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Atmospheric & Space Technology Research Associates, Llc. Interview Questions

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Data Structures & Algorithms

Reconstruct the path of a trip so that the trip tickets are in order.

Scrambled Tickets

Write a function `sort_lists` to combine sorted integer lists into one sorted list without using libraries or `sort`/`sorted`

Merge N Sorted Lists

Implementing a priority queue used linked lists.

Priority Queue Using Linked List

Swap the values of `a` and `b` in the dictionary without declaring any other variable

Swap Variables

Write a function that returns the shape of an isosceles triangle.

Triangle as Binary Array

Behavioral

Describing a data project and its challenges

Hurdles In Data Projects

Strategically resolving misaligned expectations with stakeholders for a successful project outcome

Stakeholder Communication

How to present complex data insights with clarity and adaptability tailored to a specific audience

Presentations and Insights

How would you prepare and monitor a churn model before and after production deployment?

Model Deployment Pipeline

How would you negotiate and resolve disagreements when a client rejects your proposed solution?

Client Solution Pushback

Machine Learning

Lasso vs Ridge

What are the logistic and softmax functions? What is the difference between the two?

Softmax vs Logistic

What kind of model did the co-worker develop, how would you measure the difference between the two credit risk models within a timeframe, and what metrics would you track to measure the success of the new model

Loan Model

Explain the key differences between classification models and regression models

Classification and Regression

Explain the relationship between PCA and K-means clustering

PCA and K-Means

Business Case

How would you balance production speed and employee satisfaction when considering a switch to robotics?

Robotics Upgrade Tradeoff

How would you create a policy for refunds with regards to balancing customer sentiment and goodwill versus revenue tradeoffs?

Food Delivery Refund Policy

How would you evaluate and choose between a fast, simple model and a slower, more accurate one for product recommendations?

Deciding Between Solutions

DevOps

How would you structure a safe deployment process with effective stakeholder communication and rollback plans?

Safe Deployments

Design a highly available, scalable Azure infrastructure using Terraform and Kubernetes.

Azure Kubernetes Infrastructure

Tell me about a data project that didn’t go the way you expected. What did you set out to do, what surprised you, and how did you handle it?

Over budget on a project is defined when the salaries, prorated to the day, exceed the budget of the project.

For example, if Alice and Bob both combined income make 200K and work on a project of a budget of 50K that takes half a year, then the project is over budget given 0.5 * 200K = 100K &gt; 50K.

Write a query to forecast the budget for all projects and return a label of <code>&#34;overbudget&#34;</code> if it is over budget and <code>&#34;within budget&#34;</code> otherwise.

Note: Assume that employees only work on one project at a time.

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>projects</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>title</code></td>
<td>VARCHAR</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td><code>state_date</code></td>
<td>DATETIME</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td><code>end_date</code></td>
<td>DATETIME</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td><code>budget</code></td>
<td>INTEGER</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
departments 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>
<code>employee_projects</code> table

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

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

<tr>
<td><code>employee_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>title</code></td>
<td>VARCHAR</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td><code>project_forecast</code></td>
<td>VARCHAR</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>

Write a query to forecast each project's budget and label it overbudget or within budget

Over-Budget Projects

Consider a trip from one city to another that may contain many layovers. Given the list of flights out of order, each with a starting city and end city, write a function <code>plan_trip</code> to reconstruct the path of the trip so the trip tickets are in order.

Example:

For a trip from Bombay to Beijing:

Input:

<pre tabindex="0" class="chroma"><code>flights = [
 [&#39;Chennai&#39;, &#39;Bangalore&#39;], 
 [&#39;Bombay&#39;, &#39;Delhi&#39;], 
 [&#39;Goa&#39;, &#39;Chennai&#39;], 
 [&#39;Delhi&#39;, &#39;Goa&#39;], 
 [&#39;Bangalore&#39;, &#39;Beijing&#39;]
]
output = [
 [&#39;Bombay&#39;, &#39;Delhi&#39;], 
 [&#39;Delhi&#39;, &#39;Goa&#39;], 
 [&#39;Goa&#39;, &#39;Chennai&#39;], 
 [&#39;Chennai&#39;, &#39;Bangalore&#39;], 
 [&#39;Bangalore&#39;, &#39;Beijing&#39;],
]
</code></pre>

What’s the difference between Lasso and Ridge Regression?

