Technical interview guide

Requirements Gathering & User Stories

Turning a vague need into a written, testable requirement — user stories, acceptance criteria, and edge cases.

Read: 30 min
Practice MCQs: 25
Interview QA: 25
Edition: v4
Editorial status: Reviewed
Relevant for: Product ManagerTechnical Product Manager

Scope: GOV.UK Service Manual, Scrum Guide 2020, ISO/IEC 25010:2023, WCAG 2.2, RFC 2119, OpenAPI, and NIST guidance current 2026-08-31.

Interview QA

Treat each question like a live interview question: answer out loud first (structure, assumptions, tradeoffs), then open the model answer to spot gaps and rehearse a tighter follow-up.

Curated: 2026-10-05 · Written: 2026-09-09 · Reviewed: 2026-10-03

QA-1

Turn 'users want faster search' into actionable requirements.

QA-2

Design discovery for a new account-recovery flow.

QA-3

Review the story 'As a user, I want AI so that work is easier.'

QA-4

Write acceptance criteria for submitting a payment.

QA-5

Define a non-functional requirement for API latency.

QA-6

Resolve sales and support teams asking for incompatible workflow behavior.

QA-7

Design requirements traceability for a regulated workflow.

QA-8

Split an epic for onboarding a new business customer.

QA-9

Specify accessibility requirements for a complex form.

QA-10

Specify privacy requirements for product analytics.

QA-11

Turn a prototype into implementation-ready requirements.

QA-12

Refine a story with major technical uncertainty.

QA-13

Design requirements for a public pagination API.

QA-14

Evaluate whether a backlog item is ready for delivery.

QA-15

Handle a requirement change midway through delivery.

QA-16

Write requirements for an empty and error state.

QA-17

Plan inclusive user research for a national service.

QA-18

Define outcome metrics for a new self-service feature.

QA-19

Review a specification full of MUST and SHOULD statements.

QA-20

Design requirements for a feature flag rollout.

QA-21

Specify requirements for deleting a customer account.

QA-22

Create a definition of done for requirement-sensitive work.

QA-23

Investigate why delivered requirements still produced the wrong product.

QA-24

Retire an obsolete requirement and feature.

QA-25