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Strava Interview Questions

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Data Structures & Algorithms

Given two sorted lists, write a function to merge them into one sorted list.

Merge Sorted Lists

Find Bigrams

Write a function to create a single dataframe with complete addresses in the format of street, city, state, zip code.

Complete Addresses

Write a function friendship_timeline to generate an output that lists the pairs of friends with their corresponding timestamps of the friendship beginning and then the timestamp of the friendship ending. 

Friendship Timeline

Given a list of integers, and an integer N, write a function to find all combinations that sum to the value N.

Sum to N

Write a query to select the top 3 departments with at least ten employees and rank them according to the percentage of their employees making over 100K in salary.

Employee Salaries

Select the 2nd highest salary in the engineering department

2nd Highest Salary

Write a SQL query to create a histogram of the number of comments per user in the month of January 2020.

Comments Histogram

Write a query that returns all neighborhoods that have 0 users.

Empty Neighborhoods

Write a query to return whether each user's subscription date range overlaps with any other completed subscription

Subscription Overlap

Machine Learning

How would you encode a categorical variable with thousands of distinct values

Encoding Categorical Features

Which model would perform better and why?

Booking Regression

How do we give each rejected applicant a reason why they got rejected?

Rejection Reason

How would you build a job recommendation feed?

Job Recommendation

Write a function calculate_rmse to calculate the root mean squared error from y_pred and y_true

RMS Error

Product Sense & Metrics

How would you investigate a decline in the average number of comments per user?

Decreasing Comments

Where and how could you promote Instagram through Facebook

Promoting Instagram

Why would comments per user increase by 10% but posts go down 2%, and what metrics would prove your hypotheses

Threaded Comments

How would you measure the success of Facebook Groups

Group Success

What would you investigate to diagnose what's happening?

WAU vs Open Rates

Probability

What is the probability that each subsequent card is larger than the previous drawn card when picking three cards from a shuffled deck of 500 cards

500 Cards

What is the probability that it's actually raining in Seattle?

Raining in Seattle

Compute the expected number of good ads in each scenario and the probability a bad rating came from a lazy rater

Ad Raters

What would be the expected amount of money you would win using a profit-maximizing strategy

Profit-Maximizing Dice Game

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

Fair Coin

<p>Say you work at Instagram and a new feature for high schoolers is about to be released. This new feature allows a user to identify their school and receive an associated sticker that they can use to “rep” their high school on their profile.</p>

<p>How would you verify that a user is actually a high school student attending the school represented by their sticker?</p>


How would you verify that a user is actually a high school student attending the school represented by their sticker

High School Sticker

Business Case

<p>We’re given two tables, a <code>users</code> table with demographic information and the neighborhood they live in and a <code>neighborhoods</code> table.</p>

<p>Write a query that returns all neighborhoods that have 0 users. </p>

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

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

<p><code>users</code> table</p>

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

<tr>
<td><code>created_at</code></td>
<td>DATETIME</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p><code>neighborhoods</code> table</p>

<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>city_id</code></td>
<td>INTEGER</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p><strong>Output:</strong></p>

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

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


<p>Given a <code>employees</code> and <code>departments</code> table, select the top 3 departments with at least ten employees and rank them according to the percentage of their employees making over 100K in salary.</p>

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

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

<p><code>employees</code> table</p>

<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>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>
<p><code>departments</code> table</p>

<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>
</tbody>
</table>
<p><strong>Output:</strong></p>

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

<tbody>
<tr>
<td><code>percentage_over_100k</code></td>
<td>FLOAT</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td><code>department_name</code></td>
<td>VARCHAR</td>
</tr>

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


<p>Given two sorted lists, write a function to merge them into one sorted list.</p>

<p><em>Bonus: What’s the time complexity?</em></p>

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

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

<pre tabindex="0" class="chroma"><code><span class="line"><span class="cl"><span class="n">list1</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="p">[</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="mi">5</span><span class="p">]</span>
</span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"><span class="n">list2</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="p">[</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="mi">4</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="mi">6</span><span class="p">]</span>
</span></span></code></pre>

