Google Maps: a parking marketplace for spot owners and drivers

You are a PM on Google Maps. Design a parking solution that connects urban spot owners with drivers who need short-term parking.

Context

In dense cities drivers circle for parking while private spots (homes, offices, shops) sit empty for hours. Maps already knows where drivers are heading and when they will arrive.

Clarifying questions to ask first

Which cities first?
Do we take payments?
Private spots only, or public lots too?

How to approach it

Clarify the business goal and tie the product to the company's mission before touching solutions
Segment users by behaviour or need (not just age), cover the whole ecosystem, and pick one segment with explicit criteria
Walk the end-to-end journey and separate real pain points from feature requests
Brainstorm a range of solutions (quick fix, data/ML, moonshot) and prioritise with impact vs effort
Define a North Star, funnel metrics and guardrails, then call out risks, edge cases and mitigations

Framework: Goal & mission -> Ecosystem & segment choice -> Journey & pain points -> Solutions & prioritisation -> Metrics & guardrails -> Risks & edge cases

Sample answer

Supply: homeowners, offices, small businesses, public lots. Demand: commuters, errand runners, event-goers
Individual spot owners are underserved and add supply where it is scarcest
Liquidity in a small area matters more than coverage

Journey: plan trip > see parking at destination > reserve > navigate to spot > access > pay > leave
Solutions: parking layer at destination, reserve-and-navigate, owner listing with time windows, access codes
Metrics: North Star = completed reservations; guardrails = no-access incidents, owner churn, time-to-park

A reserve-and-navigate parking layer launched in one dense area, seeded with small business and home spots. Measure completed reservations, guarded by access failures and owner churn.

What interviewers look for

Two-sided ecosystem and liquidity
Segment choice with explicit criteria
Trust and access logistics
Maps-native advantage