Skip to contentSkip to footer

Data Scientist Interviews

Salaries
Interviews

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

The first round questions included basic dataframe manipulations, a regex question on writing a pattern to identify specific phrase which could have any number of random words in between (eg. between high and calorie, there could be any number of words upto 4 eg. high word1 calorie, high word1 word2 calorie' etc). This also needed some basic preprocessings like handling unidecode errors, punctuations and numbers in a string. Another question was a probability based descriptive question and a easy question on coding to print numbers between 0 to 100 which were prime.
avatar

NLP Data Scientist

Interviewed at American Express

4.1★
Jan 6, 2022

The first round questions included basic dataframe manipulations, a regex question on writing a pattern to identify specific phrase which could have any number of random words in between (eg. between high and calorie, there could be any number of words upto 4 eg. high word1 calorie, high word1 word2 calorie' etc). This also needed some basic preprocessings like handling unidecode errors, punctuations and numbers in a string. Another question was a probability based descriptive question and a easy question on coding to print numbers between 0 to 100 which were prime.

Three ants are sitting at the three corners of an equilateral triangle. Each ant starts randomly picks a direction and starts to move along the edge of the triangle. The probability that none of the ants collide = [ ? / ? ] Follow-up: k ants are sitting at the k corners of an equilateral polygon. Each ant starts randomly picks a direction and starts to move along the edge of the triangle. The probability that none of the ants collide = [ ? / ? ] Count how many trailing 0 in (100!)
avatar

Data Scientist

Interviewed at Meta

3.6★
Jun 4, 2015

Three ants are sitting at the three corners of an equilateral triangle. Each ant starts randomly picks a direction and starts to move along the edge of the triangle. The probability that none of the ants collide = [ ? / ? ] Follow-up: k ants are sitting at the k corners of an equilateral polygon. Each ant starts randomly picks a direction and starts to move along the edge of the triangle. The probability that none of the ants collide = [ ? / ? ] Count how many trailing 0 in (100!)

Viewing 251 - 260 interview questions

Glassdoor has 54,205 interview questions and reports from Data scientist interviews. Prepare for your interview. Get hired. Love your job.