<p><strong>Output:</strong></p>

<pre tabindex="0" class="chroma"><code><span class="line"><span class="cl"><span class="k">def</span> <span class="nf">merge_list</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">list1</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">list2</span><span class="p">)</span> <span class="o">-&gt;</span> <span class="p">[</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="mi">4</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="mi">5</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="mi">6</span><span class="p">]</span>
</span></span></code></pre>


<p>You have two sorted lists, one with m elements and one with n elements. What would be the time complexity of merging the two lists via merge sort?</p>


You have two sorted lists, one with m elements and one with n elements. What would be the time complexity of merging the two lists via merge sort? 

Merging Lists Complexity

<p>Write a SQL query to select the 2nd highest salary in the engineering department.</p>

<p><strong>Note:</strong> If more than one person shares the highest salary, the query should select the next highest salary.</p>

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

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

<p><code>employees</code> table</p>

<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>
<p><code>departments</code> table</p>

<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>
<p><strong>Output:</strong></p>

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

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


<p>Given a table called <code>user_experiences</code>, write a query to determine the percentage of users that held the title of <code>&#34;Data Analyst&#34;</code> immediately before holding the title <code>&#34;Data Scientist&#34;</code>.</p>

<p>Immediate is defined as the user holding no other titles between the <code>&#34;Data Analyst&#34;</code> and <code>&#34;Data Scientist&#34;</code> roles.</p>

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

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

<p><code>user_experiences</code> table</p>

<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>position_name</code></td>
<td>VARCHAR</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td><code>start_date</code></td>
<td>DATETIME</td>
</tr>

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

<tr>
<td><code>user_id</code></td>
<td>INTEGER</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p><strong>Output:</strong></p>

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

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


User Experience Percentage

<p>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.</p>

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

<p><em>Note: It shouldn’t recommend pages that the user already likes.</em></p>

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

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

<p><code>friends</code> table</p>

<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>
<p><code>page_likes</code> table</p>

<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>
<p><strong>Output:</strong></p>

<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>


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

Liked Pages

<p>Write a SQL query to create a histogram of the number of comments per user in the month of January 2020.</p>

<p><em>Note: Assume bin buckets class intervals of one.</em></p>

<p><em>Note: Comments that were created outside of January 2020 should be counted in a “0” bucket</em></p>

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

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

<p><code>users</code> table</p>

<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>mail</code></td>
<td>VARCHAR</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p><code>comments</code> table</p>

<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>
<p><strong>Output:</strong></p>

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

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

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


<p>Given the <code>employees</code> and <code>departments</code> table, write a query to get the top 3 highest employee salaries by department. If the department contains less that 3 employees, the top 2 or the top 1 highest salaries should be listed (assume that each department has at least 1 employee). </p>

<p><em>Note: The output should include the full name of the employee in one column, the department name, and the salary. The output should be sorted by department name in ascending order and salary in descending order.</em> </p>

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

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

<p><code>employees</code> table</p>

<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>
<p><code>departments</code> table</p>

<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>
<p><strong>Output</strong>:</p>

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

<tbody>
<tr>
<td><code>employee_nam</code>e</td>
<td>VARCHAR</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td><code>department_name</code></td>
<td>VARCHAR</td>
</tr>

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


Get the top 3 highest employee salaries by department

Top Three Salaries

<p>Given a table of bank transactions with columns <code>id</code>, <code>transaction_value</code>, and <code>created_at</code> representing the date and time for each transaction, write a query to get the last transaction for each day.</p>

<p>The output should include the id of the transaction, datetime of the transaction, and the transaction amount. Order the transactions by datetime.</p>

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

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

<p><code>bank_transactions</code> table</p>

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

<tr>
<td><code>transaction_value</code></td>
<td>FLOAT</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p><strong>Output:</strong></p>

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

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

<tr>
<td><code>transaction_value</code></td>
<td>FLOAT</td>
</tr>

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


Last Transaction

<p>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.</p>

<p>How would you assess the validity of the result?</p>


How would you assess the validity of the result?

