Lyft Product Manager Interview

The Lyft interview process typically starts with a recruiter screen. It's pretty straightforward — they'll ask you about your background, experiences, and why you're interested in joining Lyft as a product manager. So, be ready with a genuine but concise summary of your professional background and your motivations for joining the rideshare company. As for your past experiences, make sure to gather your thoughts and narrow down specific examples that highlight your product management abilities.

Beyond this, they'll also help you figure out which team/role at Lyft is the best fit for you based on your background. Make sure you take this opportunity to ask them any questions you might have about the role, team dynamics, company culture, or any specific projects you'll be working on.

After the recruiter screen, Lyft typically conducts two phone interviews before your in-person interview with Lyft—focus on Product and Execution.

• Product Screen: This one is to assess your product management skills; you might be asked about your experience with product strategy, feature prioritisation, user experience design, and metrics analysis.
• Execution Interview: This one is to evaluate  your ability to execute tasks effectively as well as drive projects to completion. You'll likely encounter questions about project management, problem-solving, and handling challenges.

Both interviews are pretty similar to the ones you'll have during your in-person interview, however, the screenings are relatively less in-depth. Usually, there's about a two-week gap between the phone screens and the in-person interview.

Product Screen

• Can you walk me through how you prioritise features on a product roadmap?
• How would you approach improving user retention for a ridesharing app like Lyft?
• Tell me about a time when you had to make a tough product decision.

Execution Interview

• Describe a project you led from conception to launch.
• How do you ensure deadlines are met when working on cross-functional projects?
• Tell me about a time when you had to deal with conflicting priorities. How did you handle it?

Coming to the onsite round, there are three types of interviews you will face:

• Product Sense (Design & Strategy)
• Product Execution
• Leadership and Experience (behavioural)

Let's dive deeper into these:

Product Sense

The Product Sense interview at Lyft focuses on your understanding of products, creativity, and instincts. Essentially, they want to see if you can build out a product strategy, design it, critique and improve existing products, and so on.

Questions could go something like “Tell me about a product that you believe is great and why” or “What would you do if you were a PM or the CEO of X company?” They might also propose an existing Lyft product and ask you to discuss your strategies to improve and evolve it. 

It's crucial to have a structured thought process and to stay focused on your initial idea or goal throughout the discussion. Sure your interviewer will guide you along the way, but they expect you to take the lead.

So, make sure you familiarise yourself with a variety of products, both within and outside the transportation industry. Analyse what makes them successful/innovative, and practice brainstorming and generating ideas for product improvements or new features. It's a great idea to practise this round with mock interviewers, especially those who have experience, for example Lyft PMs or senior PMs that you can find on platforms like Prepfully. 

Product Execution

In the Product Execution interview, the focus is on analytical skills, metrics, and KPIs. As a data-driven company, Lyft expects product managers to be able to use data effectively to make decisions.

You'll be asked how you identify and prioritize opportunities, and then execute plans to build products. They'll want to know how you analyse constraints and problems to figure out the right metrics for measuring success. They want to know if you are adaptable and have problem-solving skills in a dynamic environment. So, questions like “how do you handle changes and problems when new information comes up?” will also come up.

Beyond that, be prepared for estimation and analytical questions like "How much money is spent on gas in the US annually?" or "What's the percentage of millennials who own homes in the US?”

Leadership and Behavioral

The behavioural interview will largely focus on your capability to lead yourself and your team through various challenges. This is because collaborating with a diverse team of engineers, product designers, and analysts is a big part of the PM job at Lyft. 

Interviewers will be keen to see if you can get cross-functional teams to navigate and solve problems together. They will be looking for evidence that you can adapt your leadership approach to different situations or individuals (high/low performing team members) while maximising available resources.

Agreed this interview lacks the structured format of others but it's equally important in the overall elimination process. So, be sure to think ahead and jot down relevant, concrete, and concise examples from your past experiences that illustrate the qualities Lyft values. 

Plenty of candidates stumble in behavioural/leadership interviews because they're not quite well-prepared for it. Your interviewers want to see that you learned from these experiences, not just successfully dealt with them. Whether it's successfully steering a project to fruition, navigating through adversity, or fostering seamless teamwork, they want clear examples of your skills. Which is why a bit of professional help in this scenario can go a long way since these interviews have a habit of going down tangents you can't anticipate beforehand; and it's less the "content" part of the practice and more the "mindset" that practising with coaches can help you get into, that is the most valuable part of working with a coach. Prepfully has excellent PMs at Lyft and other top companies who provide 1-1 interview coaching. Book a slot with them directly here.

Finally, if you make it past the on-site interview, they'll match you with potential teams where you'll have exploratory calls with the managers on those teams. These future conversations are less like interviews and more like conversations, where you can get to know the team and determine mutual fit for the role.

Product Sense

• How would you design the Lyft app for the blind?
• How would you design a dashboard for a food delivery service?
• How would you design an advanced ticket purchase app for a commuter railroad?
• How would you design the Caltrain mobile app?
• How would you design an efficient ETA system?
• How would you improve the pin drop functionality for the Lyft app?
• How would you roll out an algorithm improvement for driver matching?
• How would you solve Lyft's commute problem?
• Describe your process for developing an MVP for Lyft Kids.
• How would you improve Lyft?
• How do we launch Lyft in a new city?
• If Lyft were to get into the parking business, what would you do?
• How could we get more drivers to come downtown during peak demand?

Product Execution

• What analytics should Lyft consider important?
• What are the KPIs that you would keep in mind for Lyft?
• Measure the success of a new product and develop a dashboard for it.
• Triage a drop in a metric by 5% WoW.
• There is a spike in cancellations this week. Why could this be the case?
• If a large number of drivers are dropping out of a particular city, why would it be?
• How would you execute and assure supply for surge pricing?

Leadership and Behavioral

• Why are you interested in joining Lyft?
• Can you walk me through your previous work experience?
• Can you describe a challenge you faced in your previous role?
• Tell me about a time when you disagreed with your boss or manager. How did you handle it?
• What is your approach to managing projects?
• How do you prioritise competing tasks or projects?
• How do you handle ambiguity or uncertainty in your work?