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Akamai Interview Questions

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Data Structures & Algorithms

Write a function to create a single dataframe with complete addresses in the format of street, city, state, zip code.

Complete Addresses

Given an array and a target integer, write a function that returns the indices of two integers in the array that add up to the target integer.

Target Indices

The task is to write a function that takes an N-dimensional array (nested lists) as input and returns a 1D array. The N-dimensional array can have any number of nested lists and each nested list can contain any number of elements.

Flatten N-Dimensional Array to 1D Array

Given a list of strings, write a function that returns the longest common prefix

Common Prefix

Find all sets of 3 indexes whose elements add up to 0.

Three Indexes Adding Zero

Machine Learning

Variate Anomalies

Addressing imbalanced data in machine learning through carefully prepared techniques.

Data Preparation for Imbalanced Data

Find the second longest flight between each pair of cities.

Second Longest Flight

Write a SQL query to count transactions filtered by several criterias.

Count Transactions

Brainteasers

What do you tell an interviewer when they ask you what your strengths and weaknesses are?

Your Strengths and Weaknesses

Forecasting & Time Series

Forecasting New Year Revenue

When an interviewer asks a question along the lines of:

<ul>
<li>What would your current manager say about you? What constructive criticisms might he give?</li>
<li>What are your three biggest strengths and weaknesses you have identified in yourself?</li>
</ul>

How would you respond?

When asked about your strengths in an interview, what is an effective way to respond?

When asked about your strengths in an interview, what is an effective way to respond?

Your Strengths and Weaknesses I

Which of the following is an acceptable strategy when discussing weaknesses in an interview?

Which of the following is an acceptable strategy when discussing weaknesses in an interview?

Your Strengths and Weaknesses II

How would you handle the data preparation for building a machine learning model using imbalanced data?

Create a class named <code>LRUCache</code> that implements the behavior expected of a Least Recently Used (LRU) Cache.

The <code>LRUCache</code> class implements the following methods:

<ul>
<li><code>__init__(self, capacity)</code> - initializes the object and takes in a capacity parameter specifying the maximum capacity of the cache.</li>
<li><code>get_if_exists(self, key) -&gt; Any|None</code> - gets a value based on a key. If the key exists, returns the associated value. If the key has expired or did not exist in the first place, returns <code>None</code>.</li>
<li><code>put(self, key, value)</code> - places a value inside the cache. In the case wherein the cache is full, invalidates the least recently used element. When two keys collide, the older value should be invalidated in place of the new one.</li>
</ul>

Example:

<pre tabindex="0" class="chroma"><code>cache = LRUCache(2)
cache.put(&#34;sample&#34;, 55)
cache.get_if_exists(&#34;sample&#34;) # returns 55
cache.get_if_exists(&#34;key&#34;) # returns None
cache.put(&#34;hello&#34;, 10) 
cache.put(&#34;sample&#34;, 9)
cache.put(&#34;world&#34;, 5)
cache.get_if_exists(&#34;hello&#34;) # returns None
</code></pre>

Notes:

<ul>
<li>It is assured that the value in the <code>put</code> method will never receive a <code>None</code> value. Moreover, it is assured that the capacity will always be &gt; 0.</li>

<li>All operations must be O(1).</li>

<li>Aside from Python’s standard dictionary implementation (<code>{}</code>), you may not use any other built-in data structures.</li>
</ul>

LRU Cache 1

Given an array and a target integer, write a function <code>sum_pair_indices</code> that returns the indices of two integers in the array that add up to the target integer. If not found, just return an empty list.

Note: Can you do it on \(O(n)\) time?

Note: Even though there could be many solutions, only one needs to be returned.

Example 1:

Input:

<pre tabindex="0" class="chroma"><code>array = [1 2 3 4] 
target = 5 
</code></pre>

Output:

<pre tabindex="0" class="chroma"><code>def sum_pair_indices(array, target) -&gt; [0 3] or [1 2]
</code></pre>

Example 2:

Input:

<pre tabindex="0" class="chroma"><code>array = [3]
target = 6 
</code></pre>

Output:

<pre tabindex="0" class="chroma"><code>Do NOT return [0 0] as you can&#39;t use an index twice.
</code></pre>

Find all sets of 3 indexes of an array so that the three indexed elements add up to 0.

Note: You may assume the input array is sorted in ascending order.

