Therapist Discovery App: Product Design for Matching Clients With Providers
Company: Meta
Role: Product Manager
Category: Product Design & Strategy
Difficulty: medium
Interview Round: Other
Design an app that helps people search for a therapist.
```hint Narrow before you build
"Therapist" covers very different kinds of care, and the app has people looking for help on one side and providers on the other. Pick the need and the people your first version serves, and let that choice decide what the search has to match on.
```
### Clarifying Questions
- Which kind of therapy is in scope: mental health counseling, physical therapy, nutrition or something else, or is that my call?
- Which country should the first version launch in, given that licensing and insurance rules differ by place?
- Should the app stop at helping someone find a therapist, or also cover booking, payment and the sessions themselves?
- Is the product for individuals searching on their own, or also for employers, schools or clinics that refer people to care?
### What a Strong Answer Covers
- A scoping choice of therapy type, market and user segment, justified by the size of the unmet need
- Pain points specific to finding a therapist, such as fit, availability, cost and insurance, trust in credentials and stigma
- Features for both people seeking care and therapists, including how providers are listed and verified
- A prioritized first version and a plan for getting enough therapists listed before demand arrives
- Success metrics that capture good matches rather than searches, with guardrails for safety and privacy
### Follow-up Questions
- How should the app respond when someone's answers or messages suggest they are in crisis?
- In a city where few therapists have signed up yet, how would you keep people from seeing empty or unhelpful results?
- If a person stops booking sessions, how would you tell whether therapy worked or the match failed?
Overview: A product design interview question that asks candidates to design an app for finding a therapist. It tests how well a candidate scopes a two-sided marketplace, identifies the pain points of people seeking care and of providers, prioritizes a first version, and defines success metrics that reflect good matches rather than raw searches.