Experiment Validity

A/B Testing

<p>Let’s say you want to test the close friends feature on Instagram Stories.</p>

<p>How would you make a control group and test group to account for network effects?</p>


<p>What could be a potential risk when Facebook segments the metrics of the user interface change by market or demographic groups?</p>

What could be a potential risk when Facebook segments the metrics of the user interface change by market or demographic groups?

Network Experiment Design I

<p>What is the primary metric that Facebook should monitor if it decides to make the user interface of its posting feature more like Instagram's?</p>

What is the primary metric that Facebook should monitor if it decides to make the user interface of its posting feature more like Instagram's?

Network Experiment Design II

<p>If Facebook changes its user interface to mimic Instagram's, which adverse effect should they anticipate and monitor?</p>

If Facebook changes its user interface to mimic Instagram's, which adverse effect should they anticipate and monitor?

Network Experiment Design III

How would you make a control group and test group to account for network effects

Network Experiment Design

<p>A team wants to A/B test multiple different changes through a sign-up funnel.</p>

<p>For example, on a page, a button is currently red and at the top of the page. They want to see if changing a button from red to blue and/or from the top of the page to the bottom of the page will increase click-through.</p>

<p>How would you set up this test?</p>


<p>Your team wants to run an AB test on the color (red or blue) and position (top/bottom of the page) of a button that links to a promotion.</p>

<p>How many different variants of the test should you run to see the effect that a red button has on the bottom of the page, if currently the button is blue and on the top of the page.</p>


Your team wants to run an AB test on the color (red or blue) and position (top/bottom of the page) of a button that links to a promotion.

How many different variants of the test should you run to see the effect that a red button has on the bottom of the page, if currently the button is blue and on the top of the page.

A/B Test Variants

Button AB Test

<p>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?</p>


Describing a data project and its challenges

Hurdles In Data Projects

Behavioral

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


<p>What does a p-value in a statistical test represent?</p>

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

P-value to a Layman I

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

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

Explain what a p-value is to someone who is not technical

P-value to a Layman

Statistics

<p>Given a table of product subscriptions with a subscription start date and end date for each user, write a query that returns true or false whether or not each user has a subscription date range that overlaps with any other completed subscription.</p>

<p>Completed subscriptions have <code>end_date</code> recorded.</p>

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

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

<p><code>subscriptions</code> table</p>

<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>start_date</code></td>
<td>DATETIME</td>
</tr>

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

<table>
<thead>
<tr>
<th><code>user_id</code></th>
<th><code>start_date</code></th>
<th><code>end_date</code></th>
</tr>
</thead>

<tbody>
<tr>
<td>1</td>
<td>2019-01-01</td>
<td>2019-01-31</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td>2</td>
<td>2019-01-15</td>
<td>2019-01-17</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td>3</td>
<td>2019-01-29</td>
<td>2019-02-04</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td>4</td>
<td>2019-02-05</td>
<td>2019-02-10</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p><strong>Output:</strong></p>

<table>
<thead>
<tr>
<th><code>user_id</code></th>
<th><code>overlap</code></th>
</tr>
</thead>

<tbody>
<tr>
<td>1</td>
<td>1</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td>2</td>
<td>1</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td>3</td>
<td>1</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td>4</td>
<td>0</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>


<p>Given the tables <code>users</code> and <code>rides</code>, write a query to report the distance traveled by each user in descending order.</p>

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

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

<p><code>users</code> table</p>

<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>INTEGER</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p><code>rides</code> table</p>

<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>passenger_user_id</code></td>
<td>INTEGER</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td><code>distance</code></td>
<td>FLOAT</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p><strong>Output:</strong></p>

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

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

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


Distance Traveled

<p>Given the <code>transactions</code> table below, write a query that finds the third purchase of every user.</p>

<p><em>Note: Sort the results by the <code>user_id</code> in ascending order. If a user purchases two products at the same time, the lower <code>id</code> field is used to determine which is the first purchase.</em></p>

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

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

<p><code>transactions</code> table</p>

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

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

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

<tr>
<td><code>quantity</code></td>
<td>INTEGER</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p><strong>Output:</strong></p>

