Strategy question
You are a PM at Facebook. An engineer comes with an idea to place a feature on the Facebook homepage that would show items that you may be interested in. Would you build it?
- Meta
- Strategy
- Medium
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What this question tests
Judgment and pushback ability: can the candidate evaluate an engineer's idea critically rather than agreeing by default.
How to approach it
- Clarify the proposed feature: an item recommendation module on the homepage, likely similar to Facebook Marketplace suggestions.
- Ask what problem this solves and for whom, since 'you may be interested in' features can easily become noisy or low-trust if not well targeted.
- Weigh the case for building it: potential to drive commerce engagement and time on platform if recommendations are genuinely relevant.
- Weigh the case against: homepage real estate is extremely valuable and contested, and a low-relevance recommendation module risks feeling like unwanted ads.
- Recommend a middle path: do not build it directly on the primary homepage feed, but test it as a dedicated, opt-in discovery surface first to validate relevance quality before risking core feed real estate.
- Define success criteria that would need to be met before ever considering the primary feed placement, such as a minimum click-through and low negative feedback rate in the pilot surface.
What a strong answer includes
- Pushes back constructively rather than agreeing automatically, showing the engineer's idea has real risk to validate before touching core feed real estate.
- Proposes a lower-risk way to test the idea, a dedicated surface, before committing to the highest-value real estate on the homepage.
- Sets explicit success criteria the idea would need to clear before ever getting broader placement, showing rigor rather than a gut call.
Common mistakes
- Agreeing to build it immediately without questioning relevance risk or homepage real estate tradeoffs.
- Rejecting the idea outright without proposing any path to validate it safely.
Likely follow-up questions
- How would you measure whether this feature is actually relevant enough to keep?
- How would you handle the engineer if you decided not to prioritize their idea?
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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