Google Product Manager Mock Interview: Design a Product for Rush Hour Drivers

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In this video, Spencer Whitman (Google Product Manager) talks through how to design a product for drivers during rush hour. He weighs safety and boredom to come up with a unique product in this PM mock interview.
Product design questions are a key part of the product manager interview process.
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Chapters -
00:00 - Introduction
01:13 - Question
01:30 - Clarifying questions
03:19 - Goal
06:42 - Types of users
12:22 - Possible solutions
29:41 - Success metric
33:24 - Interview analysis
34:06 - Follow-up questions

[@tryexponent]

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[@jocelynhuang7949]

Honestly this interview seems awful. Jumps to safety and misses a lot of the more obvious pain points for rush hour traffic. Then jumps to autonomous vehicles, and Blockchain, which are highly infeasible in the real world, because those ideas are still being researched and developed. I assume the goal is to come up with a product plan that would actually be adopted by google - not come up with the most cool innovative and wild idea ever.

[@francisd7081]

As soon as he stated his initial focus on safety I was confused. I'm no traffic expert, but I'm almost 100% sure the main issue is getting from point A to point B without it taking a billion years. According to a report from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), almost 50 percent of fatal car accidents happen at night.

[@yalamakur]

+1 problem is rush hour not sure why the safety came in and that too on highway. User experience is lost in the beginning

[@jasper5016]

After reading your comment, I realized that the whole conversation went in totally different direction. Safety could be one part of it but whole product cannot be around it.

[@antop9651]

I was surprised he mentioned gut reaction, any product area like safety is still ok for an interview as long as you can provide strong customer empathy. I perhaps would have stated "I chose safety because personally I have seen and experienced a lot of incidents in the morning commute to my work and this made me to research the number of accidents that takes place in the city fatal or not and surprisingly it was during rush hours" Small or big incidents causes a lot of trauma and also frustrates other drivers on the road especially when the incident is small but the parties involved in the accident just blocks the road. This the last annoying experience you would need to have during a rush hour

[@SN-kk2bl]

I agree and I know this is a year after the fact but when I worked through this problem before listening to his solution my first goal was to reduce commute time, making driving more pleasurable, and lastly better use of time (i.e self development and entertainment during ride or finding other things to do such a groceries, exercise etc. to skip the rush hour traffic all together). Safety did not even make the list LOL.

[@anvikaanvika9834]

Would we not discuss pain points first ?

[@SrinathVaddepally]

Where exactly I lost is ... he mentioned he mentored / coached 50 PM's and he picked problem statement at the very beginning of his response ... focusing on safety based on his gut reaction :D

[@adorablecheetah2930]

exactly my thought

[@HUSSEINHUSSEINAHMED]

just let them WFH. you'll achieve safety, save money, and emissions!

[@sarthaksawale6660]

Just a random question, how is a traffic moving at 5 mph threatening the safety? I think entertaining people would be a much better idea as it will keep people alert and aware.

[@adorablecheetah2930]

exactly what I was thinking

[@syth9]

He had some great moments but honestly this just feels like a less strong interview to me? He really latched onto safety as a focus immediately before having concrete reasons why he picked that. I feel like his solutions were helpful to drivers in general and not rush hour drivers in particular. He didn’t really explain why rush hour drivers have a particular need or desire for more safety either. Like he could pretty much offer the same solutions to any kind of driver, I feel. Feels like reducing a rush hour driver’s time spent commuting would be an area with much higher potential for a large impact on the customer/market. You could then stack improved safety as a secondary outcome onto that as opposed to doing it the other way around. I liked that he brought up antonymous driving and the cool ideas he had around that but overall this one felt quite meh to me. Though I’d love to hear any contrary opinions, especially from someone with PM experience.

[@shayanijaz1]

Yes, I agree with you, the interview didn't start off on the strongest note. Time-saving is the biggest pain point for someone who's driving during rush hours or gets stuck in the traffic. I wrote this in my notes before I could hear his focus area. I also feel he missed clarifying some important points of the problem at the beginning before he set the goal, like defining who the drivers are? what vehicles they'd be driving? What type of product do we need to build for them (soft or hard)? and defining the rush hours.

[@UtkarshBansal]

I think he chose safety because he has more points on it as compared to time saving. Do you have any thoughts how is time saving possible in this scenario?

[@fangyuancao5026]

Oh my god. I worked with Spencer in Meta. He is awesome! Great to see him featured here!

[@anushreehn1241]

This was really amazing! Specifically, the creative solutions. Also, the way he was always cool and composed even when he was challenged with opposing views.

[@AlexSanchez-et7mu]

At first, I thought the same as many here: why the focus on safety? But, then I realized and checked that traffic is due to 5 main categories - car accidents, weather, saturation (think bandwidth, the number of cars a highway can support), construction, and users being distracted. Car accidents account for 25% of all traffic. In fact, I’d argue that several of the 5 categories could be sub categories of car accidents. I think if he had been more clear with the connection between safety / car accidents and traffic, then it would have made the solutions feel more aligned with the prompt. Additionally, re: pain points as some have brought up. He mentions the pain ointment in the goal. Regardless if your a 9 to 5 worker or a student, they all have the same pain point: get from point a to b on time and safely. Again, he could have quickly mentioned that, but it’s carried over / implied and I don’t think that interviewers would get hung up on that unless if the rest of his response was way off, weak, or didn’t make sense.

