Strategy question

An engineer suggests showing suggested Buy/Sell Groups on users' newsfeed instead of the People You May Know section. How do you determine if that is a good idea or not?

Practice this question out loud. An AI interviewer asks it, follows up like a real interviewer would, and scores your answer. Type or speak.

What this question tests

Ability to evaluate a feature idea against existing surfaces using data and user value, not just gut feel.

Clarify the engineer's premise: is Buy/Sell Groups replacing PYMK entirely, or just competing for the same feed slot.
Define the user need PYMK serves (growing your network) versus what Buy/Sell serves (local commerce discovery).
Look at engagement data for both surfaces, such as click through rate, dwell time, and downstream actions like messages sent.
Consider the ecosystem cost: PYMK drives friend growth, which compounds network effects Buy/Sell does not.
Propose testing both via an A/B experiment that measures newsfeed engagement, session length, and marketplace transaction rate.
State that the decision should follow the experiment result, not the engineer's intuition alone.

Distinguishes the two features' jobs to be done instead of treating them as interchangeable feed content.
Proposes a specific test design, holding out a control group and measuring both short term engagement and long term retention.
Flags that PYMK protects network growth, a leading indicator for retention, which a short term engagement lift could obscure.
Uses an illustrative number, e.g. assumes a 3 percent CTR gap would not justify losing PYMK's compounding effect.

Answering purely on intuition instead of proposing a way to measure the tradeoff.
Missing that PYMK has downstream effects on network growth that a single engagement metric will not capture.
Treating this as a binary swap instead of considering a hybrid or personalized placement.

Chapters of the AI PM course that teach what this question tests.