Estimation question

Estimate the number of drones necessary to complete all deliveries for Amazon in NYC.

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

Estimation with real-world operational constraints: can you factor in payload, range and delivery-window limits, not just raw package volume.

Estimate daily package volume for Amazon in NYC, e.g. a large metro area with a few million residents and high Amazon penetration (state as assumption).
Filter to drone-eligible packages: small, light items within drone payload limits (assume under 5 lbs) and short-range delivery zones, a fraction of total volume.
Estimate deliveries per drone per day, factoring flight time, battery/recharge cycles, and NYC-specific constraints like airspace restrictions and building density.
Divide eligible daily package volume by deliveries-per-drone to get the fleet size needed.
Sanity check: NYC's dense, high-rise environment likely makes drone delivery far less practical than suburban areas, which should lower the eligible volume assumption further.
State what data would refine this: actual FAA airspace rules and real drone flight-time specs.

Explicitly narrows total package volume down to a drone-eligible subset, rather than dividing all packages by drone capacity.
Flags NYC-specific real-world constraints (density, airspace, no easy landing spots) that most other cities wouldn't have, showing situational awareness.
Builds the estimate in clear stages (eligible volume, deliveries per drone, fleet size) rather than jumping to a number.
Gives a defensible range and states its biggest uncertainty (recharge/battery cycle time).

Applying drone capacity to all packages instead of narrowing to a realistic drone-eligible subset.
Ignoring NYC-specific constraints like density and airspace regulation that a suburban estimate wouldn't need.

What would make NYC a bad first city for drone delivery compared to a suburban market?
How does battery/recharge time change your fleet-size estimate?