<h3>Example</h3>

For example, if the input array is:

<pre tabindex="0" class="chroma"><code>array = [-2, -1, 1, 1, 3]
</code></pre>

The result should be:

<pre tabindex="0" class="chroma"><code>result = [{0,1,2}, {2,3,4}]
</code></pre>

Write a Python function called <code>longest_increasing_subsequence</code> that takes a list of integers as input and returns as output the length of the longest increasing subsequence in the list.

Note: An increasing subsequence is a subset of a list where the elements are in strictly increasing order. The subsequence does not have to be contiguous or unique.

<h3>Example:</h3>

Input:

<pre tabindex="0" class="chroma"><code>nums = [10, 9, 2, 5, 3, 3, 7, 101, 18]
</code></pre>

Output:

<pre tabindex="0" class="chroma"><code>4
</code></pre>

Explanation:

The longest increasing subsequence is <code>[2, 3, 7, 101]</code>, for a total length of 4.

Find the longest increasing subsequence in a list of integers.

Longest Increasing Subsequence

Let’s say that you work on the revenue forecasting team at a company like Facebook.

An executive comes to you asking about how much revenue Facebook will make in the coming year.

How would you forecast revenue for the next year?

If given a univariate dataset, how would you design a function to detect anomalies?

What if the data is bivariate?

Let’s say we have an <code>annual_payments</code> table. Answer the following three questions via SQL queries and output them as a table with the answers to each question.

<ol>
<li>How many total transactions are in this table?</li>
<li>How many different users made transactions?</li>
<li>How many transactions listed as <code>&#34;paid&#34;</code> have an amount greater or equal to 100?</li>
<li>Which product made the highest revenue? (use only transactions with a <code>&#34;paid&#34;</code> status)</li>
</ol>

Example:

Input:

<code>annual_payments</code> table

<table>
<thead>
<tr>
<th>Column</th>
<th>Type</th>
</tr>
</thead>

<tbody>
<tr>
<td><code>id</code></td>
<td>INTEGER</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td><code>amount</code></td>
<td>FLOAT</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td><code>created_at</code></td>
<td>DATETIME</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td><code>status</code></td>
<td>VARCHAR</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td><code>user_id</code></td>
<td>INTEGER</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td><code>amount_refunded</code></td>
<td>FLOAT</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td><code>product</code></td>
<td>VARCHAR</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td><code>last_updated</code></td>
<td>DATETIME</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
Output:

<table>
<thead>
<tr>
<th>Column</th>
<th>Type</th>
</tr>
</thead>

<tbody>
<tr>
<td><code>question_id</code></td>
<td>INTEGER</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td><code>answer</code></td>
<td>TEXT</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>

Given a list of strings, write a function that returns their longest common prefix. For example, if you were given the strings <code>&#34;flowers&#34;</code>, <code>&#34;flow&#34;</code>, and <code>&#34;flight&#34;</code>, your function should return the string <code>&#34;fl&#34;</code>.

If the list of strings has no common prefix, return an empty string.

Example 1:

Input:

<pre tabindex="0" class="chroma"><code>strings = [&#34;flowers&#34;, &#34;flow&#34;, &#34;flight&#34;] 
</code></pre>

Output:

<pre tabindex="0" class="chroma"><code>&#34;fl&#34;
</code></pre>

Example 2:

Input:

<pre tabindex="0" class="chroma"><code>strings = [&#34;showboat&#34;, &#34;showcase&#34;, &#34;shower&#34;]
</code></pre>

Output:

<pre tabindex="0" class="chroma"><code>&#34;show&#34;
</code></pre>

You’re given two dataframes. One contains information about addresses and the other contains relationships between various cities and states:

Example:

<code>df_addresses</code>

<table>
<thead>
<tr>
<th>address</th>
</tr>
</thead>

<tbody>
<tr>
<td>4860 Sunset Boulevard, San Francisco, 94105</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td>3055 Paradise Lane, Salt Lake City, 84103</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td>682 Main Street, Detroit, 48204</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td>9001 Cascade Road, Kansas City, 64102</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td>5853 Leon Street, Tampa, 33605</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<code>df_cities</code>

<table>
<thead>
<tr>
<th>city</th>
<th>state</th>
</tr>
</thead>

<tbody>
<tr>
<td>Salt Lake City</td>
<td>Utah</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td>Kansas City</td>
<td>Missouri</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td>Detroit</td>
<td>Michigan</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td>Tampa</td>
<td>Florida</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td>San Francisco</td>
<td>California</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
Write a function <code>complete_address</code> to create a single dataframe with complete addresses in the format of street, city, state, zip code.