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

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

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


Write a query to find the third purchase of every user sorted by user_id ascending

Third Purchase

<p>Imagine a deck of 500 cards numbered from 1 to 500. If all the cards are shuffled randomly and you are asked to pick three cards, one at a time, what’s the probability of each subsequent card being larger than the previous drawn card?</p>


<p>Imagine a deck of 2000 cards numbered from 1 to 2000. If all the cards are shuffled randomly and you are asked to pick three cards, one at a time, what’s the probability of each subsequent card being larger than the previously drawn card?</p>


Imagine a deck of 2000 cards numbered from 1 to 2000. If all the cards are shuffled randomly and you are asked to pick three cards, one at a time, what's the probability of each subsequent card being larger than the previously drawn card?

2000 cards

<p>Given a table of user sessions, write a query to get the number of days between each user’s first session and last session for the year 2020. </p>

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

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

<p><code>user_sessions</code> table</p>

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

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

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

<tr>
<td><code>user_id</code></td>
<td>INTEGER</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p><strong>Output:</strong></p>

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


Find the difference between users' first and last sessions in the year

Session Difference

<p>Let’s say we have a table with an <code>id</code> and <code>name</code> fields. The table holds over 100 million rows and we want to sample a random row in the table without throttling the database.</p>

<p>Write a query to randomly sample a row from this table.</p>

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

<p><code>big_table</code> table</p>

<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>
</tbody>
</table>


Write a query to randomly sample a row from a big table.

Random SQL Sample

<p>You’re given a dataframe of students named <code>students_df</code>:</p>

<p><code>students_df</code> table</p>

<table>
<thead>
<tr>
<th><strong>name</strong></th>
<th><strong>age</strong></th>
<th><strong>favorite_color</strong></th>
<th><strong>grade</strong></th>
</tr>
</thead>

<tbody>
<tr>
<td>Tim Voss</td>
<td>19</td>
<td>red</td>
<td>91</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td>Nicole Johnson</td>
<td>20</td>
<td>yellow</td>
<td>95</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td>Elsa Williams</td>
<td>21</td>
<td>green</td>
<td>82</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td>John James</td>
<td>20</td>
<td>blue</td>
<td>75</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td>Catherine Jones</td>
<td>23</td>
<td>green</td>
<td>93</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p>Write a function named <code>grades_colors</code> to select only the rows where the student’s favorite color is green or red and their grade is above 90.</p>

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

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

<pre tabindex="0" class="chroma"><code><span class="line"><span class="cl"><span class="kn">import</span> <span class="nn">pandas</span> <span class="k">as</span> <span class="nn">pd</span>
</span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl">
</span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"><span class="n">students</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="p">{</span><span class="s2">&#34;name&#34;</span> <span class="p">:</span> <span class="p">[</span><span class="s2">&#34;Tim Voss&#34;</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="s2">&#34;Nicole Johnson&#34;</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="s2">&#34;Elsa Williams&#34;</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="s2">&#34;John James&#34;</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="s2">&#34;Catherine Jones&#34;</span><span class="p">],</span> <span class="s2">&#34;age&#34;</span> <span class="p">:</span> <span class="p">[</span><span class="mi">19</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mi">20</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mi">21</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mi">20</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mi">23</span><span class="p">],</span> <span class="s2">&#34;favorite_color&#34;</span> <span class="p">:</span> <span class="p">[</span><span class="s2">&#34;red&#34;</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="s2">&#34;yellow&#34;</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="s2">&#34;green&#34;</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="s2">&#34;blue&#34;</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="s2">&#34;green&#34;</span><span class="p">],</span> <span class="s2">&#34;grade&#34;</span> <span class="p">:</span> <span class="p">[</span><span class="mi">91</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mi">95</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mi">82</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mi">75</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mi">93</span><span class="p">]}</span>
</span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl">
</span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"><span class="n">students_df</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">pd</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">DataFrame</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">students</span><span class="p">)</span>
</span></span></code></pre>

