Product sense: as LinkedIn's product lead, propose and prioritize major improvements
Company: LinkedIn
Role: Product Manager
Category: Product Design & Strategy
Difficulty: medium
Interview Round: Other
You are the product lead at LinkedIn. It is the social network professionals use more than any other, but members widely agree it has real flaws. Which big improvements would you make? Set the goal for the improvements, choose who you are improving LinkedIn for, propose and prioritize the changes, and explain how you would know they worked.
```hint Map the surfaces first
List LinkedIn's main surfaces and the groups that depend on or pay for each one, then narrow to the place where a fix would matter most to members and to the business.
```
### Clarifying Questions
- Is the improvement meant to deepen member engagement, improve outcomes in the jobs marketplace, or grow paid lines such as Premium, recruiting and advertising products?
- Is the whole platform in scope (feed, networking, messaging, jobs, learning), or should I focus on one surface?
- Can the people I design for be paying customers such as recruiters, advertisers or sales teams, or only members?
- Are you looking for a few large bets or a roadmap of smaller fixes?
### What a Strong Answer Covers
- A stated objective for the improvement, tied to how LinkedIn creates value for members and earns revenue
- Member and customer segments compared, with one chosen and the reason for the choice
- Pain points drawn from that segment's journey and ranked, including how fixing them affects the other groups on the platform
- Several big improvements compared on explicit criteria, ending in a clear call on what to build first
- A primary success metric with guardrails, a way to test the change, and the main risks with mitigations
### Follow-up Questions
- Your top improvement helps one group on LinkedIn but adds work or cost for another. How would you decide whether that trade is worth making?
- How would you test the improvement before a full launch, and what result would make you stop?
- How would you confirm that the flaw you chose is one members actually feel most, rather than one you assumed?
Overview: A product sense question that casts the candidate as LinkedIn's product lead and asks which big improvements they would make to the professional network members use most. It tests choosing a goal and a member or customer segment, ranking pain points and solutions, and defining success metrics with guardrails and risks.