Under what circumstances is it recommended to use Lasso regression over Ridge regression?

Under what circumstances is it recommended to use Lasso regression over Ridge regression?

Priority queues are an abstract data structure responsible for allowing enqueuing items with an attached priority. While typically implemented with a heap, implement a priority queue using a linked list.

The Priority Queue implementation should support the following operations:

<ul>
<li><code>insert</code>(element, priority): This operation should be able to insert an element into the Priority Queue, along with its corresponding priority.</li>
<li><code>delete()</code>: This operation should remove and return the element with the highest priority. If multiple elements share the same highest priority, the element first enqueued should be returned. In the case that the queue is empty, return None.</li>
<li><code>peek()</code>: This operation should return the element with the highest priority without removing it from the Priority Queue. Again, in the case of equal highest priorities, the element first enqueued should be returned. In the case that the queue is empty, return None.</li>
</ul>

Note: Smaller priority values imply that they have higher priority.

<h3>Input</h3>

<pre tabindex="0" class="chroma"><code>queue.insert(2, 1)
queue.insert(3, 3)
</code></pre>

<h3>Output:</h3>

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

Given a list of sorted integer lists, write a function <code>sort_lists</code> to create a combined list while maintaining sorted order without importing any libraries or using the <code>&#39;sort&#39;</code> or <code>&#39;sorted&#39;</code> functions in Python.

Example:

Input:

<pre tabindex="0" class="chroma"><code>lists = [
[1,2,3,4,5,6],
[2,5,7,8],
[3,9,10,12],
[0,1,2,8]
]
</code></pre>

Output:

<pre tabindex="0" class="chroma"><code>def sort_lists(lists) -&gt; [0,1,1,2,2,3,3,4,5,5,6,7,8,8,9,10,12]
</code></pre>

What are the key differences between classification models and regression models?

What is the MOST important difference between regression and classification models?

What is the MOST important difference between regression and classification models?

Classification vs Regression

What are the logistic and softmax functions? What is the difference between the two?

What makes them useful for use in logistic regression?

In logistic regression, how is the predicted class determined based on the logistic function?

In logistic regression, how is the predicted class determined based on the logistic function?

Softmax vs Logistic II

What is the key characteristic of the logistic function that makes it useful for mapping continuous values to a probability?

What is the key characteristic of the logistic function that makes it useful for mapping continuous values to a probability?

Softmax vs Logistic I

Every night between 7 pm and midnight, two computing jobs from two different sources are randomly started with each one lasting an hour.

Unfortunately, when the jobs simultaneously run, they cause a failure in some of the company’s other nightly jobs, resulting in downtime for the company that costs $1000. 

The CEO, who has enough time today to hear one word, needs a single number representing the annual (365 days) cost of this problem.

Note: Write a function to simulate this problem and output an estimated cost 

Bonus - How would you solve this using probability?

Example:

Input:

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

Output:

<pre tabindex="0" class="chroma"><code>simulate_overlap(n) -&gt; 0.4
</code></pre>

Find how much overlapping jobs are costing the company

Nightly Job

Probability

You are given a dictionary with two keys <code>a</code> and <code>b</code> that hold integers as their values.

Without declaring any other variable, swap the value of <code>a</code> with the value of <code>b</code> and vice versa.

Note: Return the dictionary after editing it.

Example:

Input:

<pre tabindex="0" class="chroma"><code>numbers = {
 &#39;a&#39;:3,
 &#39;b&#39;:4
}
</code></pre>

Output:

<pre tabindex="0" class="chroma"><code>def swap_values(numbers) -&gt; {&#39;a&#39;:4,&#39;b&#39;:3}
</code></pre>

The Fibonacci sequence is a series of numbers in which each number is the sum of the two preceding ones, usually starting with 0 and 1. It is often used in algorithm examples, and is defined by the following formula: F(n) = F(n-1) + F(n-2), with F(0) = 0 and F(1) = 1.