<p><strong>Output:</strong></p>

<pre tabindex="0" class="chroma"><code><span class="line"><span class="cl"><span class="k">def</span> <span class="nf">grades_colors</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">students_df</span><span class="p">)</span> <span class="o">-&gt;</span>
</span></span></code></pre>

<table>
<thead>
<tr>
<th><strong>name</strong></th>
<th><strong>age</strong></th>
<th><strong>favorite_color</strong></th>
<th><strong>grade</strong></th>
</tr>
</thead>

<tbody>
<tr>
<td>Tim Voss</td>
<td>19</td>
<td>red</td>
<td>91</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td>Catherine Jones</td>
<td>23</td>
<td>green</td>
<td>93</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>


Write a function to select only the rows where the student's favorite color is green or red and their grade is above 90.

Good Grades and Favorite Colors

<p>You’re given three tables.</p>

<p>An <strong>ads</strong> table holds an ID and the advertisement name like “Labor day shirts sale”. The <strong>feed_comments</strong> table holds the comments on ads by different users that occur in the regular feed. The <strong>moments_comments</strong> table holds the comments on ads by different users in the moments section.</p>

<p>Write a query to get the percentage of comments, by ad, that occurs in the feed versus mentions sections of the app.</p>

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

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

<p><code>feed_comments</code> table</p>

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

<tbody>
<tr>
<td><code>ad_id</code></td>
<td>integer</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td><code>user_id</code></td>
<td>integer</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td><code>comment_id</code></td>
<td>integer</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p><code>moments_comments</code> table</p>

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

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

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

<tr>
<td><code>comment_id</code></td>
<td>INTEGER</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p><code>ads</code> table</p>

<table>
<thead>
<tr>
<th><strong>column</strong></th>
<th><strong>type</strong></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>
<p><strong>Output:</strong></p>

<table>
<thead>
<tr>
<th>name</th>
<th>percentage_feed</th>
<th>percentage_moments</th>
</tr>
</thead>

<tbody>
<tr>
<td>Labor Day</td>
<td>.6</td>
<td>.4</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td>Polo Shirts</td>
<td>.85</td>
<td>.15</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>


Write a query to get the percentage of comments, by ad, that occurs in the feed versus mentions sections of the app.

Ad Comments

<p>Given two tables:  <code>accounts</code>, and <code>downloads</code>, find the average number of downloads for free vs paying accounts, broken down by day.</p>

<p><em>Note: You only need to consider accounts that have had at least one download before when calculating the average.</em></p>

<p><em>Note: round <code>average_downloads</code> to 2 decimal places.</em></p>

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

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

<p><code>accounts</code> table</p>

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

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

<tr>
<td><code>paying_customer</code></td>
<td>BOOLEAN</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p><code>downloads</code> table</p>

<table>
<thead>
<tr>
<th>column</th>
<th>type</th>
</tr>
</thead>

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

<tr>
<td><code>download_date</code></td>
<td>DATETIME</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td><code>downloads</code></td>
<td>INTEGER</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p><strong>Output:</strong></p>

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

<tbody>
<tr>
<td><code>download_date</code></td>
<td>DATETIME</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td><code>paying_customer</code></td>
<td>BOOLEAN</td>
</tr>

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


Write a query to find the average downloads for free vs paying accounts by day, rounded to 2 decimals

Download Facts

<p>The <code>events</code> table tracks every time a user performs a certain action (like, post_enter, etc.) on a platform. An example of this table would look like this:</p>

<table>
<thead>
<tr>
<th>user_id</th>
<th>created_at</th>
<th>action</th>
<th>platform</th>
</tr>
</thead>

<tbody>
<tr>
<td>1</td>
<td>2021-01-01 12:00:00</td>
<td>email_opened</td>
<td>Android</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td>2</td>
<td>2021-01-01 12:05:00</td>
<td>like</td>
<td>Outlook</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td>3</td>
<td>2021-01-01 12:10:00</td>
<td>post_enter</td>
<td>Gmail</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td>4</td>
<td>2021-01-01 12:15:00</td>
<td>post_cancel</td>
<td>Outlook</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td>5</td>
<td>2021-01-01 12:20:00</td>
<td>like</td>
<td>Gmail</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p>What query would you write to determine how many different users gave a like on June 6, 2020?</p>

