Improve Facebook Birthday Experience | Dataford Interview Questions

Company Context

Meta operates Facebook at global scale, serving billions of users across feed, groups, messaging, and profile surfaces. Birthdays are a long-standing social use case on Facebook, but the experience has become fragmented across notifications, profile posts, Stories, and Messenger.

Problem

Facebook still helps users remember birthdays, but the current experience often feels low-effort and repetitive: generic wall posts, notification fatigue, and limited ways to celebrate meaningfully. Internal research suggests that while birthday notifications drive short-term engagement, many users—especially younger users—see birthday interactions as performative rather than personal. At the same time, birthdays remain one of the few recurring moments when dormant connections re-engage.

You are the PM for the birthday experience on Facebook. Your goal is to improve the product so it creates more meaningful social interaction, not just more posts. Assume leadership wants a proposal that can be tested within 1–2 quarters and should strengthen Facebook’s role in helping people maintain relationships.

Deliverables

Define the core user problem and identify the most important user segments to prioritize.
Describe the key jobs-to-be-done for both the person having the birthday and the people celebrating them.
Propose a product vision and 2-3 feature ideas for Facebook birthday experiences across relevant Meta surfaces (e.g., Facebook Feed, Profile, Stories, Messenger).
Prioritize what you would launch first and explain the trade-offs.
Define success metrics and risks, including how you would know whether the experience is becoming more meaningful rather than just more active.

Constraints

MVP should be feasible within 6 months using existing Facebook and Messenger infrastructure where possible.
Do not assume a large new creator budget, celebrity partnerships, or major AR/VR investments.
The solution must work across a broad global user base, including users with different privacy expectations and varying friend graph strength.
Avoid designs that materially increase spam, low-quality posting, or notification overload.

Problem

Deliverables

Define the core user problem and identify the most important user segments to prioritize.

Describe the key jobs-to-be-done for both the person having the birthday and the people celebrating them.

Propose a product vision and 2-3 feature ideas for Facebook birthday experiences across relevant Meta surfaces (e.g., Facebook Feed, Profile, Stories, Messenger).

Prioritize what you would launch first and explain the trade-offs.

Define success metrics and risks, including how you would know whether the experience is becoming more meaningful rather than just more active.

Constraints

MVP should be feasible within 6 months using existing Facebook and Messenger infrastructure where possible.

Do not assume a large new creator budget, celebrity partnerships, or major AR/VR investments.

The solution must work across a broad global user base, including users with different privacy expectations and varying friend graph strength.

Avoid designs that materially increase spam, low-quality posting, or notification overload.