Did the Airbnb PM loop last quarter for a senior PM role on the hosting side. Sharing the questions and my read on what they're actually evaluating, because the PM process is different from the SWE loop and there's not much on it.
The rounds: For PM it was: recruiter screen, product sense interview, analytical interview, leadership/behavioral interview, and a final cross-functional round. Five total.
Product sense: This is the core round for Airbnb PM. You get a 45-minute case that's almost always Airbnb-specific. Mine was roughly: "How would you improve the experience for first-time hosts who drop off within 90 days?" They want you to show: Customer empathy (who are these hosts, what do they actually need) Structured problem decomposition Clear prioritization with rationale, not just a brainstorm list How you'd measure success
They pushed back on my metric choice and asked me to defend it. Have a backup metric and be able to say why it's second, not first.
Analytical round: Given a hypothetical data scenario. "Bookings on mobile are down 15% this week, diagnose." Classic product analytics case. Know your funnel decomposition, seasonality explanations, experiment validity basics. I got a follow-up about running an A/B test on the thing I'd hypothesize.
Behavioral / leadership: Airbnb PM behavioral leans heavily on influence without authority. "Tell me about a time you drove alignment across teams where you had no direct authority" came up almost word for word. The values show up here too, same as the SWE behavioral.
What I'd tell my past self: Prepare 3-4 Airbnb-specific product critiques (guest flow, host onboarding, search ranking). They want you to have used the product and have genuine opinions. The analytical round is not as hard as consulting case interviews but harder than a lot of PM roles I've interviewed for. Brush up on basic statistics and A/B test design.
Didn't get the offer on this loop but the process was genuinely good. Feedback was more specific than anywhere else I've been.