Strategy question
Anthropic has a new code-model capability that looks impressive in demos but has no obvious product yet. How would you generate, screen, and prioritize the first developer problems to test, and how would you decide whether the next step is a product change, a UX change, or a new research requirement?
- Anthropic
- Strategy
- Hard
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What this question tests
Ability to go from a raw model capability to a validated product direction through structured discovery rather than building on a demo's promise alone.
How to approach it
- Generate candidate developer problems by talking directly to developers about their current painful workflows, then testing the new capability against those specific problems rather than starting from the capability and searching for a use.
- Screen candidates for evidence of a real, frequent pain point, not just technical feasibility, discarding ideas that only work because the demo was cherry picked.
- Prioritize the remaining candidates by a combination of developer pain frequency and how reliably the capability performs on that specific task type, since a rare but flashy use case matters less than a common, dependable one.
- For the top candidate, test whether the current model capability is already sufficient, meaning it only needs a product or UX wrapper, or whether reliability gaps mean it needs more research investment first.
- If it is a UX problem, prototype a minimal interface and validate with a small developer group before committing engineering resources.
- If it is a research gap, write a clear capability requirement back to research with the specific failure pattern, rather than a vague make it better ask.
What a strong answer includes
- Starts discovery from developer pain points, not from the capability, avoiding the trap of a solution looking for a problem.
- Explicitly screens out demo only use cases that do not hold up under real developer testing.
- Distinguishes a UX gap from a research gap with a concrete diagnostic test rather than assuming.
- Writes a specific, falsifiable research requirement instead of a vague ask when the gap is capability, not interface.
Common mistakes
- Building a product around the flashiest demo use case without validating real developer demand.
- Conflating a UX problem with a capability problem and sending an unnecessary research ask.
Likely follow-up questions
- How would you validate developer pain without biasing them by showing the new capability first?
- What would make you kill a candidate use case even if the demo looked great?
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More questions from Anthropic
Learn the skill behind it
Chapters of the AI PM course that teach what this question tests.
- Chapter 4: Discovering and Sizing AI Opportunities
- Chapter 9: Measuring AI Product Economics
- Chapter 14: Interviewing for AI PM Roles