Your task is to implement the Fibonacci algorithm in three different methods:
1. Recursively
2. Iteratively
3. Using Memoization

Example 1:

Input:

<pre tabindex="0" class="chroma"><code>n = 5
</code></pre>

Output:

<pre tabindex="0" class="chroma"><code>fibonacci(n) -&gt; 5
</code></pre>

Example 2:

Input:

<pre tabindex="0" class="chroma"><code>n = 10
</code></pre>

Output:

<pre tabindex="0" class="chroma"><code>fibonacci(n) -&gt; 55
</code></pre>

The Fibonacci sequence starts as follows: 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55…

This question requires the implementation of the Fibonacci sequence using three different methods: recursively, iteratively, and using memoization.

Implementing the Fibonacci Sequence in Three Different Methods

Let’s say you’ve just finished building a churn prediction model for a subscription service, and the team is considering deploying it to automatically trigger retention emails for users at risk of leaving.

How would you ensure this model is ready for production, and what steps would you take to monitor its performance after launch?

Let’s say you’re a senior data analyst and your team is tasked with addressing data quality issues for an airline company. Customer records, booking details, and flight schedules often have missing fields, duplicate entries, or incorrect data.

How would you approach improving the quality of this data and ensuring it remains clean and reliable over time?

How would you approach improving the quality of airline data?

Addressing Data Quality Issues

Analytics

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>

You have been tasked with designing three classes: <code>text_editor</code>, <code>moving_text_editor</code>, and <code>smart_text_editor</code>. These classes are to be created with specific functionalities as defined below:

<ol>
<li><code>text_editor</code> class:

<ul>
<li><code>write_line(string:str)</code>: A method which appends a given string to the end of the existing string.</li>
<li><code>delete_line(char_num : int)</code>: A method which deletes <code>char_num</code> number of characters from the existing string, starting from the end. If there are no characters left, the method should do nothing.</li>
<li><code>special_operation()</code>: A method which currently does nothing.</li>
<li><code>get_notes()</code>: A method which returns the internal string.</li>
</ul></li>

<li><code>moving_text_editor</code> class:

<ul>
<li>This class extends <code>text_editor</code>. The <code>special_operation()</code> method is overridden. Initially, the cursor will be at the end of the current string. If <code>special_operation()</code> is called, it moves the cursor to the beginning of the string, any additional appends will be appended to the beginning of the string instead. Calling <code>special_operation()</code> again reverses the cursor operation.</li>
</ul></li>

<li><code>smart_text_editor</code> class:

<ul>
<li>This class extends <code>text_editor</code>. In this class, the <code>special_operation()</code> method is overridden to serve as an undo operation, allowing it to undo an infinite number of operations.</li>
</ul></li>
</ol>

<h3>Input</h3>

<pre tabindex="0" class="chroma"><code>[[&#39;special_text_editor&#39;], [&#39;write_line&#39;, &#39;special_operation&#39;, &#39;write_line&#39;], [&#39;World&#39;, &#39;Hello, &#39;]]
</code></pre>

<h3>Output</h3>

<code>&#34;Hello, World&#34;</code>

Create a text editor while displaying method overriding as a concept.

Text Editor With OOP

Design Patterns

Let’s say you’re working with a dataset of user-level events for a new product feature, and you notice issues like missing values, duplicate records, inconsistent data types, and some clear outliers. You need to prepare this data for training a machine learning model.

How would you design a data processing pipeline using Pandas and NumPy to clean and validate the data before modeling, and what steps would you take to ensure the pipeline is reusable and reliable for future use?

How would you build a reusable data cleaning pipeline for messy user event data?

User Event Data Pipeline

Data Pipelines

Let’s say we’re building a recommendation system for an e-commerce site, and we have two viable approaches: a collaborative filtering model that takes 2 days to implement, and a deep learning model that could boost accuracy by 10% but requires 3 weeks of engineering time.

How would you decide which solution to pursue, and what factors would you weigh in your decision?

Given an (integer) height <code>h</code> and base <code>b</code>, write a function <code>draw_isosceles_triangle</code> that returns the shape of the isosceles triangle using (a 2D list) of <code>0</code>s and <code>1</code>s, where <code>0</code> and <code>1</code> represent the space outside and inside of the triangle, respectively.

