YouTube Product Sense: Choose an Underserved User Group, Invent a Feature, Define Success
Company: Google
Role: Product Manager
Category: Product Design & Strategy
Difficulty: medium
Interview Round: Other
You are a product manager at YouTube. Propose a new feature for the product: decide whom it is for and which problem it solves, then explain how you would know it is working.
```hint Anchor on one situation
YouTube serves viewers, creators and advertisers in very different settings. Pick one group and one concrete moment where today's experience breaks down before brainstorming, and check your idea against tools YouTube already offers.
```
### Clarifying Questions
- Which surface is in scope: the main app with long-form video, Shorts, YouTube Music, YouTube Kids or the TV app?
- Is there a business goal to serve, such as viewer engagement, Premium subscriptions or creator growth, or is the goal mine to set?
- May I choose whether the feature serves viewers, creators or advertisers?
- Are there constraints on market or platform, for example mobile first in one region?
### What a Strong Answer Covers
- A goal tied to YouTube's mission and business, and a deliberate choice among viewer, creator and advertiser segments with reasons the others wait
- Pain points grounded in a specific usage moment rather than generic complaints such as "discovery is hard"
- Several candidate features prioritized with stated criteria, and one designed concretely enough to scope an MVP
- A north-star metric with guardrails that protect ad revenue, creators and the quality of watch time
- Risks, edge cases and how the feature fits alongside what YouTube already has
### Follow-up Questions
- How would your feature affect creators and ad revenue, and what would you do to keep creators on board?
- Your A/B test shows more completed sessions but lower ad revenue per view. Do you ship, and what would you change?
- How would the design change on a living-room TV, where the viewer sits far from the screen and holds only a remote?
Overview: A Google product manager interview question asking the candidate to propose a new YouTube feature. It tests choosing a user segment among viewers, creators and advertisers, grounding pain points in a real usage moment, prioritizing solutions and defining a north-star metric with guardrails.