Uber
What makes Uber unique is that after a round or two of behavioral and light case questions, you are put through what they all a Jam Session.
First we explain the Jam Session and follow it with sample questions from various sources.
The Jam Session
The jam session is a great way to show us how you would approach problems in your day-to-day life at Uber and showcase your skillsets across a few areas we use to assess product managers here:
Problem understanding
Opportunity sizing
User research and data
Clear goal setting
Prioritization
Ideation and creativity
Experimentation and metrics
Self-reflection
It’s also an opportunity for you to dive deeper into an Uber topic that not even we are experts in. The idea is that you lead a whiteboard-driven discussion on-site around the prompt. Please do not prepare a presentation (it’s a whiteboard exercise) but it’s a good idea to spend time structuring your thinking.
Tips:
Begin the jam by sharing your framework for how you will approach the problem
Ask lots of questions (shows us how you think)
Be open to completely throwing away your prepared thoughts if the answers to your questions take the ideal solution in a different direction
Be very clear on the goal and how you will measure success
Consider all stakeholders, their needs, and pain points
Prioritize, prioritize, prioritize (and tell us why)
Check the time throughout the jam and keep the conversation on pace to finish in time
Remember, we are not looking for any particular answer, just to see how you think.
Prompt: Increasing the basket value for Uber Eats Orders
The basket value for Uber Eats orders has been steadily decreasing over the last 6 months as we have been growing our number of orders. This impacts both the restaurants on our platform as well as Uber’s revenue which comes from the commission we take on each order. We’d like to reverse this trend.
How would you as a PM on the Uber Eats team help turn the tide. Questions to consider:
What effect does the composition of restaurants have on the basket value at checkout?
How should we balance the needs of all sides of the marketplace (Restaurants, Couriers, and Eaters)?
What parts of the UI and UX could have an effect on the checkout value?
How can couriers impact the basket value?
Across all of the above, we want you to lead the discussion and be confident in your opinions. Also, we'll vet on how you take feedback when challenged on any of the assumptions/opinions. Please let me know if you have any questions or if you'd like to jump on a quick call to review.
Sample Questions
A super-app like Grab decides to launch a new vertical (perhaps peer-to-peer car rental). In the first six months, what metrics would you look at to see if this new vertical looks promising?
Restaurants that use Uber Eats usually have tablets running a merchant-facing app. Tell me how you think this app works and how you’d improve it.
Tell me about a time when your team didn’t have anyone to do a particular role, so you took it on yourself. What were the biggest challenges you faced?
Walk me through how a scheduling algorithm works.
What metrics to measure in designing the Estimated time of arrival model?
How to reduce driver canceling
Assume you are the product owner for Airbnb’s Mobile app and that there is a data point that indicates that there are more mobile web than mobile app users of Airbnb. Please describe why this could be the case, and describe what you would do within the product to change that
How would you evaluate a dataset we're going to purchase that has competitor data on rides (in the U.S.)?
Design a parking garage app
What is the north star metric for campaign to incentivize dormant users with $10 credit?
How did you handle a situation as Product operations manager when 2 of your stakeholders wanted to prioritize their own request.
Design an app for Disneyland
There is a cohort of users who are sensitive to surge pricing. What product decision would you make to address this? How would you understand tradeoff?
Improve driver pickup experience of Uber
Make uber eats better so we can hit our goals
Assume you are the PM for UberPool and you are trying to drive adoption and engagement for UberPool post-pandemic. What are the metrics you would track to validate the business model of UberPool?
Solve the problem of lost phones in ubers
What metrics would you track for Uber Pool in the first 6 months of the product launch?
As a Product manager at a food delivery app, you observe a downward trend in number of orders fulfilled. How would you identify the root cause??
Let’s say that you are the PM for Uber Eats and assume that helping users eat healthier will improve engagement. What new feature will you build to test this assumption?
Uber is built primarily for a core use case of pickups and drop-offs in urban and suburban environments (E.g. home/work/vacations). It doesn’t always work well at events such as concerts, sporting events, and festivals. How will you make Uber to/from large events (10K+ attendees) a magical experience for riders and drivers.
Restaurants that use Uber Eats usually have tablets running a merchant-facing app. Tell me how you think this app works and how you’d improve it.
Tell me about a time when you filled in for a teammate in a role you weren’t specialized in.