If the given height <code>h</code> and base <code>b</code> cannot make a triangle, return <code>None</code>.

Note: Valid arguments for <code>b</code> should be odd

Example 1

Input:

<pre tabindex="0" class="chroma"><code>h = 2
b = 3
</code></pre>

Output:

<pre tabindex="0" class="chroma"><code>draw_isosceles_triangle(h,b) -&gt; [
 [0,1,0],
 [1,1,1]
]
</code></pre>

Example 2

Input:

<pre tabindex="0" class="chroma"><code>h = 3
b = 9
</code></pre>

Output:

<pre tabindex="0" class="chroma"><code>draw_isosceles_triangle(h,b) -&gt; [
 [0,0,0,0,1,0,0,0,0],
 [0,0,1,1,1,1,1,0,0],
 [1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1]
]
</code></pre>

Example 3

Input:

<pre tabindex="0" class="chroma"><code>h = 5
b = 9
</code></pre>

Output:

<pre tabindex="0" class="chroma"><code>draw_isosceles_triangle(h,b) -&gt; [
 [0,0,0,0,1,0,0,0,0],
 [0,0,0,1,1,1,0,0,0],
 [0,0,1,1,1,1,1,0,0],
 [0,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,0],
 [1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1] 
]
</code></pre>

Example 4

Input:

<pre tabindex="0" class="chroma"><code>h = 9
b = 9
</code></pre>

Output:

<pre tabindex="0" class="chroma"><code>draw_isosceles_triangle(h,b) -&gt; None
</code></pre>

Let’s say we’ve built a neural network for image classification using NumPy, and we’re training it in a distributed environment with several workers. We notice that, even when using the same random seed, the loss curve looks erratic across different training runs, model weights diverge between workers, and training results aren’t consistent between single-node and distributed setups.

How would you go about diagnosing and resolving these distributed training inconsistencies to ensure stable and reproducible results?

How would you debug and fix inconsistencies in distributed NumPy neural network training?

Distributed Training Instability

Concurrent & Distributed Systems

Let’s say we’ve proposed a new analytics dashboard to a client, but after reviewing our design and data sources, the client says the solution doesn’t meet their needs and pushes back on several key features.

How would you approach the conversation to negotiate alternative solutions, and what steps would you take to ensure disagreements are handled constructively so we can still reach a successful outcome?

Let’s say we’re launching a new version of the PayPal app, but due to a tight deadline, we don’t have time to run the entire suite of 300 automated test cases before release.

How would you handle this situation?

How would you approach limited testing time before a major app release?

Testing Constraints

A/B Testing

Let’s say you work for an e-commerce company. Vendors can send products to the company’s warehouse to be listed on the website. Users are able to order any in-stock products and submit returns for refunds if they’re not satisfied.

The front end of the website includes a vendor portal that provides sales data in daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, and yearly intervals.

The company wants to expand worldwide. They put you in charge of designing its end-to-end architecture, so you need to know what significant factors you’ll need to consider. What clarifying questions would you ask?

What kind of end-to-end architecture would you design for this company (both for ETL and reporting)?

How would you design a data warehouse for a e-commerce company looking to expand internationally?

International e-Commerce Warehouse

Let’s say we’re building a system for eBay to support multiple types of sellers: individuals, small businesses, and enterprise merchants. Each seller type shares core attributes like <code>seller_id</code> and <code>account_status</code>, but has unique features—enterprise merchants, for example, can manage up to 50 sub-accounts, while individuals have simpler profiles.

How would you decide between using composition or inheritance to model these seller types, and what trade-offs would you weigh in making your choice?

How would you decide between composition and inheritance when modeling different seller types on eBay?

Seller Type Modeling

When an interviewer asks you a question along the lines of:

<ul>
<li>Why did you apply to our company?</li>
<li>What are you looking for in your next job?</li>
<li>What makes you a good fit for our company?</li>
</ul>

How should you respond?

When asked 'What are you looking for in your next job?' in an interview, how can you tie the company's employee benefits into your response?

