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Product Manager System Design Interview Questions

Review this list of 70 System Design Product Manager interview questions and answers verified by hiring managers and candidates.
  • Amazon logoAsked at Amazon 
    35 answers
    +31

    "Clarifying questions: What is meant by abuse?: Fake, paid reviews Are we looking at any particular country ? : Global Have we seen an increase in the number of fake reviews on Amazon?: Yes Can we quantify the % of fake reviews and how much it has increased in the recent past?: Can’t divulge company data Lets first start with the Vision of Amazon. It is to be the world’s most customer centric company. That is a very lofty and high standards’ Vision. So the problem we are trying to s"

    Kartikeya N. - "Clarifying questions: What is meant by abuse?: Fake, paid reviews Are we looking at any particular country ? : Global Have we seen an increase in the number of fake reviews on Amazon?: Yes Can we quantify the % of fake reviews and how much it has increased in the recent past?: Can’t divulge company data Lets first start with the Vision of Amazon. It is to be the world’s most customer centric company. That is a very lofty and high standards’ Vision. So the problem we are trying to s"See full answer

    Product Manager
    System Design
    +3 more
  • Meta logoAsked at Meta 
    13 answers
    Video answer for 'Design an evaluation framework for ads ranking.'
    +8

    "Designing an evaluation framework for ads ranking is crucial for optimizing the effectiveness and relevance of ads displayed to users. Here's a comprehensive framework that you can use: Define Objectives and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs):** \\Click-Through Rate (CTR):\\ The ratio of clicks to impressions, indicating the effectiveness of an ad in attracting user attention. \\Conversion Rate:\\ The ratio of conversions (e.g., sign-ups, purchases) to clicks, measuring how well"

    Ajay P. - "Designing an evaluation framework for ads ranking is crucial for optimizing the effectiveness and relevance of ads displayed to users. Here's a comprehensive framework that you can use: Define Objectives and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs):** \\Click-Through Rate (CTR):\\ The ratio of clicks to impressions, indicating the effectiveness of an ad in attracting user attention. \\Conversion Rate:\\ The ratio of conversions (e.g., sign-ups, purchases) to clicks, measuring how well"See full answer

    Product Manager
    System Design
    +3 more
  • Meta logoAsked at Meta 
    37 answers
    Video answer for 'How would you build a Facebook product for blood donation?'
    +34

    "Clarifying questions: · Is there a specific scenario we are building before? Example: urgent need for a specific type of blood vs building up blood banks proactively. You decide · This would be for mobile/web and integrate into the existing facebook product? Yes Ok before we get started I wanted to discuss the facebook mission: to give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together. I can see how blood donation fits directly into this, enabling blood donation helps"

    Anonymous Hummingbird - "Clarifying questions: · Is there a specific scenario we are building before? Example: urgent need for a specific type of blood vs building up blood banks proactively. You decide · This would be for mobile/web and integrate into the existing facebook product? Yes Ok before we get started I wanted to discuss the facebook mission: to give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together. I can see how blood donation fits directly into this, enabling blood donation helps"See full answer

    Product Manager
    System Design
    +1 more
  • OpenAI logoAsked at OpenAI 
    1 answer

    "Keep the agent Read only mode, and if it has to take any action on behalf of the user, keep a structure which requires user confirmation for it, after that it generates an idempotent key and if the model tried to make up the key or tried to bypass, it cannot do it now as it would require the confirmation key as an arg to take any action. THis all stays in the orchaestrator code, and nothing on the model side. Model is dumb and only can suggest action"

    Yashodhan H. - "Keep the agent Read only mode, and if it has to take any action on behalf of the user, keep a structure which requires user confirmation for it, after that it generates an idempotent key and if the model tried to make up the key or tried to bypass, it cannot do it now as it would require the confirmation key as an arg to take any action. THis all stays in the orchaestrator code, and nothing on the model side. Model is dumb and only can suggest action"See full answer

    Product Manager
    System Design
    +2 more
  • Google logoAsked at Google 
    23 answers
    Video answer for 'Design TikTok.'
    +18

    "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."

