Design a Social Discovery Product That Brings Strangers Together Through Park Outings
Company: Meta
Role: Product Manager
Category: Product Design & Strategy
Difficulty: medium
Interview Round: Other
Propose a new product that makes gatherings in parks more social by helping people connect with others they have never met. Explain how you interpret the brief, whom you would build it for, what keeps strangers in a park apart today, what you would build first and why, and how you would know it is working.
```hint Start from one moment
Picture a specific situation in a park where someone would welcome company from a person they do not know, and work out what stops the two of them from connecting today.
```
### Clarifying Questions
- Should the product make people who are already in a park more social, or draw people to parks so that new gatherings form there?
- Does "strangers" mean anyone nearby, or people with no prior connection who share something, such as an activity?
- Should this be a standalone product, a feature inside an existing Meta app such as Facebook, or could it include something physical placed in the park?
### What a Strong Answer Covers
- A stated reading of the brief and a goal for the product, with the reason for that choice
- Groups of park visitors compared, with one chosen and the reason for the choice
- The barriers that keep strangers in a park from interacting, ranked by how much they matter to the chosen group
- Ideas prioritized against explicit criteria into a first version, including how the product gets enough people to the same park at the same time to be useful
- Trust and safety for in-person meetings between strangers, a primary success metric with guardrails, and the main risks
### Follow-up Questions
- How would you launch in a first city so that someone who opens the product near a park finds a gathering they can join?
- If many people commit to gatherings but few actually show up, what would you change?
- How would you handle a report that someone behaved inappropriately at a gathering arranged through the product?
Overview: A product-sense prompt from a Meta product manager interview: propose a new product that makes park gatherings more social by helping strangers connect. It tests how the candidate reads an open brief, picks a group of park visitors, ranks the barriers to meeting new people, prioritizes a first version, and handles safety and success metrics.