Prepare for and practice interview questions from Alibaba across topics like Algorithms, Machine Learning, SQL and more.

Alibaba Interview Questions

A/B Testing

Algorithms

Analytics

Machine Learning

Probability

Product Metrics

Python

Statistics

Alibaba Interview Guides

<p>An electronics retail company tracks its sales and wants to run a performance analysis. They’re hoping to categorize sales into different groups, based on the amount of sales and the region where the sale occurred. The conditions for categorization are:</p>

<ul>
<li><strong>Standard Sales</strong>: Any sales below 2000 are considered standard, except if they occur in the <code>East</code> region, or in the month of July.</li>
<li><strong>Premium Sales</strong>: Any sales that are over or equal to 2000, or any sales in the <code>East</code> region (regardless of the amount), are considered premium, except again during the month of July.</li>
<li><strong>Promotional Sales</strong>: All sales made in the promotional period of July, regardless of the amount or region, are considered promotional.</li>
</ul>

<p>The company wants a report that sums these amounts by region to help with financial planning and bonus allocations.</p>

<p><em>Note: You may assume that table contains data only for 2023</em></p>

<p><strong>Example:</strong></p>

<p><strong>Input:</strong></p>

<p><code>sales</code> table</p>

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

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

<tr>
<td><code>employee_id</code></td>
<td>INTEGER</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td><code>product_id</code></td>
<td>INTEGER</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td><code>sale_amount</code></td>
<td>FLOAT</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td><code>sale_date</code></td>
<td>DATE</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td><code>region</code></td>
<td>TEXT</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p><strong>Output:</strong></p>

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

<tbody>
<tr>
<td><code>region</code></td>
<td>TEXT</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td><code>total_sales</code></td>
<td>FLOAT</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td><code>premium_sales</code></td>
<td>FLOAT</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td><code>standard_sales</code></td>
<td>FLOAT</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td><code>promotional_sales</code></td>
<td>FLOAT</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>


Categorize sales based on the amount of sales and the region

Categorize Sales

<p>Suppose there exists a new airline named Jetco that flies domestically across North America. Jetco recently had a study commissioned that tested the boarding time of every airline, and it came out that Jetco had the fastest average boarding times of any airline.</p>

<p>What factors could have biased this result, and what would you look into?</p>


<p>What could potentially bias the average boarding time in favor of an airline that only flies domestically?</p>

What could potentially bias the average boarding time in favor of an airline that only flies domestically?

Boarding Times Bias

A new airline came out as the fastest average boarding times compared to other airlines.  What factors could have biased this result and what would you look into?

<p>You are testing hundreds of hypotheses with many <em>t</em>-tests. What considerations should be made?</p>


<p>What is a key disadvantage of the F-test when compared to multiple t-tests?</p>

What is a key disadvantage of the F-test when compared to multiple t-tests?

Hundreds of Hypotheses

You are testing hundreds of hypotheses with many t-tests. What considerations should be made?

Question	Topic	Difficulty	Ask Chance
Categorize Sales	SQL	Medium	Very High
Boarding Times Bias	Statistics	Medium	Very High
Hundreds of Hypotheses	Statistics	Medium	Very High

Alibaba Interview Questions

Alibaba Interview Guides

Alibaba Interview Questions

Alibaba Salaries by Position