Interview Questions

Anonymous Sparrow - "Clarifying question: just want to make sure that I'm designing the right product, are you referring to ATM as in a machine that takes in a debit or credit card and dispenses cash? Also, is there any location restriction for where the machine is located at London Heathrow Airport, eg. departure hall after security or arrival hall before exiting baggage claim? These could potentially impact the use case. (Assume interviewer answers yes for first and no for second) Approach: Identify or segment"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

Ramendra S. - "Step 1: Clarifying the Problem Scope We will focus on designing the leaderboard for Dream11 with these assumptions: Registered teams: 100,000 users are actively participating and ranked. Real-time updates: Leaderboard updates frequently as players accumulate points based on live sports events. Multiple leagues: Each user can participate in different leagues, so we will need to maintain a separate leaderboard for each league. Query efficiency: Users frequently"See full answer

Nikolas C. - "That's really interesting how in section "Behavioral Interviews for Engineers" there is no single interview for, actually, Engineer. It's EM, SA, CEO, PM etc. So all problems are not relevant for people who are not managing products and not applying for manager's role. Will you consider adding at least couple of them? "See full answer

Glados - "Prompt - annual cost of managing Google photos (note - I believe Google doesn't ask estimation question anymore, not sure who/here/how this was asked) We will go over what Google photos is, its users, how they use photos, what costs are incurred, estimation - base case then scale it out, gut check the answers, and arrive at an estimate Google photos is a photo and video storage service. Its users are Content creators/users Google (hosting) Other service providers that provide value-add"See full answer

Y C. - "One way to develop project metrics is around what problem the project is trying to solve within a particular timeframe, at a cost of x dollars and with y quality Scope: Did the project deliver as per the problem statement - over and beyond Resources metrics: Planned resources were utilized to contribute to the success Budget: Did the cost of the project implementation be under the budget or over? Schedule: In-flight milestones were completed on time or not as per the plan Was the proje"See full answer

Anni P. - "I firstly discuss the brute force approach in O(n^2) time complexity , than i moved to O(nlogn) tine complexity than i discussed the O(n) time complexity and O(n) space complexity . But interviewer want more optimised solution , in O(n) time complexity without using extra space , The solution wants O(1) space complexity i have to do changes in same array without using any space . This method is something like i have to place positive values to its original position by swapping and rest negativ"See full answer

Aditya G. - "We would like the interviewer to call out bad interviews too. I understand that these guest interviewees are spending their time for Exponent and are probably compensated. Exponent's customers are paying members and they need to know that bad answers are called out as bad answers and why. Telling everyone they are awesome at the end of the PM interview doesn't send the right message to paying subscribers who are spending valuable time training for interviews."See full answer

Coach - "Great question Evan, could you please help me with some context. Do you want me to consider Gsuite & Gmail on consumer or limit it to one or the other segment? Limit to B2C on GMAIL Promotions/ Notifications do you want me to include them? Exclude Would you want to consider only Gmail ecosystem or Gmail to All types of users? Any email recipient I would like to start with US as a geo and extrapolate would you be good with that? That's ok. That helps, than"See full answer

Exponent - "Let's first identify the type of problem we're solving. This is an Improve a product question. Let's go over the Improve a Product formula once more: Ask clarifying questions Identify users, behaviors, and pain points State product goal Brainstorm small improvements Brainstorm bolder improvements Measure success Summarize Okay great. Now that we have the formula, it's time to execute on it! Ask clarifying questions Before we start iden"See full answer

Sameer S. - "I: Design a banking app for kids S: Sure, let me start with clarifying questions. What is our goal for building this app? I: To create financial literacy early in childhood and also increase our customer base. S: Sure. Are we going to launch it globally or in any specific geography or demography? I: Globally. S: Sure, Any resource or time constraints to keep in mind because I need to prioritize the features on the roadmap based on that? Also, are we launching it on iOS or Android? I: No resource"See full answer

Anonymous Jellyfish - "Thank you for the question! Normally, I would want to ask some clarifying questions to try to better understand the scope of the problem. Below are some of those questions & assumptions I am going to make because I need to submit an answer without getting a response. Question 1: What is Facebook’s north star metric for this exercise? Growth? Engagement? I’m also keeping in mind that because we are talking about building a birthday feature in the earlier stages of Facebook, their north s"See full answer

Piyush D. - "Honestly, In addition to having the right expertise and skills required for this job, I am really looking forward to being part of this organisation’s journey. I am really confident that I will really exceed your expectations in achieving both mine and the company’s goals. I have worked with different teams in different capacities, managed a team of engineers successfully from very early part of my career and that has made me a very easy person to work with. I get things done easily. I am passio"See full answer

Amit A. - "When I look to join a company, I think of long term association. Hence, I put a lot of focus on the team that I am going to work with, the culture, the value that I will add to the company & the opportunities for me to learn & grow. Microsoft is one of the pioneers in the tech industry touching the lives of many corporate and consumer clients and helping them to achieve more. To answer your question specifically, i would say -: Microsoft will provide me a platform to work with some of the sma"See full answer

Sdn D. - "Clarifying question: AOV/USER it means that the total price paid by a user in a certain period should be more than what it is now ? Is the average taken on a daily/ weekly/monthly basis ? I would presume it to be a monthly basis , as it helps us a defined period of time to analyse user beharviour and track number of orders. Daily wont be succesfull mertric , as ocassionally only a user may order multiple times in a day , also weekly is also a viable metric but that wont help us to analyse"See full answer

Kartikeya N. - "Clarifying questions: Can I assume the timeframe to be today, ie Dec 2024? : Yes What country are we targeting? Lets say it is India. When we say "Use google search to find a new job" do we mean to say that they use Google search in their job search process or also convert and actually find a job? : The former. I am assuming we are only considering when someone directly searches jobs on Google and not searches for some job search portal on google: Yes. How long should the search"See full answer

Rishabh L. - "with empbysalary as ( select id, firstname, lastname, salary, department_id, rank() over (partition by department_id order by salary desc) as rnk from employees ) select d.name as department_name, e.id as employee_id, e.firstname, e.lastname, e.salary from empbysalary e join departments d on e.department_id=d.id where e.rnk=1 order by 1; `"See full answer

Mallikarjun B. - "I consider my greatest strengths to be my inquisitive nature and my ability to empathize with users. My inquisitiveness drives me to question and challenge the status quo, constantly seeking new perspectives and innovative approaches. I find inspiration in observing advertisements, analyzing their plots, and connecting them to the products being advertised. This curiosity fuels my creativity and pushes me to think outside the box. Furthermore, my empathetic nature plays a vital role in my desig"See full answer

Satish murthy D. - "It is very easy to shy away and not make a decision because you might feel the right information is not there to make a decision While dealing with ambiguity it is essential to remain Calm. And Establish what it is you want to achieve by asking a lot of questions to the necessary stakeholders Access the risk, analyze the data at hand, ask the right questions, and be very clear and concise in decision-making"See full answer