Choosing Which APIs Netflix Should Offer, to Whom, and Why
Company: Plaid
Role: Product Manager
Category: Product Design & Strategy
Difficulty: medium
Interview Round: Other
Netflix has decided to build API products: interfaces that outside companies or developers can build on. As the product manager asked to shape this effort, explain how you would work out what the product strategy should be, and walk through the strategy you would recommend: who the APIs serve, what they expose, how they create value for Netflix, and how you would measure success.
```hint Settle the purpose before the endpoints
Decide first whether the APIs exist to earn new revenue or to strengthen Netflix's subscription and advertising business through others. Then ask what Netflix has that an outside company would want to integrate with, and exactly who that company is.
```
### Clarifying Questions
- Is the goal new revenue from the APIs themselves, or growth in memberships, viewing and ad revenue through partners who use them?
- Who is the intended customer: device makers and telecom partners, independent developers, advertisers, or other media companies?
- May the APIs expose member data such as viewing history, and if so under what consent model?
- Are there limits from content licensing, existing partner contracts, or the risk of helping competing streaming services?
### What a Strong Answer Covers
- A clear strategic objective for the API program, tied to how Netflix makes money and set before any specific API is chosen.
- An inventory of Netflix assets that could be exposed and the customers for each, judged on customer need, Netflix's right to win, fit with the core business and risk.
- A recommended focus with a first API product, its packaging and pricing model, the developer experience it needs, and the options deliberately ruled out.
- A way to validate the strategy (partner discovery, a pilot, decision points) before scaling it.
- Success metrics and guardrails, plus risks such as member privacy, partners owning the customer relationship, licensing limits and the long-term cost of supporting an external API.
### Follow-up Questions
- If you could launch only one API in the first year, which would it be, and what would you need to see before launching a second?
- An aggregator wants to show Netflix titles in its universal search and play them inside its own interface. Where do you draw the line?
- Netflix once offered a public developer API and later shut it down. What would you do differently so the new program does not end the same way?
Overview: A product strategy question from a Plaid product manager interview: if Netflix decided to launch API products, how would you set the strategy? It tests tying an API program to Netflix's business model, weighing which assets to expose and to which customers, and defining validation steps, metrics and risks.