Strategy question
Linear wants to invest in an AI-assisted workflow for product and engineering teams. How would you identify the highest-value workflow to build first, compare it against adjacent opportunities, and decide whether it deserves investment now? Walk through the user segments, evidence you’d gather, prioritization criteria, and the product principles you’d use to make the call.
- Linear
- Strategy
- Hard
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What this question tests
Tests identifying and prioritizing the highest-value AI-assisted workflow investment against adjacent opportunities using segment evidence and product principles.
How to approach it
- Segment users into individual contributors doing day-to-day triage versus PMs and leads doing planning, since AI value differs by role.
- List adjacent opportunities, such as auto-drafting issue descriptions, AI-assisted triage and routing, or AI-generated status summaries.
- Gather evidence per opportunity: current time spent on the task, rework rate, and any manual workarounds users already built.
- Prioritize using task frequency, time saved per instance, and fit with Linear's speed-and-focus principles, not just technical feasibility.
- Recommend one workflow to build first with a clear reason it beats the alternatives, and define what justifies investing in the next one.
What a strong answer includes
- Grounds the workflow choice in observed usage data, such as assuming how often status summary writing recurs across teams.
- Explicitly weighs product-principle fit, since an AI feature that adds friction would conflict with Linear's keyboard-driven identity.
- Compares at least two real alternatives before recommending one, showing the tradeoff explicitly.
- Defines a concrete threshold for future investment, like adoption rate or time saved per user, rather than a vague if it goes well.
Common mistakes
- Picking the flashiest AI capability instead of the one with the clearest evidence of recurring pain.
- Ignoring whether the AI feature fits Linear's speed-and-focus identity, adding friction instead of removing it.
Likely follow-up questions
- How would you protect Linear's speed and keyboard-first feel while adding an AI feature?
- What would make you deprioritize this workflow in favor of one of the adjacent opportunities?
More strategy questions
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More questions from Linear
Learn the skill behind it
Chapters of the AI PM course that teach what this question tests.
- Chapter 4: Discovery and strategy for AI products
- Chapter 9: Prove it paid off: outcomes, economics, and pricing
- Chapter 14: Get the job: the AI PM interview loop