Click each stage for checklists and practice questions. Hover pitfalls for recovery strategies.
Define user problem, propose solution, prioritize features
Pitfall: Jumping to solutions without understanding the problem
Preparation Checklist
- Practice user persona definition
- Master prioritization frameworks (RICE, MoSCoW)
- Prepare a structured problem-solving framework
- Study the company's product and competitors
Practice Questions
- How would you improve [company's product] for enterprise users?
- Design a new feature for a ride-sharing app that increases driver retention.
- How would you prioritize these 5 features for next quarter?
Design a system architecture for a given product
Pitfall: Over-engineering or ignoring constraints
Preparation Checklist
- Understand basic architecture patterns (microservices, monolith)
- Know common components (load balancers, caches, queues)
- Practice drawing system diagrams
- Learn to estimate scale (users, requests, storage)
Practice Questions
- Design the backend for a real-time collaboration tool.
- How would you architect a notification system at scale?
- Explain the tradeoffs between SQL and NoSQL for our use case.
Explain a technical concept or debug a scenario
Pitfall: Pretending to know more than you do
Preparation Checklist
- Review APIs, databases, and deployment basics
- Understand your past projects' technical architecture
- Practice explaining complex concepts simply
- Prepare 2-3 technical war stories
Practice Questions
- Walk me through how an API request flows through a system.
- A service is returning 500 errors intermittently. How do you investigate?
- Explain the difference between REST and GraphQL to a non-technical stakeholder.
Analyze metrics, define KPIs, investigate data anomalies
Pitfall: Not asking clarifying questions about the data
Preparation Checklist
- Know key product metrics (DAU, retention, conversion)
- Practice interpreting charts and data tables
- Understand A/B testing fundamentals
- Learn to distinguish correlation from causation
Practice Questions
- Our signup conversion dropped 15% last week. How do you investigate?
- Define the success metrics for a new onboarding flow.
- You ran an A/B test and variant B shows +5% revenue but -2% retention. What do you do?
STAR-format stories about leadership, conflict, influence
Pitfall: Being too vague or not showing your specific contribution
Preparation Checklist
- Prepare 8-10 STAR stories covering different competencies
- Include metrics and outcomes in each story
- Practice stories about failure and what you learned
- Research the company's leadership principles
Practice Questions
- Tell me about a time you influenced engineers to change technical direction.
- Describe a situation where you had to make a decision with incomplete data.
- How did you handle a disagreement with a senior stakeholder?