Product sense: invent a better elevator for a building type and rider group you choose
Company: Google
Role: Product Manager
Category: Product Design & Strategy
Difficulty: medium
Interview Round: Other
You are asked to design an elevator. The prompt names no building, no users and no business goal, so choosing them is part of the exercise. Decide who you are building for, identify what frustrates those people today, propose the product and its priorities, and explain how you would measure whether it succeeds.
```hint Choose the building before the features
Waiting, safety and access needs differ a great deal between an office tower at the start of the workday, a hospital and an apartment block. Let the setting you pick decide which problems matter most.
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### Clarifying Questions
- Are we an elevator manufacturer selling to building owners, or a company adding technology to elevators that are already installed?
- What kind of building is this for, such as an office tower, a residential block, a hospital or a mall, and roughly how tall is it?
- Which outcome matters most: winning new building contracts, a better experience for riders, or lower running and maintenance costs for owners?
- Is this a new installation, or a replacement inside an existing building's shafts?
### What a Strong Answer Covers
- A deliberate choice of building type and rider segment, with the paying customer (owner or developer) distinguished from the people who ride.
- Pain points specific to the chosen setting, such as peak-hour waits, crowding, accessibility and breakdowns.
- Features ranked by reach, impact and effort, with legally required safety treated as the baseline rather than the pitch.
- Success metrics for both riders and the building owner, such as peak wait and trip time, availability and maintenance cost.
- Risks and trade-offs such as privacy, cost, rider confusion and behavior when systems fail.
### Follow-up Questions
- The building owner cares most about lower running and maintenance costs, while tenants complain about morning queues. How do you balance the two in your design?
- If your design identifies riders by badge, phone or face, what privacy and security problems arise, and how would you address them?
- How would your design change if the building were a small residential block instead of the setting you chose?
Overview: An open-ended product design question that asks a product manager candidate to design an elevator. It tests choosing a building type and rider segment, telling the paying customer apart from the riders, finding pain points, prioritizing features, and defining success metrics and risks.