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Broadcom Interview Questions

Broadcom Interview Guides

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

String Subsequence

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 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

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

Common Prefix

Machine Learning

Bank Fraud Model

FAQ Matching

Variable Error

Variate Anomalies

Credit Card Fraud Model

Behavioral

Describing a data project and its challenges

Hurdles In Data Projects

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

Presentations and Insights

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

Your Strengths and Weaknesses

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

Why Do You Want to Work With Us

Data Modeling

Swiping App Design

Yelp-like System

Design a database for a ride-sharing app.

Ride-Sharing App Schema

Reddit-like Notifications

Select the 2nd highest salary in the engineering department

2nd Highest Salary

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

Count Transactions

Let’s say that you work at a bank that wants to build a model to detect fraud on the platform.

The bank wants to implement a text messaging service in addition that will text customers when the model detects a fraudulent transaction in order for the customer to approve or deny the transaction with a text response.

How would we build this model?

Let’s say that you work at a bank that wants to build a model to detect fraud on the platform.

The bank wants to implement a text messaging service that will text customers when the model detects a fraudulent transaction in order for the customer to approve or deny the transaction with a text response.

Which statement is true?

Let's say that you work at a bank that wants to build a model to detect fraud on the platform.

The bank wants to implement a text messaging service that will text customers when the model detects a fraudulent transaction in order for the customer to approve or deny the transaction with a text response.

Which statement is true?

Design a database to represent a Tinder style dating app. 

What does the schema look like and what are some optimizations that you think we might need?

Let’s say you are making a swiping app, similar to Tinder.

What would be the most efficient way (in terms of retrieval time) to store which users have swiped on each other on a database backend?

Let's say you are making a swiping app, similar to Tinder.

What would be the most efficient way (in terms of retrieval time) to store which users have swiped on each other on a database backend?

Swipes Database Design

Let’s say you work at a company developing a new ride-sharing app.

How would you design a database that could record rides between riders and drivers?

What would the schema of the tables look like and how would they join together?

We want to build an application that allows anyone to review restaurants. This app should allow users to sign up, create a profile and leave reviews on restaurants if they wish. These reviews can include texts and images. A user can only write one review for a restaurant but can update their review.

Design the database schema that would support the application’s main functions. The schema should indicate the following:

<ul>
<li>The table name</li>
<li>The names of columns/fields</li>
<li>The data type of each column/field</li>
<li>A list of constraints on values (Primary or foreign keys)</li>
<li>A short description of each column/field</li>
</ul>

Make sure to elaborate on how the tables join with each other.

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?

Game Feature Home

Business Case

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

A/B Testing

Let’s say you are tasked with building a notification system for a simple Reddit-style community discussion app.

What would the backend and data model look like?

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>

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

P-value to a Layman

Statistics

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>

Given two strings, <code>string1</code> and <code>string2</code>, write a function <code>is_subsequence</code> to find out if <code>string1</code> is a subsequence of <code>string2</code>.

Bonus: A subsequence is a sequence that can be derived from another sequence by deleting some elements without changing the order of the remaining elements.

Example:

Input:

<pre tabindex="0" class="chroma"><code>string1 = &#39;abc&#39;
string2 = &#39;asbsc&#39;
string3 = &#39;acedb&#39;

is_subsequence(string1, string2) -&gt; True
is_subsequence(string1, string3) -&gt; False
</code></pre>

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>

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?

Assume you have a logistic model that is heavily weighted on one variable and that one variable has sample data like 50.00, 100.00, 40.00, etc….

Next let’s assume that there was a data quality issue with that variable and an unknown number of values removed the decimal point. For example 100.00 turned into 10000.

Would the model still be valid? Why or why not? How would you fix the model?

In predicting Airbnb booking prices with a dataset containing thousands of diverse features, which regression model could potentially perform better?

In predicting Airbnb booking prices with a dataset containing thousands of diverse features, which regression model could potentially perform better?

Let’s say that you’re looking at the metrics of a job board. You see that the number of job postings per day has more or less remained the same the last few months but the number of applicants that have applied to jobs has steadily been decreasing.

Why would this be happening?

Declining Applicants

Write a Python function called <code>group_anagrams</code> that takes a list of strings as input and returns a list of lists, where each inner list contains a group of anagrams that were present in the input list.

An anagram is a word or phrase formed by rearranging the letters of a different word or phrase, using all the original letters exactly once.

Note: Each of the inner lists should be ordered alphabetically and contain no duplicate values

<h3>Example:</h3>

Input:

<pre tabindex="0" class="chroma"><code>words = [&#34;eat&#34;, &#34;tea&#34;, &#34;tan&#34;, &#34;ate&#34;, &#34;nat&#34;, &#34;bat&#34;]
</code></pre>

Output:

<pre tabindex="0" class="chroma"><code>[ 
 [&#34;nat&#34;,&#34;tan&#34;],
 [&#34;ate&#34;,&#34;eat&#34;, &#34;tea&#34;],
 [&#34;bat&#34;]
]
</code></pre>

Explanation:

In the example, the words “eat”, “tea”, and “ate” are anagrams of each other, as are the words “tan” and “nat”. The word “bat” does not have any anagrams in the input list, and therefore is listed on its own. The function then groups the anagrams together and returns a list of lists representing these groups.

Each of the lists representing a group of anagrams is sorted in alphabetical order.

Identify the groups of anagrams in a list of words

Groups of Anagrams

Given a <code>ListNode</code> representing the head of a linked list, write a function <code>is_cyclic</code> which returns <code>True</code> if a linked list is cyclic and <code>False</code> if it is not. A linked list is cyclic when there is no tail to the linked list, and the supposed tail is attached to another node inside the list itself, creating a cycle.

