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Data Scientist Interviews

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Data Scientist Interview Questions

In a data scientist interview, expect employers to ask questions that assess your data modeling, problem-solving, and programming skills. Be prepared to answer general questions that test your knowledge of statistics and data science. You should also be ready to answer open-ended questions that test your creativity, communication skills, and formal education in data modeling and programming.

Top Data Scientist Interview Questions & How to Answer

Question 1

Question #1: Which data modeling techniques do you prefer and why?

How to answer
How to answer: Turning data into understandable and actionable information is a critical part of the data scientist's job. This question allows employers to understand your data modeling skills and background. List and discuss your preferred data modeling techniques, including benefits such as ease of use, flexibility, etc.
Question 2

Question #2: How would you detect bogus Instagram accounts used for scamming consumers?

How to answer
How to answer: Questions like this one allow an employer to test your problem-solving skills. When answering open-ended questions such as these, feel free to ask clarifying questions and use whiteboards to demonstrate your coding and diagramming skills. Share your thought process as you work through the problem.
Question 3

Question #3: Describe circumstances that require a list, tuple, or set in Python.

How to answer
How to answer: Interviewers will use questions such as this one to test your Python programming skills. Review Python basics such as lists, tuples, and sets before your interview. You should be able to explain when and how each tool is used by data scientists.

54,205 data scientist interview questions shared by candidates

3 questions, two sql+ 1 python (though can be also easily solved with sql). The sql question is about finding the most popular track and for each track, the day it had most popularity. the python question is about adding certain advs. seconds on every 3,5,15 stream a user had. The interviewer appears having limited experience with sql, as both interviewers had moments first doubting my code, then admit they made mistake. As one example, when doing an inner joining of two tables I had 'From tableA a, tableB b where a.metric=b.metric, the interviewer first asked me where's my inner joining of the two tables, as in her mind it should be written as 'From TableA a inner join TableB b on a.metric=b.metric'. After I explained, she realized both ways writing are equivalent. Though I got all three questions right and well explained, I did not pass the tech interview and there was no feedback.
avatar

Data Scientist

Interviewed at Spotify

4★
Feb 10, 2020

3 questions, two sql+ 1 python (though can be also easily solved with sql). The sql question is about finding the most popular track and for each track, the day it had most popularity. the python question is about adding certain advs. seconds on every 3,5,15 stream a user had. The interviewer appears having limited experience with sql, as both interviewers had moments first doubting my code, then admit they made mistake. As one example, when doing an inner joining of two tables I had 'From tableA a, tableB b where a.metric=b.metric, the interviewer first asked me where's my inner joining of the two tables, as in her mind it should be written as 'From TableA a inner join TableB b on a.metric=b.metric'. After I explained, she realized both ways writing are equivalent. Though I got all three questions right and well explained, I did not pass the tech interview and there was no feedback.

Write a program in Python to calculate tax if Salary and Tax Brackets are given as list in the form [ [10000, .3],[20000, .2], [30000, .1], [None, .1]]. You don’t know in the beginning how many tax brackets are there. You have to test for all of them.
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Data Scientist Infrastructure

Interviewed at Meta

3.6★
Apr 1, 2018

Write a program in Python to calculate tax if Salary and Tax Brackets are given as list in the form [ [10000, .3],[20000, .2], [30000, .1], [None, .1]]. You don’t know in the beginning how many tax brackets are there. You have to test for all of them.

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