How to Answer "How Would You Improve Our Product?"

This question is a live product sense test. Interviewers want to see how you think about products when given an open canvas: do you start with users or features, do you prioritize by impact or novelty, and can you articulate a clear rationale for your recommendations?

The best answers demonstrate genuine product usage, empathy for users, structured analysis, and strategic awareness of the company's position in its market.

What Interviewers Are Really Assessing

• Product sense: Can you identify meaningful problems versus cosmetic issues?
• User empathy: Do you ground recommendations in user needs and pain points?
• Strategic awareness: Do your suggestions align with the company's business model and competitive position?
• Structured thinking: Do you follow a logical process or jump to random feature ideas?
• Prioritization instinct: Can you explain why your top recommendation matters most?

How to Structure Your Answer

Follow this framework: (1) acknowledge what the product does well, (2) identify the target user and their core job-to-be-done, (3) pinpoint a specific friction point or unmet need, (4) propose a solution with rationale, and (5) explain how you would measure success.

Sample Answers by Career Level

Entry-Level Example

Situation: Interviewing at a project management SaaS company. Answer: "I've been using your product for two weeks on a personal project. The task creation and assignment flows are excellent—very intuitive. But I noticed a gap in the onboarding experience. When I first signed up, I landed on an empty dashboard with no guidance on where to start. I checked your app store reviews and saw this mentioned repeatedly. I'd improve the first-time user experience by adding an interactive project template that walks new users through creating their first project, adding a task, and inviting a teammate. I'd measure success by tracking the percentage of new users who complete their first project within 24 hours—my hypothesis is this would increase from what I'd estimate is around 20% to over 50%, which should meaningfully improve your 7-day retention."

Mid-Career Example

Situation: Interviewing at a fintech company offering personal budgeting tools. Answer: "Your product excels at tracking spending after it happens, but I see an opportunity in the predictive space. After using the app for a month and interviewing three friends who also use it, the common frustration is that the app tells you that you overspent but doesn't help you avoid it. I'd build a proactive notification system that alerts users three days before a recurring bill, warns them when spending pace suggests they'll exceed their budget category by month-end, and suggests specific adjustments. This shifts the product from reactive tracking to proactive financial coaching. I'd prioritize this over other improvements because it directly addresses the retention challenge most budgeting apps face—users abandon them when they feel the app just judges them rather than helping. I'd measure success through weekly active usage and 90-day retention, targeting a 15% retention improvement."

Senior-Level Example

Situation: Interviewing at a B2B collaboration platform. Answer: "Your platform has strong adoption within teams, but I see a strategic opportunity in the cross-team collaboration gap. After analyzing your product and your competitors, I notice that most collaboration tools optimize for intra-team communication but make cross-team coordination cumbersome—separate channels, duplicated files, misaligned project views. I'd build a cross-team project layer that lets teams share specific projects with controlled visibility, maintain their own workflows while seeing dependencies, and get unified reporting across organizational boundaries. This aligns with your enterprise growth strategy because cross-team usage dramatically increases switching costs and per-seat expansion. I'd validate this with design partner interviews from your top 20 enterprise accounts, prototype in four weeks, and measure by tracking the percentage of enterprise accounts with active cross-team projects."

Common Mistakes to Avoid

• Suggesting features the product already has: This signals you didn't use the product thoroughly. Always verify your suggestion doesn't already exist.
• Ignoring the business model: Suggesting features that conflict with how the company makes money—like making a paid feature free—shows lack of strategic awareness.
• Surface-level suggestions: UI color changes or minor copy tweaks don't demonstrate product thinking. Focus on meaningful user problems.

Practice This Question

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