Prepare for and practice interview questions from Monsanto Company.

Monsanto Company Interview Questions

Monsanto Company Interview Guides

Machine Learning

RMS Error

Bagging vs Boosting

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

Softmax vs Logistic

Decision Tree Evaluation

Random Forest Explanation

Data Structures & Algorithms

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

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

Common Prefix

Valid Anagram

Digit Accumulator

Last Transaction

Cumulative Distribution

Given a users table, write a query to get the cumulative number of new users added by the day, with the total reset every month. 

Cumulative Reset

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

Count Transactions

Subscription Retention

Statistics

P-value to a Layman

What are the assumptions of linear regression?

Assumptions of Linear Regression

Unbiased Estimator

When would you use metrics like the mean and median?

Best Measure

Describe linear regression to various audiences with different levels of knowledge.

Explaining Linear Regression to Different Audiences

Probability

How would you assess if a coin is fair after observing 8 tails in 10 flips?

Fair Coin

Write a function to get a sample from a standard normal distribution.

Normal Distribution Sample

Density to Cumulative

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

Secret Wins

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

Brainteasers

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

Describe a data project you worked on. What were some of the challenges you faced?

Describing a data project and its challenges

Hurdles In Data Projects

Analytics

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

Let’s say that you’re training a classification model.

How would you combat overfitting when building tree-based models?

Let's say that you're training a classification model.   How would you combat overfitting when building tree-based models?

Overfit Avoidance

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

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

Let’s say we’re comparing two machine learning algorithms. In which case would you use a bagging algorithm versus a boosting algorithm? 

Give an example of the tradeoffs between the two.

In machine learning, when would you use a bagging algorithm over a boosting algorithm?

In machine learning, when would you use a bagging algorithm over a boosting algorithm?

Bagging vs. Boosting

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

Strategically resolving misaligned expectations with stakeholders for a successful project outcome

Stakeholder Communication

Explain the difference between the XGBoost and random forest algorithms and give an example where you would use one over the other.

Why might a data scientist choose to use XGBoost instead of Random Forest for a particular machine learning task?

Why might a data scientist choose to use XGBoost instead of Random Forest for a particular machine learning task?

XGBoost vs Random Forest: Choice

Xgboost vs Random Forest

How does random forest generate the forest? Additionally, why would we use it over other algorithms such as logistic regression?

What happens when you average the output on multiple decision trees?

What happens when you average the output on multiple decision trees?

Average Trees

Tell me about a project in which you had to clean and organize a large dataset.

Describing a real-world data cleaning and organization project

Data Cleaning Experiences

Data Pipelines

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.

A/B Testing

Regularization and cross-validation are two common techniques used to improve the performance of machine learning algorithms.

When should you use one versus the other?

Given the choices below, which one is an example of a scenario where we should be using regularization?

Given the choices below, which one is an example of a scenario where we should be using regularization?

Regularization Example

Regularization and Validation

How would you convey insights and the methods you use to a non-technical audience?

Making data-driven insights actionable for those without technical expertise

Simple Explanations

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

Let’s say you work as a data scientist at a bank.

You are tasked with building a decision tree model to predict if a borrower will pay back a personal loan they are taking out.

<ol>
<li>How would you evaluate whether using a decision tree algorithm is the correct model for the problem?</li>

<li>Let’s say you move forward with the decision tree model. How would you evaluate the performance of the model before deployment and after?</li>
</ol>

Describe a time when you had to define a long-term vision for a project or team and move it from concept to reality.

Interviews for leadership or senior technical roles look for more than just “finishing a project.” Your answer should specifically address:

<ol>
<li>The “Why”: What data or organizational gap necessitated this vision?</li>
<li>The Framework: How did you translate a high-level goal into a roadmap?</li>
<li>The Friction: How did you handle stakeholders or team members who were skeptical of the new direction?</li>
</ol>

Vision Setting and Execution Strategy

Business Case

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>

How would you explain the concept of linear regression to three different audiences: a child, a first-year college student, and a seasoned mathematician? Ensure your explanations are tailored to the understanding level of each audience.

Let’s say you’re interning at a fintech startup that’s building a platform for online games of chance. During testing, one of your simulations flips a coin 10 times and gets 8 tails and 2 heads.

How would you determine if the coin is fair, and what statistical approach would you use to support your conclusion?

How comfortable are you presenting your insights?

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

Presentations and Insights

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

What are some effective ways to make data more accessible to non-technical people?

Demystifying data for non-technical users through visualization and clear communication

Accessible Data

Data Viz & Interpretation

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 your manager asks you to build a model with a neural network to solve a business problem.

How would you justify the complexity of building such a model and explain the predictions to non-technical stakeholders?

Which is the following domains is generally NOT a good use case for using a deep neural net?

Which is the following domains is generally NOT a good use case for using a deep neural net?

Neural Net Use Cases

Justify a Neural Network

Let’s say that you’re working on building a model to detect potential bombs at a border crossing.

How would you design the model’s inputs and outputs, measure its accuracy, and test your model?

Let’s say you are building a neutral net to detect if a nuclear missile is incoming.

What metric would be most important to look at?

Let's say you are building a neutral net to detect if a nuclear missile is incoming.

What metric would be most important to look at?

Nuclear Missile Detection

Bomb Detection

To improve customer experience on Uber Eats, what key parameters would you focus on improving?

Delivering an exceptional customer experience by focusing on key customer-centric parameters

Uber Eats Customer Experience

Product Sense & Metrics

Write a function to get a sample from a standard normal distribution.

One day you are invited to your kid’s kindergarten. The children there ask about your work as a machine learning engineer.

How would you explain neural networks to the kids there?

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

Monsanto Company Interview Questions

Monsanto Company Interview Guides

Monsanto Company Interview Questions

Challenge

Monsanto Company Salaries by Position

Discussion & Interview Experiences

Discussion & Interview Experiences