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Ascension Interview Questions

Ascension Interview Guides

Machine Learning

Job Recommendation

RMS Error

Lasso vs Ridge

FAQ Matching

Bagging vs Boosting

Data Structures & Algorithms

Given an integer N, write a function that returns all of the prime numbers up to N

Prime to N

Moving Window

Given a json string with nested objects, write a function that flattens all the objects to a single key-value dictionary.

Flatten JSON

String Mapping

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

Common Prefix

Select the 2nd highest salary in the engineering department

2nd Highest Salary

Last Transaction

Write a query to get the number of friends of a user that like a specific page

Liked Pages

Flight Records

Cumulative Distribution

Statistics

P-value to a Layman

Reducing Error Margin

What are the assumptions of linear regression?

Assumptions of Linear Regression

Using R Squared

Unbiased Estimator

Business Case

Declining Applicants

Friend Requests Down

Licensing Valuation

Game Feature Home

Customer Success vs. Free Trial

Let’s say you’re working on keyword bidding optimization. You’re given a dataset with two columns. One column contains the keywords that are being bid against, and the other column contains the price that’s being paid for those keywords.

Given this dataset, how would you build a model to bid on a new unseen keyword?

Keyword Bidding

Given that $X$ and $Y$ are independent random variables with normal distributions, what is the mean and variance of the distribution of $2X - Y$ when the corresponding distributions are $X\sim \mathcal{N}(3, 4)$ and $Y \sim \mathcal{N}(1, 4)$?

Given that $X$ and $Y$ are independent random variables with normal distributions, and the corresponding distributions are $X\sim \mathcal{N}(3, 4)$ and $Y \sim \mathcal{N}(1, 4)$, what is the mean of the distribution of $2X - Y$?

Given that $X$ and $Y$ are independent random variables with normal distributions, and the corresponding distributions are $X\sim \mathcal{N}(3, 4)$ and $Y \sim \mathcal{N}(1, 4)$, what is the mean of the distribution of $2X - Y$?

Distribution of 2X - Y I

Given that $X$ and $Y$ are independent random variables with normal distributions, and the corresponding distributions are $X\sim \mathcal{N}(3, 4)$ and $Y \sim \mathcal{N}(1, 4)$, what is the variance of the distribution of $2X - Y$?

Given that $X$ and $Y$ are independent random variables with normal distributions, and the corresponding distributions are $X\sim \mathcal{N}(3, 4)$ and $Y \sim \mathcal{N}(1, 4)$, what is the variance of the distribution of $2X - Y$?

Distribution of 2X - Y II

Distribution of 2X - Y

Probability

Given the two tables, write a SQL query that creates a cumulative distribution of the number of comments per user. Assume bin buckets class intervals of one.

Example:

Input:

<code>users</code> table

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

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

<tr>
<td><code>name</code></td>
<td>VARCHAR</td>
</tr>

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

<tr>
<td><code>neighborhood_id</code></td>
<td>INTEGER</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td><code>sex</code></td>
<td>VARCHAR</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<code>comments</code> table

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

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

<tr>
<td><code>body</code></td>
<td>VARCHAR</td>
</tr>

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

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

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

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

Write a SQL query to select the 2nd highest salary in the engineering department.

Note: If more than one person shares the highest salary, the query should select the next highest salary.

Example:

Input:

<code>employees</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>first_name</code></td>
<td>VARCHAR</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td><code>last_name</code></td>
<td>VARCHAR</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td><code>salary</code></td>
<td>INTEGER</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td><code>department_id</code></td>
<td>INTEGER</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<code>departments</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>name</code></td>
<td>VARCHAR</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
Output:

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

<tbody>
<tr>
<td><code>salary</code></td>
<td>INTEGER</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>

What is an unbiased estimator and can you provide an example for a layman to understand?

What makes an estimator of a population statistic unbiased?

Let’s say you’re a Product Data Scientist at Instagram. How would you measure the success of the Instagram TV product?

What is the primary goal of Instagram TV as a product feature?

What is the primary goal of Instagram TV as a product feature?

Instagram TV Success

Product Sense & Metrics

Given two strings, <code>string1</code> and <code>string2</code>, write a function <code>str_map</code> to determine if there exists a one-to-one correspondence (bijection) between the characters of <code>string1</code> and <code>string2</code>.

For the two strings, our correspondence must be between characters in the same position/index.

