Business Strategy & Performance Topics
Business strategy, competitive analysis, market opportunities, and strategic innovation. Includes market research, competitive positioning, and business planning.
Market Research and Customer Insights
Focuses on approaches to understanding market context and extracting customer insights that inform strategy. Includes primary and secondary market research methods, target audience segmentation, trend and opportunity identification, competitor and landscape analysis, market sizing and adoption assessment, value proposition and positioning analysis, and pricing and go to market considerations. Covers how to synthesize market level findings with customer level research to identify product market fit opportunities, prioritize strategic initiatives, and inform roadmap and business decisions.
Company and Business Context
Demonstrating knowledge of the broader company and industry context in which the role operates, including business model, market dynamics, competitive position, strategic priorities, financial implications, regulatory or operational constraints, and common project management or product development philosophies at major technology companies. This includes awareness of how the role contributes to business outcomes and the methodologies the company commonly uses to plan and measure work.
Competitive Analysis and Positioning
Comprehensive skills and frameworks for researching competitors, assessing market landscapes, and defining defensible positioning and differentiation strategies. Candidates should be able to identify direct and indirect competitors, map competitor strengths and weaknesses, benchmark product features, pricing, messaging, distribution and go to market approaches, and evaluate moats and vulnerabilities. Expect techniques such as competitor profiling, perceptual mapping, feature comparison matrices, win loss analysis, market segmentation, customer and persona development, jobs to be done analysis, hypothesis driven opportunity sizing, and white space identification. Strong answers translate analysis into actionable recommendations for product direction, pricing, messaging and go to market alignment, including prioritization of where to compete or avoid and anticipation of competitive responses. Candidates should also be able to recommend partnership and ecosystem strategies, create battle cards and executive summaries, and communicate competitive insights effectively to product, marketing, sales, partnerships and leadership to influence strategy and execution.
Strategic Thinking and Market Dynamics
Focuses on the ability to think strategically about market-level opportunities and threats. Areas include market sizing and total addressable market analysis, competitor and positioning assessment, identifying macroeconomic and user behavior trends that create or constrain growth, prioritizing market segments, articulating product market fit and differentiation, scenario planning and risk assessment, and translating market insights into strategic objectives and measurable growth initiatives. Interview evaluation emphasizes structured problem solving, hypotheses driven analysis, and clear communication of strategic tradeoffs and recommendations.
Market Intelligence and Competitive Positioning
Covers the methods and practices for gathering and synthesizing market and competitor information and translating those insights into product positioning and strategic choices. Candidates should describe primary and secondary research techniques such as customer interviews and surveys, usage and telemetry analysis, analyst reports, partner and channel feedback, and public filings. They should explain technical competitive analysis approaches including architecture and performance benchmarking, win loss studies, and feature mapping, and how those analyses inform messaging, differentiation and product roadmap decisions. This topic also includes integrating customer voice and market feedback into prioritization, defining market trends and opportunity sizing, and establishing metrics to measure share of mind, adoption and strategic impact.
Quick Scenario Analysis and Trade Off Thinking
For quick scenarios like 'Should we increase R&D spending 20% despite margin pressure?' Show analytical rigor: 'I'd analyze: 1) Current R&D ROI (revenue attributed per R&D dollar), 2) Competitive R&D intensity, 3) Long-term revenue impact of R&D investments, 4) Cash generation capability to fund increase.' Avoid simplistic yes/no answers. Instead, present framework: 'It depends on our strategic priority and cash position. Here's how I'd approach the decision...'
Market and Competitive Analysis
Assessment of market dynamics, customer segments, and the competitive landscape to inform product, go to market, and business strategy. Candidates should be able to identify and prioritize key competitors, compare strengths and weaknesses, map target customer segments and buyer personas, and perform market sizing and segmentation to quantify opportunity and risk. This topic includes evaluating market trends and adoption patterns, interpreting competitive moves, and using evidence and metrics such as market share trends, growth rates, customer acquisition cost, and unit economics to justify recommendations. It also covers developing defensible positioning and differentiation, translating competitive insights into go to market messaging, sales and marketing differentiation, pricing and channel choices, product roadmap decisions, and identifying product or content gaps. Candidates should be able to describe frameworks and methods for competitor and market assessment, outline how to monitor competitors and market signals over time, and explain how external insights drive prioritization and strategic tradeoffs across product, marketing, and sales.
Market Research and Competitive Intelligence
Methods and practices for conducting market research, monitoring competitors, and converting market signals into actionable strategy. Candidates should demonstrate familiarity with qualitative and quantitative research techniques, competitive mapping, market sizing, trend tracking, win loss analysis, partner and ecosystem assessment, data sources and tools for competitive monitoring, and ways to surface insights for product, sales, and recruiting decisions. This topic tests the ability to design research approaches, interpret competitor moves, and translate findings into tactical recommendations.