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

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

<p><code>events</code> table</p>

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

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

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

<tr>
<td>action</td>
<td>VARCHAR</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td>platform</td>
<td>VARCHAR</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p><strong>Output</strong></p>

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

<tbody>
<tr>
<td>num_users_gave_like</td>
<td>INTEGER</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>


Find out the number of users that gave a like on a certain date

Like Tracker

<p>You’re given a table that represents search results from searches on Facebook. The <code>query</code> column is the search term, the <code>position</code> column represents each position the search result came in, and the <code>rating</code> column represents the human rating of the search result from 1 to 5 where 5 is high relevance and 1 is low relevance.</p>

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

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

<p><code>search_results</code> table</p>

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

<tbody>
<tr>
<td><code>query</code></td>
<td>VARCHAR</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td><code>result_id</code></td>
<td>INTEGER</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td><code>position</code></td>
<td>INTEGER</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td><code>rating</code></td>
<td>INTEGER</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p>You want to be able to compute a metric that measures the precision of the ranking system based on position. For example, if the results for dog and cat are…</p>

<table>
<thead>
<tr>
<th>query</th>
<th>result_id</th>
<th>position</th>
<th>rating</th>
<th>notes</th>
</tr>
</thead>

<tbody>
<tr>
<td>dog</td>
<td>1000</td>
<td>1</td>
<td>2</td>
<td>picture of hotdog</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td>dog</td>
<td>998</td>
<td>2</td>
<td>4</td>
<td>dog walking</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td>dog</td>
<td>342</td>
<td>3</td>
<td>1</td>
<td>zebra</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td>cat</td>
<td>123</td>
<td>1</td>
<td>4</td>
<td>picture of cat</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td>cat</td>
<td>435</td>
<td>2</td>
<td>2</td>
<td>cat memes</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td>cat</td>
<td>545</td>
<td>3</td>
<td>1</td>
<td>pizza shops</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p>…we would rank ‘cat’ as having a better search result ranking precision than ‘dog’ based on the correct sorting by rating.</p>

<p>Write a query to create a metric that can validate and rank the queries by their search result precision. Round the metric (avg_rating column) to 2 decimal places.</p>

<p><strong>Output:</strong></p>

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

<tbody>
<tr>
<td>query</td>
<td>VARCHAR</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td>avg_rating</td>
<td>FLOAT</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>


<p>Let’s say you want to create a metric that is proportional to field A and inversely proportional to field B. Which of the following metrics would fit these criteria?</p>


Let's say you want to create a metric that is proportional to field A and inversely proportional to field B. Which of the following metrics would fit these criteria?

Weighted Average Metric

Write a query to compute the percentage of search queries whose results all have ratings below 3

Search Ratings

Analytics

<p>Let’s say you are designing a marketplace for your website.</p>

<p>Selling firearms is prohibited by your website’s Terms of Service Agreement (not to mention the laws of your country). To this end, you want to create a system that can automatically detect if a listing on the marketplace is selling a gun.</p>

<p>How would you go about doing this?</p>


<p>While designing a system to detect firearms listings on a marketplace website, what metrics could be used to minimize both false positives and false negatives?</p>

While designing a system to detect firearms listings on a marketplace website, what metrics could be used to minimize both false positives and false negatives?

Detecting Firearm Sales

How would you build a model to detect if a post on a marketplace is talking about selling a gun?