Example 1:

Input:

<pre tabindex="0" class="chroma"><code>string1 = &#39;qwe&#39;
string2 = &#39;asd&#39;

string_map(string1, string2) == True

# q = a, w = s, and e = d
</code></pre>

Example 2:

Input:

<pre tabindex="0" class="chroma"><code>string1 = &#39;donut&#39;
string2 = &#39;fatty&#39;

string_map(string1, string2) == False
# cannot map two distinct characters to two equal characters
</code></pre>

Example 3:

Input:

<pre tabindex="0" class="chroma"><code>string1 = &#39;enemy&#39;
string2 = &#39;enemy&#39;

string_map(string1, string2) == True
# there exists a one-to-one correspondence between equivalent strings
</code></pre>

Example 4:

Input:

<pre tabindex="0" class="chroma"><code>string1 = &#39;enemy&#39;
string2 = &#39;ymene&#39;

string_map(string1, string2) == False
# since our correspondence must be between characters of the same index, this case returns &#39;False&#39; as we must map e = y AND e = e
</code></pre>

Let’s say that your company is running a standard control and variant AB test on a feature to increase conversion rates on the landing page. The PM checks the results and finds a .04 p-value.

How would you assess the validity of the result?

Experiment Validity

A/B Testing

A group of 100 students are participating in a coin-tossing challenge at a school event. Each student flips a fair coin once:
- If the coin lands on heads, the student wins and truthfully reports their win.
- If the coin lands on tails, the student flips again:
 - If the second flip is heads, the student lies and claims they won, even though they lost.
 - If the second flip is tails, the student truthfully reports their loss.

At the end of the game, 30 students report that they won. As an analyst, you are tasked with determining the expected number of students who actually won the game (i.e., got heads on their first flip).

Example:

Suppose only 8 students report winning. How many students would you expect to have truly won based on the rules above?

Note: You may assume each coin flip is independent and fair (probability of heads = 0.5).

Given win reports in a coin toss game with lying, estimate the true number of winners.

Secret Wins

Let’s say that we want to build a chatbot system for frequently asked questions. Whenever a user writes a question, we want to return the closest answer from a list of FAQs.

What are some machine learning methods for building this system?

Let’s say we want to build a naive recommender. We’re given two tables, one table called <code>friends</code> with a <code>user_id</code> and <code>friend_id</code> columns representing each user’s friends, and another table called <code>page_likes</code> with a <code>user_id</code> and a <code>page_id</code> representing the page each user liked.

Write an SQL query to create a metric to recommend pages for each user based on recommendations from their friend’s liked pages. 

Note: It shouldn’t recommend pages that the user already likes.

Example:

Input:

<code>friends</code> table

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

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

<tr>
<td><code>friend_id</code></td>
<td>INTEGER</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<code>page_likes</code> table

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

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

<tr>
<td><code>page_id</code></td>
<td>INTEGER</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
Output:

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

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

<tr>
<td><code>page_id</code></td>
<td>INTEGER</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td><code>num_friend_likes</code></td>
<td>INTEGER</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>

Given a list of integers, write a function <code>gcd</code> to find the greatest common denominator between them.

Example:

Input:

<pre tabindex="0" class="chroma"><code>int_list = [8, 16, 24]
</code></pre>

Output:

<pre tabindex="0" class="chroma"><code>def gcd(int_list) -&gt; 8
</code></pre>

Which of the following is true about the greatest common division (gcd) between three integers a, b, and c?

Which of the following is true about the greatest common division (gcd) between three integers a, b, and c?

Greatest Common Denominator Properties

Greatest Common Denominator

Let’s say that you’re working on a job recommendation engine. You have access to all user Linkedin profiles, a list of jobs each user applied to, and answers to questions that the user filled in about their job search.

Using this information, how would you build a job recommendation feed?

What problem can arise in job recommendation systems with regard to initial recommendations?

What problem can arise in job recommendation systems with regard to initial recommendations?

How would you measure the success of Facebook Groups?

Considering the purpose of Facebook Groups as a platform for connecting users through shared interests or real-life relationships, which metrics would be appropriate to measure the success of these groups?

Considering the purpose of Facebook Groups as a platform for connecting users through shared interests or real-life relationships, which metrics would be appropriate to measure the success of these groups?

Group Success

Let’s say you work on the growth team at Facebook and are tasked with promoting Instagram from within the Facebook app.

Where and how could you promote Instagram through Facebook?

You're promoting Instagram within the Facebook app. Which of the following methods involves leveraging network effects?

You're promoting Instagram within the Facebook app. Which of the following methods involves leveraging network effects?

Promoting Instagram I

To promote Instagram on Facebook, you consider allowing Instagram users to post pictures to Facebook. How could you measure the success of this feature?

To promote Instagram on Facebook, you consider allowing Instagram users to post pictures to Facebook. How could you measure the success of this feature?

Promoting Instagram II

In a strategy to promote Instagram from within Facebook, what concept might you employ to improve the value of the service?

In a strategy to promote Instagram from within Facebook, what concept might you employ to improve the value of the service?

