Watch time is up but satisfaction is down — do you ship?
Metric designHardProblem. A ranking experiment lifts watch time +3% (significant), but the satisfaction guardrail — survey satisfaction and "not interested" — moved the wrong way. The team wants to ship on the watch-time win. What's your call?
Before you reveal: say your answer out loud, as if you were in the real interview — get your reasoning across clearly first. There is no single correct answer: reading what the interviewer is really after and defending your own thinking is what makes an answer strong.
Strong-answer signal: recognizing the OEC trap, refusing to ship the primary while a leading-indicator guardrail breaks, and tracing whether the watch-time gain is clickbait. Common trap: shipping on a significant watch-time lift and waving off a "small" satisfaction drop that actually forecasts future decline.