[@invisible-fm6lz]

Really excellent

[@alexisguel7744]

The dog barking is killer...

[@kgoff29]

Honest comments.....aren't each of his ideas already existing? Even as of a year ago? Also, thanks for this video. Love the way he thinks and communicates.

[@adedayoaruwajoye7910]

I am currently practising for my product interviews and this is probably the best mock I have come across, based on several metrics. Amazing!

[@tryexponent]

Wow adedayoaruwajoye7910, thank you for the kind words!

[@kechiokpara1321]

So brilliant

[@coc3311]

i would say goal should be monetization and for that we can comeup with taxi sharing + decrease the time taken for going point A to point B so that they can do more bookings.

[@lwebb9464]

Hi, Guys. I was trying to solve this case as well and stuck to the safety goal, and here is what I came up with: GPS feature that displays and shows users / drivers which routes have the least amount of accidents during rush hour. and wrhich routes are less filled with traffic so they can both drive safer and get to where they're trying to get too in less time.

[@kanikamohan7416]

I also thought of that but wasn't sure if that would make a good answer considering the Waze app already solved this problem

[@diproprattoy6334]

LEARNT SO MUCH

[@soorkie]

I have a strong curiosity about the dislike counts and I believe it would be beneficial to have access to that information. It would provide me with a more comprehensive understanding of the overall reception and feedback on the content. It would be interesting to explore the potential insights and perspectives that can be gained from considering the dislike counts alongside the likes.

[@ashwinkumar675]

I love how this interview contradicts a lot of the exponent course content, right? (@ Kevin/Stephen) - would love to see a follow up breakdown video. 1. He didn't take 2-3 minutes at the start of the interview to "structure his thought" like the course recommends. 2. He didn't define his structure upfront --> It was a free-flowing conversation style interview. 3. He didn't define the product as an app or a device or if we're a part of google or not until much later. I think this has a huge advantage since he could brainstorm solutions and then go back to this based on the solution. (otherwise, you're just confining your creativity) TL;DR : For google, seems like "genuinely thinking and talking through your thoughts" and "constantly engaging with your interviewer" are more important than the above 3 points.

[@stevekurien789]

Agreed^ . I'm only 10 minutes into the interview and I'm very confused by the format of his thoughts. Not sure why the goal for this product was focused on safety. Rush hour drivers are focused more on their time than they are safety. If you are already stuck in traffic, bumper to bumper why would safety be a concern? Not a huge fan of this interview

[@ujalarizwan2628]

I think he structured his answer really well. He was following a framework without making it sound robotic. 1. Started off with clarifying questions on goals, constraints. 2. Segmented customers. At least three segments and then focused on one that would have the largest impact. 3. Listed pain points of that segment. He listed at least three and decided on focus on safety - I would have picked that too over boredom because there is very little you can do to solve driver’s boredom when traffic laws dictate that the driver should be alert and not distracted on the road at all times. 4. He proposed more than three solutions and a really great moonshot idea which you should always do. Doesn’t have to be feasible with the tech available today, but one should always shoot for the moon 🌙. 5. He kept checking with the interviewer time and again which made it very interactive and more like a conversation. There is a reason he works for Google! He is good at what he does!

[@gplayj9984]

@@ujalarizwan2628 the approach was great but ideas were pretty generic. But can't deny that with such short time one can't focus on ideas. Even the interviewer is looking on the thought process and structuring, and not the innovation.

[@yalamakur]

@@stevekurien789 I guess this is a BI interview :))

[@akshayjha4785]

He didn't really define pain-points for a segment. There was no pain-point section at all. Would the answer have lost all marks in user empathy?

[@Math_kru_earng]

Thanks!!!

[@nat.serrano]

wouldn't the main goal be to deliver more during rush hour? companies want to make money after all, I feel these product managers never had their own company and are out of touch with reality

[@KhalidAlali1]

Seriously, this response is not grounded in reality.

[@UtkarshBansal]

What are your solutions to deliver more or save time during rush hours?

[@bankpo6099]

There are very few accident in rush hour

[@pratyushshrivastav3062]

I lost it when he threw in a bit of blockchain in the mix because it would be cool. I believe as a PM it's important to develop both user emapthy as well as engineering empathy. Technical feasibiity should always be at the back of the mind when working out solutions, unless ofcourse the goal is not building an actual product but just writing a fancy doc or preparing a ppt about it.

[@yalamakur]

I lost from the beginning, strategy point of view not a convincing/impactful problem you chose. After choosing the safety thing for a min interviewer tensed where it'll go. There is no whereabouts of validating the problem whether it'll help main goal or not. Could've been better.

[@hardnocks24]

Amazing Content... Really informative...

[@tryexponent]

Glad you think so!

