Master the Product Metrics Interview

Easily one of the most subjective, and tough to nail on the spot, interviews

Metrics interviews are deceptively difficult:

• How would you measure the launch of GPT-4.5?

• Instagram stories are suddenly down 7% today. What do you do?

• If we were to launch a new pricing plan tomorrow, how would you measure success?

These are questions we all can answer to some degree… but answer in a way that’s impressive for a senior PM audience at top companies? That’s quite a bit harder.

And these questions are really relevant: they actually simulate what being a PM is like. Which means you’ve likely already seen several “normal” guides on this interview.

But to succeed in today’s brutal job market requires you to not just follow the standard playbooks, but do things to stand out.

That’s what today’s piece is for.

Tried and Tested Strategies

In my career, I've sat on both sides of the table for 100s of metrics interviews. So I had a good idea of what to include in this post.

But over the last 3 months, I’ve taken it up a notch. I’ve been working with several PMs stuck in the interview stage product metrics.

All of them have now gotten jobs. So, today, I’m ready to crack open the advice column for you. This will include “earned advice” you can only get from having sat on all three sides of the aisle: interviewee, interviewer, and coach.

Structure

Here’s the outline for our journey over the next 14,000 words.

Part 1: The Basics

• History of the Product Metrics Interview

• Common Users of the Product Metrics Interview

• What Doe the Product Metrics Interview Actually Test?

Part 2: The Toolkit

• Principles + Frameworks

• Unconventional Techniques to Stand Out

• Top 93 Questions to Prepare in 5 Key Categories

Part 3: 8 Question Response Examples

• Behavioral Questions

• Real Case Interview Examples

Part 4: Practice Smart with My Interview GPT

It’s the value of a $500 course and $200 coaching call - as part of one of the 100 articles you receive a year for just $150.

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Part 1: The Basics

1.1 History of the Product Metrics Interview

Believe it or not, PM metrics questions are amongst the oldest of PM interview questions.

But they really took off as the PM case interview took off ~2008-2009:

Why? Because they’re amongst the most realistic assessments of the PM job. These are the types of assessments most PMs have to make - especially in big companies.

While they’re not as sexy as product sense, or product design, some type of metrics interview question began embedding itself in nearly every big tech company’s hiring process:

• Microsoft calls it “Analytical”

• Google calls it “Analytics & Metrics”

• Meta used to called it “Execution” and now calls it “Analytical Thinking”

As big tech goes, so go medium-size companies - a few years later.

And as go mid-size companies go startups - a few years further delayed.

This process continued so that, as of 2025, a majority of PM interview processes will throw you at least one metrics question.

Meaning: any job-searching PM has to be prepared to master them.

1.2 Most Common Users of the Product Metrics Interview

Who specifically uses products metrics interviews?

These are who I know to:

• MAANG: Meta, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, Google… they all are using metrics questions.

• Companies with case interviews: Almost all companies that have PM case interviews have one that is some variant of success metrics. I’ve advised people who faced these questions at all of the below.

  • Marketplaces: Doordash, Uber, Wayfair

  • SaaS: Slack, Notion, Atlassian, HubSpot

  • AI: OpenAI, Anthropic, Jasper, Midjourney

  • HealthTech: Ro, Zocdoc, Noom, Headspace

  • FinTech: Stripe, Square, Robinhood, Plaid

  • Gaming: Epic Games, Roblox, Riot Games, Zynga

• Companies with PM founders: Companies like Asana, Coda, and others with founders of PM backgrounds use the interview

The places where you won’t see product metrics interview questions are those that focus on homework, behavioral questions, and presentations.

1.3 What does a Product Metrics Interview test?

The funny thing about the product metrics interview is companies differ on whether there is a right answer! There are two main flavors of companies:

1. “There is a right answer, let’s evaluate the percent they got”

   This is exemplified by companies like DoorDash and Wayfair, where if you miss a major part of the case, you will likely not pass
   

2. “There is a rubric, and we’ll grade them against skills, but there’s not right answer”

   This is what you’ll find at most big tech companies like Google and Meta (with Amazon as a notable exception), where they focus on the skills you demonstrate

So the first thing you want to do is figure out what kind of company you are interviewing at. Your recruiter should be able to help you with this information. If they don’t, be sure to send strategic cold emails and personalized LinkedIn invites to people who were formerly PMs at the company to have them spill the tea. Also check your network to see if you know someone who works there and is willing to share.

If you’re at a company with a rubric, this is typically how those rubrics are structured (this is 90% of what the rubric we had at Apollo.io when I was VP of Product):

1. Structured Problem Approach: Did you ask the right clarifying questions and do the right thinking before diving in to understand all elements of the case?

   • Strong Pass candidates identify all stakeholders, talk about all sides of the marketplace, talk about positive and negative metrics, and identify trade-offs well

2. Strategic Metric Selection: Did you choose the right overall goals for metrics?

   • Strong Pass candidates choose the right things to look at in terms of metrics, holistically covering everything

3. Technical Operationalization: Did you operationalize metrics well?

   • Strong Pass candidates choose the right specific definitions of metrics that are sensitive, trustworthy, efficient, debuggable, interpretable & actionable, and inclusive/fair

4. Trade-off Evaluation: Did you address the right positive and negative sides of a change? Do you understand the both sides and tradeoffs?

   • Strong Pass candidates always speak to tradeoffs, cover both positive and negative sides, and speak to potential guardrail/tripwire metrics

Company-Specific Nuances

There’s often some company-specific nuances, too. Several I’m aware of are:

• Meta: Scale thinking (billions of users) and 2 cases per interview

• Amazon: Leadership principles demonstration and customer obsession

• Google: Technical depth and estimation skills

• Stripe: Technical problem-solving and precision in quantification

• DoorDash: A/B testing expertise and marketplace dynamics understanding

Types of Cases

There are 5 major types of PM metrics cases you will see:

1. Success Metrics: Test your ability to define and measure a new product or feature’s success.

   How would you measure the success of launching GPT-4.5? If we introduced a new pricing plan, what metrics would you track to evaluate its impact?

2. Diagnostics: Test your ability to diagnose a sudden metric change systematically.

   Instagram Stories dropped 7% today. Why? DAUs are down 5%. How would you investigate?

3. Experimentation: Test your ability to design experiments and measure outcomes.

   How would you design an A/B test to measure the impact of a new onboarding flow? If we want to test a new recommendation algorithm, what metrics would you track?

4. Metric Definition: Test your ability to create measurable, goal-aligned metrics.

   How would you define a metric to measure user engagement on a new social media feature? What metric would you create to track the adoption of a new payment feature?

5. Trade-off Analysis: Test your ability to measure trade-offs with positive and negative metrics.

   If we prioritize faster content loading but it reduces content quality, how would you measure the trade-offs? How would you assess the impact of increasing ad frequency on user retention?

Clearly, each is different. So we’ll include an entire example of one of each at the end of this piece. But before that, let’s go through the common principles.

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Part 2: The Principles

So now that we know all the basics, let’s get into the meat: how do you actually rock the Product Metrics interview?