A <code>ListNode</code> is defined as:

<pre tabindex="0" class="chroma"><code>class ListNode:
	value: ListNode = None
 next: ListNode = None
</code></pre>

Example:

Input:

<img src="/s3/questions/1a65651d-a483-4481-b073-2738d65ab9d7.png" alt="image"/>

Output:

<pre tabindex="0" class="chroma"><code>def is_cyclic(head) -&gt; True
</code></pre>

Cyclic Detection

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 you’re given all the different marketing channels along with their respective marketing costs at a company called Mode, that sells B2B analytics dashboards.

What metrics would you use to determine the value of each marketing channel?

When determining the value of each marketing channel for the company Mode, which metric is considered the key metric?

When determining the value of each marketing channel for the company Mode, which metric is considered the key metric?

Marketing Channel Metrics

What metrics would you use to determine the value of each marketing channel?

Analytics

You are given two non-empty linked lists representing two non-negative integers. Each list contains a single number, where each item in the list is one digit. The digits are stored in reverse order.

Task: Add the two numbers and return the sum as a linked list, also with the digits in reverse order. You may assume the two numbers do not contain any leading zeros, except the number 0 itself.

Example 1:

Input:

<pre tabindex="0" class="chroma"><code>l1 = 2-&gt;4-&gt;3-&gt;null
l2 = 5-&gt;6-&gt;4-&gt;null
</code></pre>

Output:

<pre tabindex="0" class="chroma"><code>addTwoNumbers(l1, l2) = 7-&gt;0-&gt;8-&gt;null
</code></pre>

Explanation: 342 + 465 = 807.

Example 2:

Input:

<pre tabindex="0" class="chroma"><code>l1 = 0-&gt;null
l2 = 0-&gt;null
</code></pre>

Output:

<pre tabindex="0" class="chroma"><code>addTwoNumbers(l1, l2) -&gt; 0-&gt;null
</code></pre>

Explanation: 0 + 0 = 0.

In this problem, we are given two linked lists representing two non-negative integers, with each item in the list holding one digit. The digits are stored in reverse order, and each of their nodes contains a single digit. We are required to add the two numbers and return the sum as a linked list.

Radix Addition

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>

Imagine you are asked to build a machine learning model to decide new loan approvals for a
financial firm. You ask the data department in the company for a subset of data to get started
working on the problem. The data includes different features about applicants such as age,
occupation, zip code, height, number of children, favorite color, etc. You decide to build
multiple machine learning models to test out different ideas before settling on the best one.

How would you explain the bias-variance tradeoff with regards to
building and choosing a model to use?

Bias vs. Variance Tradeoff

Given the head of a singly linked list represented as a <code>ListNode</code>, and two zero-indexed positions <code>x</code> and <code>y</code>, write a function <code>swap_node</code> which swaps the positions of nodes <code>x</code> and <code>y</code> and returns the new head. Note that you cannot simply swap the values of these nodes, as these nodes do not have values. Instead, you must swap these two using pointer manipulation (i.e., modifying the <code>next</code> references of the involved nodes inside the list).

A <code>ListNode</code> is defined as:

<pre tabindex="0" class="chroma"><code>class ListNode:
 next: ListNode = None
</code></pre>

Example:

Input:

<pre tabindex="0" class="chroma"><code>linked_list = ListNode(0x01) -&gt; ListNode(0x02) -&gt; ListNode(0x03) 
# Here, imagine that &#39;0x0_&#39; refer to their memory locations.
head = 0x01
x = 1
y = 2
</code></pre>

Output:

<pre tabindex="0" class="chroma"><code>def swap_node(head, x, y) -&gt; ListNode(0x01) -&gt; ListNode(0x03) -&gt; ListNode(0x02)
</code></pre>

Swapping Nodes

Given two strings, write a function to return <code>True</code> if the strings are anagrams of each other and <code>False</code> if they are not.

Note: A word is not an anagram of itself.

Example 1:

Input:

<pre tabindex="0" class="chroma"><code>string_1 = &#34;listen&#34;
string_2 = &#34;silent&#34;
</code></pre>

Output:

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

Example 2:

Input:

<pre tabindex="0" class="chroma"><code>string_1 = &#34;banana&#34;
string_2 = &#34;bandana&#34;
</code></pre>

Output:

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

Valid Anagram

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>

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>

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

Three Indexes Adding Zero

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

Addressing imbalanced data in machine learning through carefully prepared techniques.

Data Preparation for Imbalanced Data

Given a string, write a function to determine if it is palindrome or not.

Note: A palindrome is a word/string that is read the same way forward as it is backward, e.g. <code>&#39;reviver&#39;</code>, <code>&#39;madam&#39;</code>, <code>&#39;deified&#39;</code> and <code>&#39;civic&#39;</code> are all palindromes, while <code>&#39;tree&#39;</code>, <code>&#39;music&#39;</code> and <code>&#39;person&#39;</code> are not palindromes.

Example:

Input:

<pre tabindex="0" class="chroma"><code>word1 = &#34;tree&#34;
word2 = &#34;radar&#34;
</code></pre>

Output:

<pre tabindex="0" class="chroma"><code>def is_palindrome(word1) -&gt; False
def is_palindrome(word2) -&gt; True
</code></pre>

Given a string, write a function to determine if it is palindrome or not.

String Palindromes

Let’s say that you’re in charge of an e-commerce D2C business that sells socks.

What business health metrics would you care about tracking on a company dashboard?

Let’s say that you're in charge of an e-commerce D2C business that sells socks. What business health metrics would you care?

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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