[@vishal.shetty]

Any product solves the user's problems in any of these categories time, money, health, and satisfaction. While brainstorming he just considered health(safety). He could have explored the time as well, that could save the time and gas. Saving gas would probably save money too. So if I could come up with a solution, my solution would solve 3 problems for the user i.e. time, money, and safety. I don't know if I am right, I am just an aspiring PM so putting my thoughts here based on my thought process.

[@tryexponent]

Hey vishalshetty7624, so glad to see you actively engaging with the content. Thanks for sharing your thought process for others to view and learn from!

[@Sudhee24]

A great discussion indeed. I would have loved the angle of how to optimise on alternate routes and how to get from point A to point B quickly and efficiently.

[@reshuvarshney3708]

He didn't mention anything on the pain points, thats a huge miss and the interviewer may also should have pointe him in that. Didn't talk about his approach at all, i would rate this 5 on 10

[@gozdekuru8898]

Can you solve a problem with gut feelings?

[@stevekurien789]

:45 As someone who is a PM in the Startup space, I wouldn't say you are not a PM just because you are in a Startup and don't work at Google. Every company you work for is experience in learning the world of Product Management please don't attack us Startup PM's :)

[@saagarAKmusic]

great point- that was a bit annoying and comes off as pretentious

[@antop9651]

To give benefit of doubt, may be he meant in a startup you do more than a PM role at Big Companies. Like marketing,DS, a bit of engineering, QA, execution etc Actually wearing multiple hats.

[@PiperZeus]

I took it to mean that he did PM work without the PM title. So maybe his title was "Engagement Manager," but when you looked at his daily tasks, he was a PM in every sense of the word. After all, PM skills are applicable to a variety of roles/titles.

[@SN-kk2bl]

I agree with Piper. I think he meant he did not have the title of a PM but did PM related responsibilities and duties in his day-to-day.

[@alexd9656]

was expecting a lot more from a google pm...

[@yu_d_k]

what's wrong with being a PM at a startup? 🤔

[@TheBigCheezeIt]

Good structure, but not realistic in 1-2 years. Only the camera was the good answer.

[@ujalarizwan2628]

Best structured answer I have seen so far!

[@tryexponent]

So glad! We'll be sure to invite back :)

[@alltradingsecrets2859]

Ok no motorcycles don't exist in the world right? Hey BTW have you seen pedestrians on road? Maybe not in US. And if you go for driving license safety of other road users is equally (if not more important) than driver

[@alltradingsecrets2859]

Entertainment is the goal to target here

[@venkateshn3956]

Feel like a weak strategy to go after safety. Personally if there needs to be a killer app for daily rush hour drivers, its has to be carpooling, saves money in the first order and the second order effect would be reduced traffic and saving time for everyone overall.

[@tryexponent]

Hey venkatesh, thanks for leaving your thoughts. Great to see you interacting with our content!

[@coolwaterz]

there’s like a lot of rambling in this video. i enjoyed it and he’s obviously a good product manager but there just feels like a lot of fluff here

[@anuradhavasudeva3639]

First question to ask in my view would be - What type of company does he belong to? Is it a start up trying to solve the problem or a company like Uber? Will this be a product for anyone driving or professional drivers? WHY are we building this?

[@tryexponent]

Hey Anuradha! Clarifying the reason behind the product is a great way to show product sense and it will form a strong foundation for your discussion throughout the interview. Great job! 💯

[@green___apple]

Isn't it a very weak answer!

[@krishsubramanian9703]

This is really awful. Not sure how can you land at Google with such a boring and unexciting experience

[@Josh-ki4bm]

This is genuinely a bad answer. The candidate never identified a clear user segment, but instead focused on a societal problem to solve - safety. No clear segment, no clear user problems, and a lot of tech-first (rather than user first) what-iffing. The interviewer attempted to give signals that this was a poor direction early on ("what made you decide on safety?") but the candidate ignored the signs. Even worse, the principles the candidate used to prioritize the solutions (time to market, feasibility, impact on safety) don't take into account whether there is a market or these or who the buyer would be. If I were hiring for a role that didn't need to build products but could sit around and brainstorm neat ideas, this is great. But 99% of product roles you need people that can map solutions to customer problems, not generic societal problems without a buyer. No hire, and don't pattern your answers based on this type of answer.

[@BlossomBerry94]

I think this interview was meh. The guy seems to have no clue of what he’s talking about not that I can come up with great answers immediately but someone who is working at Google for years should have better answers I think.

[@whattimeisitnow124]

What a terrible approach

[@garvitbandil9411]

things which i felt were missed: 1: what are we (Big compony or startup) and why are we building this product? in start of interview 2:what are existing solution. boredom - radio. 3: constrains! not everyone will make their car smart plus developing and implementation will take lot of cost 4:when the word driver was used it reminded me of Uber and Ola drivers. Considering peak hours could mean focusing on high-demand areas. Just a thought! 5:plus safety is more of a issue in less peak hours as people get room to speed.

[@tryexponent]

Hey garvitbandil9411, thanks for sharing your thoughts & feedback! Appreciate it!