Advanced Product Interview Tactics
Non-trivial tactics to improve your chances at root-cause analysis, product sense and behavioral case questions.
I’ve failed at interviews way more than I’ve succeeded.
Over the past 10 years I’ve interviewed at Google, Meta, Uber, Booking, Revolut, Agoda, Coupang, Glovo, Hellofresh, Wise. These are only the high-profile companies. There have been many more.
I’ve gotten offers at some, rejected a few, but failed at most.
At the same time I’ve learned. Practiced, zoomed in on the gaps, asked for feedback where there was none.
Yes, as your seniority grows, so does your interview skills. Nonetheless, I still find product interviews to be a checklist exercise.
An interviewer expects you to say OR not say something specific. That specificity may vary between companies, but the general hard skill expectations are similar.
And you can’t score an offer if you don’t know those checklists.
Below I’ve collected a range of advanced product interview tips that can boost your chances of success.
Described tactics can be applied to product sense, root cause analysis or behavioral interviews alike.
🧩 Constrain the problem
Interviewers are intentionally throwing a vague goal at you.
For instance a classic Product sense case:
How would you improve Spotify?
This is so ambiguous, it’s ridiculous. If you jump into problem solving without figuring out what’s expected of you - rejection is just around the corner.
In order to solve it, you need to “constrain” the problem first.