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Business Metrics Definition and Strategy Questions

Emphasizes defining meaningful metrics and measurement frameworks that answer business questions and drive decisions. Candidates should be able to distinguish between count metrics, ratio metrics, and rate metrics; select appropriate observation windows and time alignment for retention, churn, and conversion analyses; account for multiple user touch points and events when attributing actions; and identify leading versus lagging indicators. This topic covers designing metric definitions that avoid double counting, selecting denominators and numerators that match the business question, segmenting users for insight, and documenting business logic to ensure consistency. At senior levels expect discussion of trade offs between simplicity and fidelity, governance of metric definitions, and how to prioritize which metrics matter for different stakeholders.

HardSystem Design
0 practiced
System design (hard): Design a canonical metrics platform for a company that ingests 1B events/day from multiple teams and exposes a 'metric-as-a-service' API for product and finance. Requirements: canonical definitions with versioning and lineage, near-real-time access for dashboards, reliable historical backfills, and access control. Sketch architecture, data stores, metadata/catalog components, and how you would enforce consistency.
EasyTechnical
0 practiced
Describe what 'double counting' means in metric reporting. Give two realistic examples where double counting commonly occurs in product metrics, explain why it biases results, and propose two concrete strategies to avoid double counting in instrumentation and aggregation.
HardTechnical
0 practiced
Design reliability checks (hard): Propose a set of automated validation tests and monitoring rules you would implement to detect metric anomalies and data quality issues for critical KPIs (DAU, conversion rate, revenue). Include statistical tests, threshold checks, and instrumentation health signals.
HardTechnical
0 practiced
Ethics and leadership (hard): The CFO privately asks you to adjust how churn is calculated for the current quarter so the topline KPI looks better for upcoming investor meetings. How would you respond? Outline the ethical, legal, and product implications and propose a principled alternative approach to address the CFO's concerns while maintaining metric integrity.
MediumTechnical
0 practiced
Scenario (medium): You have a long list of 12 metrics requested by executives for the next quarter. The company is focused on early growth (user acquisition). How would you prioritize which 3 metrics to report weekly to executives and which supporting metrics to track in the product team dashboard? Explain your rationale.

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