    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

    Product Manager
    System Design
    +2 more
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  • American Express logoAsked at American Express 
    3 answers

    "Thanks you for sharing insight about the app which I would liek to summarize in 2 structures: functional 2 technical requirement. Requirements: Functional requirement: Able to share messages, siles , and other content like photos, sounds Create groups for conversaion Size: 500 million users, 50m DAU -> 500M active chats daily Files not stored in the system but is can be shared.. Integaration with other APPs Technical requirement: Availability: Can you help me to understand the a"

    Istvan K. - "Thanks you for sharing insight about the app which I would liek to summarize in 2 structures: functional 2 technical requirement. Requirements: Functional requirement: Able to share messages, siles , and other content like photos, sounds Create groups for conversaion Size: 500 million users, 50m DAU -> 500M active chats daily Files not stored in the system but is can be shared.. Integaration with other APPs Technical requirement: Availability: Can you help me to understand the a"See full answer

    Product Manager
    System Design
    +2 more
  • Google logoAsked at Google 
    12 answers
    Video answer for 'How would you build TinyURL?'
    +9

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

    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

    Product Manager
    System Design
    +2 more
  • Meta logoAsked at Meta 
    63 answers
    Video answer for 'Design Facebook Messenger.'
    +58

    "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.?)"

    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

    Product Manager
    System Design
    +1 more
  • Meta logoAsked at Meta 
    4 answers
    +1

    "Clarifying questions When we say signals do you mean just features that are fed into the ML model that decide how the content should be ranked? Is newsfeed the front page of fb app. Can you expand what you mean by relevance? User journey User enters blue app.. Newsfeed is the first thing they see. User either continues on newsfeed ie scrolls through it or moves to a separate part of fb As they are scrolling they may see contents from friends, creators and ads, or other pages that they have been"

    Ketshi B. - "Clarifying questions When we say signals do you mean just features that are fed into the ML model that decide how the content should be ranked? Is newsfeed the front page of fb app. Can you expand what you mean by relevance? User journey User enters blue app.. Newsfeed is the first thing they see. User either continues on newsfeed ie scrolls through it or moves to a separate part of fb As they are scrolling they may see contents from friends, creators and ads, or other pages that they have been"See full answer

    Product Manager
    System Design
    +2 more
  • Uber logoAsked at Uber 
    Add answer
    Product Manager
    System Design
    +1 more
  • 11 answers
    +7

    "Clarifying questions: When we talk about a 'meditation app', are we mainly focusing on audio content? And are we thinking of this under a big brand or are we a fresh startup? Also, is our main target the US? And, are we designing mainly for individual use, or are we thinking about larger settings like schools? Interviewer: It's a startup. We're aiming for individual users, mainly in the US, and yes, an audio-based format. Summary till now: In today's digital age there's an increasi"

    Ankit M. - "Clarifying questions: When we talk about a 'meditation app', are we mainly focusing on audio content? And are we thinking of this under a big brand or are we a fresh startup? Also, is our main target the US? And, are we designing mainly for individual use, or are we thinking about larger settings like schools? Interviewer: It's a startup. We're aiming for individual users, mainly in the US, and yes, an audio-based format. Summary till now: In today's digital age there's an increasi"See full answer

    Product Manager
    System Design
    +1 more
  • Product Manager
    System Design
    +1 more
  • Sierra AI logoAsked at Sierra AI 
    Add answer
    Product Manager
    System Design
  • Google logoAsked at Google 
    10 answers
    +7

    "Great. I will start by understanding the goal of Google Photos and how it aligns with the goal and mission of Google. After defining goals, I will talk about the user actions which will contribute towards this goal. Based on these actions, we will define metrics. Check-in with the interviewer on the approach here. Assuming that this looks good for the interviewer to proceed. Google Photo - Helping users organise & manage their pictures. Completely in line with Google's mission. Thinking ab"

    Harshit G. - "Great. I will start by understanding the goal of Google Photos and how it aligns with the goal and mission of Google. After defining goals, I will talk about the user actions which will contribute towards this goal. Based on these actions, we will define metrics. Check-in with the interviewer on the approach here. Assuming that this looks good for the interviewer to proceed. Google Photo - Helping users organise & manage their pictures. Completely in line with Google's mission. Thinking ab"See full answer