Promoting Instagram III

Promoting Instagram

How would you tackle multicollinearity in multiple linear regression?

Multicollinearity in Regression

Imagine you work at a major credit card company and are given a dataset of 600,000 credit card transactions to build a fraud detection model.

How would you approach this task? Write your answer in the comments.

Credit Card Fraud Model

Let’s say we want to build a new algorithm for Lyft Line.

How should we test it, measure success of the test, and eventually roll it out?

Building Lyft Line

Given an integer <code>N</code>, write a function that returns a list of all of the prime numbers up to <code>N</code>.

Note: Return an empty list there are no prime numbers less than or equal to <code>N</code>.

Example:

Input:

<pre tabindex="0" class="chroma"><code>N = 3
</code></pre>

Output:

<pre tabindex="0" class="chroma"><code>def prime_numbers(N) -&gt; [2,3]
</code></pre>

Uber Rider deals with huge amounts of data but at Uber Fleet, the amount of data for experimentation is rather low. Let’s say you run an AB test for Uber Fleet and find out that the distribution is not normal.

What kind of analysis would you run and how would you measure which variant won?

Which of the following is NOT an acceptable way to deal with AB testing on a non-normally distributed population?

Which of the following is NOT an acceptable way to deal with AB testing on a non-normally distributed population?

Non-Normal AB Test

Non-Normal AB Testing

How would you explain what a p-value is to someone who is not technical?

What does a p-value in a statistical test represent?

What does a p-value in a statistical test represent?

P-value to a Layman I

In a statistical test, how does a low p-value (less than 0.05) influence our decision about the null hypothesis?

In a statistical test, how does a low p-value (less than 0.05) influence our decision about the null hypothesis?

P-value to a Layman II

What is the difference between covariance and correlation? Provide an example.

Covariance vs Correlation

What’s the relationship between PCA and K-means clustering?

What does the variable “k” in k-means clustering refer to?

What does the variable "k" in k-means clustering refer to?

Input of K-means

PCA and K-Means

Write a function <code>calculate_rmse</code> to calculate the root mean squared error of a regression model. The function should take in two lists, one that represents the predictions <code>y_pred</code> and another with the target values <code>y_true</code>.

Input:

Example 1: 

<pre tabindex="0" class="chroma"><code>y_pred = [3,4,5]
y_true = [3,4,5]

def calculate_rmse(y_pred,y_true) -&gt; 0
</code></pre>

Example 2:

<pre tabindex="0" class="chroma"><code>y_pred = [3,4,5]
y_true = [5,4,3]

def calculate_rmse(y_pred,y_true) -&gt; 1.63
</code></pre>

Let’s you’re tasked with pitching a new feature for Google Home. Your co-worker comes to you with an idea to build a game feature for Google Home.

How would you go about deciding whether Google should build it?

A product manager at Facebook comes to you and tells you that friend requests are down 10%.

What would you do?

You work as a data analyst on a social media platform similar to Facebook. If you observe a 10% decline in friend requests over the last three months, which analysis or metric-tracking approach could aid in uncovering the reasons?

You work as a data analyst on a social media platform similar to Facebook. If you observe a 10% decline in friend requests over the last three months, which analysis or metric-tracking approach could aid in uncovering the reasons?

Let’s say you work for a bank that gives out personal loans. Your co-worker develops a model that takes in customer inputs and returns if a loan should be given or not.

<ol>
<li>What kind of model did the co-worker develop? 
</li>
<li>Another co-worker thinks they have developed a better model to predict defaults on the loans. Given that personal loans are monthly installments of payments, how would you measure the difference between the two credit risk models within a timeframe? 
</li>
<li>What metrics would you track to measure the success of the new model?</li>
</ol>

Loan Model

Let’s say we want to launch a re-design of a landing page to improve the click-through rate. We can do this by implementing an AB test.
Given that we launch an AB test, how would you infer if the results of the click-through rate were statistically significant or not?

How can you accurately conclude if the results of an A/B test, conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of a landing page redesign, are statistically significant?

How can you accurately conclude if the results of an A/B test, conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of a landing page redesign, are statistically significant?

Statistically Significant Test

Precisely ascertain whether the outcomes of an A/B test, executed to assess the impact of a landing page redesign, exhibit statistical significance.

What are the assumptions of linear regression?

Which assumption of the residuals of the standard linear regression model can not be overcome by increasing the sample size?

Regression assumptions

Let’s say you’re a data scientist working on pricing different products on our ecommerce site. The online price is dependent on the availability of the product, the demand, and the logistics cost of providing it to the end consumer. 

You discover our algorithm is vastly under-pricing a certain consumer product. What are the steps you take in diagnosing the problem?

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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