Input:

<pre tabindex="0" class="chroma"><code>import pandas as pd

addresses = {&#34;address&#34;: [&#34;4860 Sunset Boulevard, San Francisco, 94105&#34;, &#34;3055 Paradise Lane, Salt Lake City, 84103&#34;, &#34;682 Main Street, Detroit, 48204&#34;, &#34;9001 Cascade Road, Kansas City, 64102&#34;, &#34;5853 Leon Street, Tampa, 33605&#34;]}

cities = {&#34;city&#34;: [&#34;Salt Lake City&#34;, &#34;Kansas City&#34;, &#34;Detroit&#34;, &#34;Tampa&#34;, &#34;San Francisco&#34;], &#34;state&#34;: [&#34;Utah&#34;, &#34;Missouri&#34;, &#34;Michigan&#34;, &#34;Florida&#34;, &#34;California&#34;]}

df_addresses = pd.DataFrame(addresses)
df_cities = pd.DataFrame(cities)
</code></pre>

Output:

<pre tabindex="0" class="chroma"><code>def complete_address(df_addresses,df_cities) -&gt;
</code></pre>

<table>
<thead>
<tr>
<th>address</th>
</tr>
</thead>

<tbody>
<tr>
<td>4860 Sunset Boulevard, San Francisco, California, 94105</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td>3055 Paradise Lane, Salt Lake City, Utah, 84103</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td>682 Main Street, Detroit, Michigan, 48204</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td>9001 Cascade Road, Kansas City, Missouri, 64102</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td>5853 Leon Street, Tampa, Florida, 33605</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>

You are given an N-dimensional array (a nested list) and your task is to convert it into a 1D array. The N-dimensional array can have any number of nested lists and each nested list can contain any number of elements. The elements in the nested lists are integers. Write a function that takes an N-dimensional array as input and returns a 1D array.

Example 1:

Input:

<pre tabindex="0" class="chroma"><code>array = [1, [2, 3], [4, [5, 6]], 7]
</code></pre>

Output:

<pre tabindex="0" class="chroma"><code>flatten_array(array) -&gt; [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7]
</code></pre>

Example 2:

Input:

<pre tabindex="0" class="chroma"><code>array = [[1, 2], [3, 4], [5, 6]]
</code></pre>

Output:

<pre tabindex="0" class="chroma"><code>flatten_array(array) -&gt; [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]
</code></pre>

Given a table of <code>flights</code>, extract the 2nd flight with the most duration between each pair of cities. Order the flights by the flight <code>id</code> ascending.

Note: For any cities <code>X</code> and <code>Y</code>, <code>(source_location=X, destination_location=Y)</code> and <code>(source_location=Y, destination_location=X)</code> are counted as the same pair of cities.

Note: If there are fewer than two flights between two cities, there is no 2nd longest flight.

Example:

Input:

<code>flights</code> table

<table>
<thead>
<tr>
<th>Column</th>
<th>Type</th>
</tr>
</thead>

<tbody>
<tr>
<td><code>id</code></td>
<td>INTEGER</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td><code>destination_location</code></td>
<td>VARCHAR</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td><code>source_location</code></td>
<td>VARCHAR</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td><code>plane_id</code></td>
<td>INTEGER</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td><code>flight_start</code></td>
<td>DATETIME</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td><code>flight_end</code></td>
<td>DATETIME</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
Output:

<table>
<thead>
<tr>
<th>Column</th>
<th>Type</th>
</tr>
</thead>

<tbody>
<tr>
<td><code>id</code></td>
<td>INTEGER</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td><code>destination_location</code></td>
<td>VARCHAR</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td><code>source_location</code></td>
<td>VARCHAR</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td><code>flight_start</code></td>
<td>DATETIME</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td><code>flight_end</code></td>
<td>DATETIME</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>

Calculate Moving Average	SQL	Easy
Predict Customer Churn	Machine Learning	Medium
A/B Test Significance	Statistics	Medium
Optimize Query Performance	SQL	Hard
Feature Importance Analysis	Machine Learning	Medium
Clean Missing Data	Python	Easy
Neural Network Architecture	Deep Learning	Hard
Calculate Cohort Retention	SQL	Medium
Bayesian Probability	Statistics	Easy
Recommend Similar Products	Machine Learning	Hard

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