<p>Given a dictionary with weights, write a function <code>random_key</code> that returns a key at random with a probability proportional to the weights.</p>

<p><strong>Example 1:</strong></p>

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

<pre tabindex="0" class="chroma"><code><span class="line"><span class="cl"><span class="n">weights</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="p">{</span><span class="s1">&#39;A&#39;</span><span class="p">:</span> <span class="mi">1</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="s1">&#39;B&#39;</span><span class="p">:</span> <span class="mi">2</span><span class="p">}</span>
</span></span></code></pre>

<p><strong>Output:</strong></p>

<pre tabindex="0" class="chroma"><code><span class="line"><span class="cl"><span class="n">random_key</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">weights</span><span class="p">)</span> <span class="o">-&gt;</span> <span class="k">return</span> <span class="n">A</span> <span class="mi">1</span><span class="o">/</span><span class="mi">3</span> <span class="n">of</span> <span class="n">the</span> <span class="n">time</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">B</span> <span class="mi">2</span><span class="o">/</span><span class="mi">3</span> <span class="n">of</span> <span class="n">the</span> <span class="n">time</span>
</span></span></code></pre>

<p><strong>Example 2:</strong></p>

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

<pre tabindex="0" class="chroma"><code><span class="line"><span class="cl"><span class="n">weights</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="p">{</span><span class="s1">&#39;A&#39;</span><span class="p">:</span> <span class="mi">1</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="s1">&#39;B&#39;</span><span class="p">:</span> <span class="mi">1</span><span class="p">}</span>
</span></span></code></pre>

<p><strong>Output:</strong></p>

<pre tabindex="0" class="chroma"><code><span class="line"><span class="cl"><span class="n">random_key</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">weights</span><span class="p">)</span> <span class="o">-&gt;</span> <span class="k">return</span> <span class="n">A</span> <span class="mi">1</span><span class="o">/</span><span class="mi">2</span>  <span class="n">of</span> <span class="n">the</span> <span class="n">time</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">B</span> <span class="mi">1</span><span class="o">/</span><span class="mi">2</span>  <span class="n">of</span> <span class="n">the</span> <span class="n">time</span>
</span></span></code></pre>


Weighted Keys

<p>Write a query to create a new table, named flight routes, that displays unique pairs of two locations.</p>

<p><em>Note: Duplicate pairs from the <code>flights</code> table, such as Dallas to Seattle and Seattle to Dallas, should have one entry in the flight routes table.</em></p>

<h3>Schema</h3>

<p><code>flights</code> table</p>

<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>source_location</code></td>
<td>VARCHAR</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td><code>destination_location</code></td>
<td>VARCHAR</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p><strong>Output:</strong></p>

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

<tbody>
<tr>
<td><code>destination_one</code></td>
<td>VARCHAR</td>
</tr>

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

<h3>Example</h3>

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

<p><strong><code>flights</code> table</strong></p>

<table>
<thead>
<tr>
<th>id</th>
<th>source_location</th>
<th>destination_location</th>
</tr>
</thead>

<tbody>
<tr>
<td>1</td>
<td>Seattle, WA</td>
<td>Dallas, TX</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td>2</td>
<td>Dallas, TX</td>
<td>Seattle, WA</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td>3</td>
<td>Seattle, WA</td>
<td>San Francisco, CA</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td>4</td>
<td>San Francisco, CA</td>
<td>Dallas, TX</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td>5</td>
<td>San Francisco, CA</td>
<td>Portland, OR</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td>6</td>
<td>Seattle, WA</td>
<td>Dallas, TX</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td>7</td>
<td>Portland, OR</td>
<td>San Francisco, CA</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td>8</td>
<td>San Francisco, CA</td>
<td>Los Angeles, CA</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p><strong>Output:</strong></p>

<table>
<thead>
<tr>
<th>destination_one</th>
<th>destination_two</th>
</tr>
</thead>

<tbody>
<tr>
<td>Dallas, TX</td>
<td>Seattle, WA</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td>Portland, OR</td>
<td>San Francisco, CA</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td>San Francisco, CA</td>
<td>Seattle, WA</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td>Dallas, TX</td>
<td>San Francisco, CA</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td>Los Angeles, CA</td>
<td>San Francisco, CA</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>


Flight Records

<p>You are a data scientist at YouTube focused on creators.</p>

<p>A PM comes to you worried that amateur video creators could do well before but now it seems like only “superstars” do well.</p>

<p>What data points and metrics would you look at to decide if this is true or not?</p>


What data points and metrics would you look at to decide if amateur creators are doing worse and only superstars do well

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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