GitHub’s TPM interview loop evaluates technical curiosity, systems thinking, cross functional leadership, and written communication. Staff level candidates are expected to think at an org wide level rather than only at a team level. 1. Talent Advisor Phone Screen. This is the first call with a recruiter. They check GitHub product awareness, comfort with remote and async work, understanding of APIs and software components, and familiarity with common tools. Expect questions about when you last used GitHub, how you define an API, why remote work suits you, how you give and receive feedback, and which tools you know. Curiosity and baseline technical understanding are required to pass. 2. Technical Acumen Interview. Duration is 45 minutes. Tools are Codility and a Miro style whiteboard. Interviewers are engineering leaders. This interview tests how you think about distributed systems, collaborate with engineers, and communicate under time pressure. Structure includes introductions, a collaborative system design exercise focused on GitHub notifications, an async communication exercise, and your questions. They look for technical depth, problem solving, collaboration, clarifying questions, honest admission of gaps, understanding of queues, events, storage, APIs, clear writing, and systems thinking. Strong candidates navigate ambiguity, ask the right questions, reason clearly about triggers, delivery guarantees, rate limits, and data stores, identify trade offs, communicate decisions, and build trust. You should have a strong Software Engineering Background regardless of what the job description says, that’s what they truly are looking for above all else. 3. Hiring Manager Interview. Duration is 45 minutes. This focuses on leadership, curiosity, and empathy. It includes questions about your role goals, how you support people, how you think about systemic problems, how you handle over commitment, how you identify unintended consequences, and what you want to know about the team. This is where they assess alignment, depth of leadership practice, and communication style. 4. Program Management Experience Interview. Duration is 45 minutes. Interviewer is a Staff TPM or Senior TPM. This is a simulation of a high priority program that is already behind schedule. Structure includes intro, scenario setup, five structured questions, and your questions. Core questions cover approaching a program that is 60 days behind, resolving conflict between Product and Engineering leads, addressing unresolved privacy issues that block launch, briefing the CEO with clear status and next steps, and any program level questions you want to ask. Staff TPMs must demonstrate strong command of scope, cost, and time trade offs, comfort managing executives, cross org influence, repeated examples of solving systemic problems, and full program orchestration rather than task management.