When asked 'What are you looking for in your next job?' in an interview, how can you tie the company's employee benefits into your response?

Why Do You Want to Work With Us I

How can company values be used effectively in an interview when asked 'What makes you a good fit for our company?'

How can company values be used effectively in an interview when asked 'What makes you a good fit for our company?'

Why Do You Want to Work With Us II

When responding to the question 'Why did you apply to our company?' during an interview, what aspect should you highlight?

When responding to the question 'Why did you apply to our company?' during an interview, what aspect should you highlight?

Why Do You Want to Work With Us III

How would you answer when an Interviewer asks why you applied to their company?

Why Do You Want to Work With Us

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

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

Your Strengths and Weaknesses

Important: You must answer <a href="https://www.interviewquery.com/questions/array-operations-fixed-length-arrays-1">this question</a> before attempting this one. We recommend copying your previous solution and iterating the new solution with the added operations.

Create a more extensive <code>Array</code> class simulating the functionality of fixed-size arrays. The array’s fixed size is <code>6</code>. In this question, we will be implementing the deletion and search operations.

<ul>
<li><code>pop_back() -&gt; element</code> - removes the last element of the array. Returns the removed element. If the array is empty, return <code>None</code>.</li>

<li><code>pop_front() -&gt; element</code> - removes the first element of the array. Returns the removed element. If the array is empty, return <code>None</code>.</li>

<li><code>pop(index) -&gt; element</code> - removes the element at the specified index and returns it. When the index is not in range, raise an <code>IndexError</code>.</li>

<li><code>search(element) -&gt; index</code> - searches for the specified element and returns the index of the first instance if it exists inside the array. Returns <code>-1</code> if the element does not exist inside the array. Example: <code>Array([1, 2, 3]).search(2) -&gt; 1</code>.</li>

<li><code>__contains__(element) -&gt; bool</code> - checks if the element exists inside the array. Returns <code>True</code> if it exists and <code>False</code> if it does not.</li>

<li><code>abolish(element) -&gt; count</code> - removes all instances of an element and returns the count of all removed instances.</li>

<li><code>__eq__(other) -&gt; bool</code> - checks the equality of the array with another array called <code>other</code>. Raises a <code>TypeError</code> if <code>other</code> is not an instance of this custom <code>Array</code> class.</li>
</ul>

Note: All the basic addition operations must be implemented first. (Refer to Fixed Length Arrays 1)

Implement a fixed-length array with addition, deletion, and search operations.

Fixed-Length Arrays: Deletion

Talk about a time when you had trouble communicating with stakeholders. How were you able to overcome it?

You work as an ML engineer for a large company. The company wants to implement a machine learning system that utilizes facial recognition to facilitate employee clock-in, clock-out, and access to secure systems. The company also hires temporary contract consultants who need to be able to use the system.

How would you design this system?

Designing a secure and user-friendly facial recognition system for employee management while prioritizing privacy and ethical considerations

Distributed Authentication Model

Let’s say we’re responsible for deploying a new version of Uber’s routing system, and the release includes both backend and frontend changes that may impact user workflows.

How would you design the deployment process to minimize risk, ensure clear communication with both clients and internal teams, and handle rollbacks if unexpected issues arise?

You work as a cloud architect at a large enterprise. The company is migrating its core web application to Microsoft Azure and wants to ensure high availability and scalability. You are asked to provision the infrastructure as code, leveraging Kubernetes for orchestration and Terraform for automation.

How would you architect this system to maximize reliability and scalability?

Write a technical design document describing your approach.

Question	Topic	Difficulty
Hurdles In Data Projects	Behavioral	Medium
Tell me about a data project that didn’t go the way you expected. What did you set out to do, what surprised you, and how did you handle it? View Question Show Solution
Over-Budget Projects	SQL	Medium
Scrambled Tickets	Data Structures & Algorithms	Hard

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

Atmospheric & Space Technology Research Associates, Llc. Interview Questions

Atmospheric & Space Technology Research Associates, Llc. Interview Guides

Atmospheric & Space Technology Research Associates, Llc. Interview Questions

Challenge

Discussion & Interview Experiences

Discussion & Interview Experiences