Strategy question
You own Figma’s external developer platform across the MCP Server, REST API, and first-party integrations like Slack and ChatGPT/Claude. How would you set a 12-18 month strategy: choose the most important developer use cases, decide where first-party integrations should act as showcase apps vs reusable platform investments, make build-vs-buy calls, and sequence the roadmap across reliability, capabilities, and adoption?
- Figma
- Strategy
- Hard
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What this question tests
Platform strategy skill: sequencing reliability, capability, and adoption bets across a multi-surface developer ecosystem.
How to approach it
- Segment developer use cases by who builds on Figma: agent builders using MCP, workflow tools using REST, and end users via first-party integrations.
- Rank use cases by demand signal and strategic fit, prioritizing ones that make Figma indispensable in AI-assisted development.
- Decide whether Slack and ChatGPT or Claude integrations should stay showcase demos or become reusable platform capability, based on whether other partners need the same building blocks.
- Make build-vs-buy calls on pieces like auth, rate limiting, or observability where off-the-shelf tooling is faster than custom builds.
- Sequence the roadmap: reliability and permissions first, since partners will not build on an unstable base, then capability expansion, then adoption programs.
- Set milestones and check-ins over the 12 to 18 months to re-prioritize as partner usage data comes in.
What a strong answer includes
- Explicitly frames first-party integrations as a proving ground whose reusable pieces should graduate into the platform, not stay one-offs.
- Sequences reliability before flashy new capabilities, arguing partner trust compounds over time.
- Uses concrete adoption metrics, like number of active third-party MCP integrations, to justify roadmap bets.
- States a clear build-vs-buy rationale instead of defaulting to building everything in-house.
Common mistakes
- Treating every first-party integration as equally strategic instead of distinguishing showcase from platform investment.
- Sequencing adoption features before reliability, which burns trust with early partners.
Likely follow-up questions
- How would you measure whether an integration should graduate from showcase to platform investment?
- What tradeoffs would you make if reliability work delays a high-profile partner launch?
- How do you decide which use cases to explicitly not support in year one?
More strategy questions
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More questions from Figma
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