read report →“How would you rank iPhone/iPad/IPod Touch in terms of how well I expect a particular game to do on those platforms?”
Read report →“Could you design a dice game with two players and three 6-sided dice? Player A picks a die first. How can Player B choose from the remaining dice to have more than a 50% chance of rolling higher than Player A?”
Read report →Formats, difficulty and experience
Across all 36 Pocket Gems interview reports.