Project manager interviews focus on estimation, risk, and the uncomfortable conversations — with the team and with the client. Below are the most common questions with model answers. Senior: architecture, trade-offs, mentoring, and decision-making.
Whether the outcome is still achievable, what changed since last time, and what decision you need from them. Not a task list. The failure is a green status that goes red without warning — a report that only ever says fine is a report nobody can act on, and the credibility is spent when it finally turns.
Make the decisions repeatable: written criteria for priority, an escalation path with names, and a definition of done nobody has to ask about. If every unblock needs you, the project has one point of failure and it takes holidays. The test is whether the team makes the same call you would when you are unavailable.
By establishing early that only one can truly be fixed, and getting the trade agreed in writing before the pressure arrives. If both genuinely are, the flexible variable is quality or cost, and someone must own that choice explicitly. Accepting all three constraints without naming the fourth is how projects end in a bad delivery nobody chose.
Find out which kind of miss it is first: unplanned work arriving mid-sprint, estimates given under pressure, or unclear requirements. Each has a different fix and none of them is asking for better estimates. If the requirement is not clear at planning, the estimate was a guess with a number attached.
Get both leads in the same conversation with the dependency written down and a date agreed, rather than relaying messages between them. Sequence the work so one can proceed with a stub or a contract while the other builds. If it recurs, the boundary between the teams is drawn in the wrong place and that is the real problem.
In a real interview you speak under pressure. Cam asks these same questions, scores every answer, and shows exactly what to fix.
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