Interview Questions

BriskD - "I watched a couple of videos like this, one of them by Exponent staff (I think). It was disappointing that the architecture diagram and the walkthrough was a general layered architecture that you can apply to any backend system. I was wondering if there are videos that can be considered a reference material to watch, learn and improve on the tech (sys design) skills, and not so much about the soft skills."See full answer

Steve Y. - "Define: How is daily post view calculated Isolate Issues: Data issue Time period Geo IOS vs Android vs Web Correlated Metrics in the funnel DAU Time spent/ scrolls Engagement - likes, comments External factors Competitor actions Big events Internal factors Product launch Feature change"See full answer

Sam - "Disagreement --> persistent ---> more data insights ---> positive relationship ---> mentor/trust"See full answer

Karthik M. - "1. Step 1: clarify Let's establish the mission of Google and Youtube. Google's is to provide and make information more accessible. Youtube's might be to help people get their content, their word and themselves out into the world. I mean so many of Youtube's ads have been about how the diversity of individuals and their content, so that makes sense. Let's establish what is Youtube. Youtube has 3 primary stakeholders - creators, viewers and brands/corporations and within them"See full answer

Vikas T. - "This is coming from an Amazon manager who are taught to PIP people out. The first part he said is completely opposite with Amazon. They just pull people randomly into the room and put them either on dev list or PIP. This is unfortunately true for all of Amazon."See full answer

Danny - "There are way more learning opportunities for us here if we acknowledge that this was not a good example and provide tips on how to improve the answer. All the answers here are superficial and it is clear that the interviewee was unprepared. . The mention of quote "a wise man told me..." (instead of getting to his own personal points) and some lack of confidence with the metrics portion are red flags. . For more concrete example, it is hard to believe that no one wants to fix the slow build proc"See full answer

Ankita K. - "Clarifying questions: What is user frustration/ Define user frustration? Was this qualitative feedback, or some reviews on playstore or support that we saw recently or some drop in metrics or increase in churn, or overall churn that we are addressing? Let's assume frustration leads to users quitting the app and hence an increase in churn. This churn also indicates that users leaving the app after trying out a particular feature and not doing the core action of seeing the route from point A to p"See full answer

Kell K. - "This by far has been the best interview I've seen so far, granted I've watched 15 mock interviews. Great Job!"See full answer

anush - "@Jacob, your videos are really good and helpful. I want to know about the tool, you use for explaining the design in the videos."See full answer

A B. - "Great explanation on each of the components and their use. During the interview would a PM candidate be expected to go in-depth for capacity estimation (e.g. storage estimation, bandwidth estimation etc.?)"See full answer

Balaji G. - "This is the answer I have prepared. Please let me know your comments and how I can improve the answer. I have worked on many process improvement initiatives and projects. I want to share an initiative that I led and delivered while at my previous employer. It had a great impact on over 60 programs and projects across teams in six different countries. Analysts and program managers used to generate a monthly program performance report that deals with all aspects, including schedule, risks, costs"See full answer

Urvashi G. - "YT threats →. Let's define threat - activities that reduce actual or growth rate for user base / watch time / $ User - what impacts user base, users’ watch time (why would users not use YT anymore?) Competition - all apps that compete for users' time spent on digital entertainment (VOD, social media apps like tiktok, vMVPDs) Safety, trust, privacy, digital well being No relevant content Distribution - platform bans, distribution deals falling through (eg smart TVs)"See full answer

Anjali V. - "I feel this is more about "Describe a time when I failed or struggled" rather than "Project Failure"."See full answer

Gokul S. - "A gas station is a place to refuel our cars to a set amount, pay for it, and get out. What do we mean by great - do we want to revamp the experience of a gas station? Yes. Who are we? Let's say we are one of the big oil dealerships in the US. OK, so we are looking at building this in the US? Yes. Is this for a specific type of gas station - for trucks, normal cars, or other special vehicles? Assume it's for normal cars. We are a big oil dealership and we want to revamp our gas stations."See full answer

Ankit kumar S. - "A 25% drop-off rate at sign-up for a new app, especially one from Meta, indicates a significant challenge in onboarding and user retention. To analyze this, consider external, internal, and product-specific factors. Identify Potential Causes: External Factors:Competition: Are other platforms offering a more attractive or simpler signup process? Timing: Is there a recent major event or trend that might be influencing user behavior? User Experience: Is the signup process clunk"See full answer

P K. - "Assuming this product is independent of FB product family and we are thinking of building an independent product. Goal: Make it easy for users to simplify the appointment process with the doctor. Success: Number of appointments made, repeat appointments made. Lets understand who are the key personas involved here: Doctors/Clinics (Excluding dentists) Patients/Users For this problem, I want to focus on the patient persona and go deeper into their problems. The various user segments ar"See full answer

P K. - "Clarification questions: What does an increase in usage mean? Microsoft wants to grow its market share in the browser segment Why do you want to increase the usage? Increase in IE usage would increase Bing advertising revenue Are you targeting any specific platforms to increase usage in? You tell me Are there any geo's of specific interest? worldwide Would it be fair to assume that the increase in usage is represented with an increase in the metrics - "Increase in no. of requ"See full answer

Anonymous Raven - "How often do we get 15 min to answer a question? Wondering isn't the expectation to answer this in 3-5 min?"See full answer

dreamingincode - "In the API design, the interviewer is switching between RPC style (operation based endpoints) and REST style (resource oriented). Sticking to one convention and explaining why it is preferred over the other e.g. REST if the twitter domain maps nicely to resources e.g. /tweet or /follower or /user would help to create a more consistent and unified API. It would make it easier for clients to integrate with the API as well."See full answer