Starlink Product Design: Growing the Number of Devices Connected to the Service
Company: Google
Role: Product Manager
Category: Product Design & Strategy
Difficulty: medium
Interview Round: Other
Suppose you are the product manager for Starlink, the SpaceX service that uses a fleet of satellites to make internet access available far more widely, including in places that ground networks serve poorly or not at all. Your objective is acquisition, which for this question means the total count of devices that use the service. How would you design the product to push that count as high as possible? Cover whom you would target, what you would build or change, how you would prioritize, and how you would track progress.
```hint Unpack the metric
Break the device count into the factors that multiply together to produce it, and ask which factor the product can move fastest for the least cost.
```
### Clarifying Questions
- Does a "device" mean a Starlink terminal (the dish), or every phone, laptop and other gadget that connects through the service?
- Can the plan change hardware and pricing, or only software and the service experience?
- Are vehicles, ships and aircraft in scope alongside homes and businesses?
- Should network capacity be treated as a fixed limit in each area, or can I assume it grows to meet demand?
### What a Strong Answer Covers
- A precise definition of what counts as a device, and a breakdown of the device count into levers the product can move
- Target segments compared, with a choice of where to focus first and why
- The barriers that stop the chosen segment from connecting, ranked
- Product changes prioritized against explicit criteria, including network capacity, cost and local regulation
- A primary metric with guardrails on service quality for existing customers, plus the main risks
### Follow-up Questions
- If adding devices in a busy area slows the service for existing customers, how would you trade acquisition against quality?
- How would your plan change if the interviewer said a device means a terminal, not every gadget connected through one?
- What first experiment would you run, and what result would change your plan?
Overview: A product design question about Starlink asking how to maximize acquisition, defined as the total number of devices using the satellite internet service. It tests defining and decomposing a device-count metric, choosing segments, and weighing hardware cost, network capacity and regulation against growth.