Interview Questions

Esha - "Clarifying Questions What do we mean by ‘improve’? Is there a certain goal that we are trying to attain? Is there a target user that we are going for? Any constraints or things to keep in mind when building this? Assumptions Only focused on google docs and not collaboration on other G-suite products such as PPT or sheets What is Google Docs? Web-based productivity tool that allows you to access your files from any computer through your gmail account. You can also share and"See full answer

Daniel P. - "Okay, so I understand the question: "how does Google Maps compute estimated time of arrival"... There are a couple scenarios when ETA is calculated: planning a future journey, planning current journey. Can we assume scope to the current journey? The learnings will likely be transferable. User inputs to ETA include origin, destination, and route chosen. Let's assume first that the user has chosen an origin, destination, and a route chosen. We can come back to these assumptions later. The way I'"See full answer

Surbhi G. - "While serverless computing has its merits due to removing the need for server management and auto-scaling abilities, several challenges might arise when deploying machine learning models using this setup. Cold-start latency is a key issue where an Amazon Lambda function, for example, would take more time than usual to run after being idle. This could affect the performance of real-time ML applications negatively. A way to keep the functions warm might be required to avoid this latency. Moreover,"See full answer

Jasmin R. - "Let's imagine you want to open Google Maps, you type maps.google.com and hit Enter. Here is what happens: You type maps.google.com into the address bar of your browser. Browser completes the address, for example, maps.google.com → https://www.maps.google.com [Address decoding] → browser breaks down the URL into parts ‘https://’: protocol → how the browser should connect to the website Default is HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) which shows up as ‘ http:/"See full answer

Jacob S. - "Cloud computing is like going out to a restaurant instead of cooking dinner at home. When you cook at home, you have to do everything yourself. You need to use your own plates, pots, and pans. You have to know how many people are coming over and buy the right amount of ingredients. If more people join for dinner than you expected, you'll run out of food! But if fewer people show up, then you'll have leftovers that go to waste. And on top of it all, you have to do all the cooking, set up, and cl"See full answer

Catherine Z. - "Clarifying Questions Have we confirmed this was a server side issue and not client side or network related? Interviewer confirms this was a server side issue Do we have additional information on whether this was region specific, user specific? Interviewer says you can make some assumptions Introduction I am going to focus on a few potential factors and describe how they could lead to system downtime: Data Center Power Outage Software Deployment Software Bug P"See full answer

Googlepm 1. - "To scale web applications, one must concentrate on having Shared hosting / Dedicated server CDN (for images servers) Caching techniques Database Sharding Adding/removing webservers on the fly In order to improve the speed of the web applications, certain techniques to look at : Web hosts - Shared hosting / dedicated server CDN Caching techniques Compression techniques Reduced use of plugins, check Java script / CSS files Pre-fetch : If we are aware that th"See full answer

Raymond W. - "Aim of compression is to reduce the file size and bandwidth consumed in transmission in order to preserve the quality of the image or text as experienced by the consumer/user. Text compression typically uses a library to act as a key for words, either words that repeat in the same document or words that are commonly presented in all documents. And maybe even word parts. Key points are that 1. it tends not to be lossy, 2. is simple/fast/consumes relatively little memory, 3. is pretty standard"See full answer

Anonymous Muskox - "Metrics which Youtube Consider before building a recommender system Number of likes on a video by user The watch time of a video by the user The video disklied by the user The video share by a user The video skipped or churn with 20-30 seconds. Depending on this Youtube build a recommender system. The video suggestion feature in youtube works based on the recommender system. It may use a hybrid of batch prediction and online prediction. So depending on the above metrics, the youtube p"See full answer

Joshua B. - "reaching my goal and going to the limits"See full answer

Aabid S. - "I work at a startup that makes software for Law Enforcement and the FBI. Our product analyzes calls being made by prison inmates and "listens" for predictors of violence and criminal behavior. Our clients are some of the top state prisons in the country. Recently one of the largest states in the country decided to evaluate our product for their prison system. I demo'd the product to the officers and they seemed to like everything. During the presentation they asked us if the product was ADA com"See full answer

Christopher K. - "Background Context I'm a PM at a venture-backed SaaS in the legal tech space. We provide end-to-end contract management experience for our customers with the following features: Upload - Contracts signed in DocuSign, etc. automatically uploaded to our system through API integrations. Data Extraction - Contract terms such as payment terms and key dates are automatically OCRed and extracted using ML. Analytics - Contract terms are searchable, filter, and customize for reporting. Work"See full answer

Googlepm 1. - "Getting things done. Since the job is all about leading without authority, it is important to always have the north star in mind. When all in the team do not agree or see a potential solution: Data based evidence : Provide testing results/ Analysis results/ PoC on showing why a potential solution might be better than others, Bring in a trusted stakeholder : Have a conversation with the trusted stakeholder who first believes in the solution, then vouches for the solution to the team "See full answer

Bipin R. - "As you know, this is the most important question for any interview. Here is a structure I like to follow, Start with 'I'm currently a SDE/PM/TPM etc with XYZ company.... ' Mention how you got into PM/TPM/SDE field (explaining your journey) Mention 1 or 2 accomplishments Mention what you do outside work (blogging, volunteer etc) Share why are you looking for a new role Ask the interviewer if they have any questions or will like to dive deep into any of your experience"See full answer

Michelle D. - "Approach: 1) Clarify question with interviewer When we say "app", I'd like to confirm the app for which user. For example, in Rides, we have an app for the rider and an app for the driver. For Eats, we have an experience for a customer purchasing food but I don't know of the experience for the restaurant. Could you confirm which users' experience you're describing when saying "app"? Let's say rider/customer purchasing food. Also is this a situation prior to launch of Uber Eats, wh"See full answer

Rustam - "There are number of ways where an app could lose users. I would try and speak with the following teams to figure out the issue. Data Team - I'd ask data team to see if there are any drops in the existing game funnels. There could have been an issue in game design. Potentially players could have gotten stuck on a super hard level and left or flew through a puzzle that was too easy, and also left. Essentially, figuring out the progression curve of the game, which often times can lead to play"See full answer

S S. - "To answer this question, I’d like to first start with clarifying my understanding of FB stories and key elements that are essential towards setting the success goal. FB Stories : Very similar to IG stories and infact based on the success seen from IG Stories, FB stories allows users to create ephemeral/disappearing content lasting 24 hours . The content could be a video, collection of pictures or even text with added animations and other enrichment - emulating a storytelling style. Stor"See full answer

stash - "Clarification What category of Marketplace are we setting a goal for as there are several sub-marketplaces? —> We are looking at overall Marketplace Are we focused globally or in the US? —> Lets limit to the US To set the Goal for FB marketplace I will start by describing the product, go over goals for the users (buyers / sellers) and the business (FB), review user actions, list metrics and then summarize our goal for marketplace and choose a few keys metrics to track our progress towa"See full answer