    Product Manager
    System Design
    +1 more
  • Google logoAsked at Google 
    Add answer
    Product Manager
    System Design
  • "Background A. Objective Lyft has a presence in Toledo, Ohio. At our current revenue per ride of $6, we can match 60% consumers requesting a ride with a driver. Our goal is to maximize net revenues in the next 12 months by figuring out the optimal revenue per ride. B. TLDR Summary · With a target market of (~100K-138K) consumers, on a $25 charge to consumers, Lyft should pay $20.75 to drivers and fix its share at $4.25 to maximize its net revenues over a 12-mont"

    Eshan P. - "Background A. Objective Lyft has a presence in Toledo, Ohio. At our current revenue per ride of $6, we can match 60% consumers requesting a ride with a driver. Our goal is to maximize net revenues in the next 12 months by figuring out the optimal revenue per ride. B. TLDR Summary · With a target market of (~100K-138K) consumers, on a $25 charge to consumers, Lyft should pay $20.75 to drivers and fix its share at $4.25 to maximize its net revenues over a 12-mont"See full answer

    Product Manager
    System Design
    +1 more
  • Apple logoAsked at Apple 
    5 answers
    +2

    "To answer this, I will focus my efforts on explaining the most common type of API used in most modern software development applications - the REST API. For the purpose of simplicity, I will also keep the topics of Authorization and Authentication out of the mix. In essence, an API is a group of logic that takes in a specific set of inputs and responds with a specific set of outputs. This is analogous to going to a drive-thru and placing an order for a meal. When you give an API a bunch of"

    Pathworks P. - "To answer this, I will focus my efforts on explaining the most common type of API used in most modern software development applications - the REST API. For the purpose of simplicity, I will also keep the topics of Authorization and Authentication out of the mix. In essence, an API is a group of logic that takes in a specific set of inputs and responds with a specific set of outputs. This is analogous to going to a drive-thru and placing an order for a meal. When you give an API a bunch of"See full answer

    Product Manager
    System Design
    +4 more
  • Google logoAsked at Google 
    2 answers

    "I will start with discussing the Google mission statement, which is to organize the world's information and make it easily accessible to everyone to help them get things done, and make their day a bit easier. I will think about building something that will leapfrog this mission. Google has already organized all of the world's public digital information in the current state. There are opportunities to get more information into a digital form. But there are also significant improvements in mak"

    Praveen - "I will start with discussing the Google mission statement, which is to organize the world's information and make it easily accessible to everyone to help them get things done, and make their day a bit easier. I will think about building something that will leapfrog this mission. Google has already organized all of the world's public digital information in the current state. There are opportunities to get more information into a digital form. But there are also significant improvements in mak"See full answer

    Product Manager
    System Design
    +1 more
  • Amazon logoAsked at Amazon 
    11 answers
    Video answer for 'Design Uber Eats.'
    +8

    "basic drew the diagram"

    Aswath B. - "basic drew the diagram"See full answer

    Product Manager
    System Design
    +2 more
  • Meta logoAsked at Meta 
    20 answers
    Video answer for 'How would you build an audio product for Facebook?'
    +16

    "The pain points articulated (no contextual recs, isolating experience, etc.) are pain points in the broader audio listening industry - there's no existing audio product at Meta already and assuming this is a net new product, wouldn't it have made more sense to have pain points specific to Meta? E.g. "there's no sense of real-time community in FB Groups" or "the barrier to engage in FB groups feels high" It almost feels like she just regurgitated things she's learned from her time working on Alex"

    Michael N. - "The pain points articulated (no contextual recs, isolating experience, etc.) are pain points in the broader audio listening industry - there's no existing audio product at Meta already and assuming this is a net new product, wouldn't it have made more sense to have pain points specific to Meta? E.g. "there's no sense of real-time community in FB Groups" or "the barrier to engage in FB groups feels high" It almost feels like she just regurgitated things she's learned from her time working on Alex"See full answer

    Product Manager
    System Design
    +1 more
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