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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 n_frequent_words that returns the top N frequent words and their frequencies, and state its run-time

Get Top N Frequent Words

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

Given two nonempty lists of user_ids and tips, write a function to find the user that tipped the most.

Biggest Tip

Machine Learning

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

Encoding Categorical Features

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

How would we build a model to detect fraud and text customers to approve or deny fraudulent transactions

Bank Fraud Model

Lasso vs Ridge

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

How can we measure the success of a 30-day free trial in acquiring and retaining new Netflix users

Netflix Retention

How would you measure the success of Facebook Groups

Group Success

What would you investigate to diagnose what's happening?

WAU vs Open Rates

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

User Experience Percentage

Distance Traveled

Probability

First to Six

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

What is the probability that item X would be found on Amazon's website?

Found Item

Compute the probability the coin is double headed and the probability the next toss is a head given 10 heads

Jars and Coins

What do you think the distribution of time spent per day on Facebook looks like? What metrics would you use to describe that distribution?

What metrics would you use to describe the distribution of time spent per day on Facebook

Time on FB Distribution

Statistics

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?

Design a database for a ride-sharing app.

Ride-Sharing App Schema

Data Modeling

You’re given a dataframe containing a list of user IDs and their full names (e.g. ‘James Emerson’).

Transform this dataframe into a dataframe that contains the user ids and only the first name of each user.

Example:

Input:

<table>
<thead>
<tr>
<th>user_id</th>
<th>name</th>
</tr>
</thead>

<tbody>
<tr>
<td>1034</td>
<td>James Emerson</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td>9430</td>
<td>Fiona Woodward</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td>7281</td>
<td>Alvin Gross</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td>5264</td>
<td>Deborah Handler</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td>8995</td>
<td>Leah Xue</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
Output:

<table>
<thead>
<tr>
<th>user_id</th>
<th>name</th>
</tr>
</thead>

<tbody>
<tr>
<td>1034</td>
<td>James</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td>9430</td>
<td>Fiona</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td>7281</td>
<td>Alvin</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td>5264</td>
<td>Deborah</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td>8995</td>
<td>Leah</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>

Transform a dataframe containing a list of user IDs and their full names into one that contains only the user ids and the first name of each user.

First Names Only

You work as a data scientist on a ride sharing marketplace.

<ol>
<li>What metrics would you look at to determine the demand for rides at any point?</li>

<li>What metrics would tell you if there is high demand and low supply? How can you determine the threshold for when there’s too much demand?</li>
</ol>

As a data scientist in a ride sharing marketplace, which metrics could help determine the demand for rides at any point?

As a data scientist in a ride sharing marketplace, which metrics could help determine the demand for rides at any point?

Demand Metrics I

In the context of a ride sharing marketplace, which situation would indicate a high demand and low supply?

In the context of a ride sharing marketplace, which situation would indicate a high demand and low supply?

Demand Metrics II

How would you identify supply and demand mismatch in a ride sharing market place?

Demand Metrics

Let’s say that you’re given 100 Twitter users. What metrics would you use to rank each user in influence?

How would you quantify the influence of a Twitter user?

How would you quantify the influence of a Twitter user

Influencer Metrics

You are working on Facebook’s stories and have found that very few users click through the story functionality. You are tasked with measuring the success of Facebook stories, but you cannot use a standard A/B test.

What testing strategies and metrics would you use to determine the success of stories?

What testing strategies and metrics would you use to determine the success of stories

Stories Success

Let’s say you work at Spotify.

We want to design a relational database for storing metadata about songs.

We want to include metadata like song title, song length, the date the song was added to the platform, artist, album, track number (on the album), the song’s release year, and its genre.

How would you go about designing this database?

Design a relational database for storing song metadata

Music Database

How would you build a database for a consumer file storage company like Dropbox?

Note: The database must be able to store many different file type formats and keep updates and history of file changes.

How would you build a database for a consumer file storage company like Dropbox

Dropbox Database

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>

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

How would you assess the validity of the result?

How would you assess the validity of the result?

Experiment Validity

A/B Testing

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

Note: Assume bin buckets class intervals of one.

Note: Comments that were created outside of January 2020 should be counted in a “0” bucket

Example:

Input:

<code>users</code> table

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

<table>
<thead>
<tr>
<th>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>

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.

Example:

Input:

<code>employees</code> table

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

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

<tr>
<td><code>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>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>
Output:

<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>

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

Bonus: What’s the time complexity?

Example:

Input:

<pre tabindex="0" class="chroma"><code>list1 = [1,2,5]
list2 = [2,4,6]
</code></pre>

Output:

<pre tabindex="0" class="chroma"><code>def merge_list(list1,list2) -&gt; [1,2,2,4,5,6]
</code></pre>

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?

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

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>.

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.

Example:

Input:

<code>user_experiences</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>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>
Output:

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

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

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?

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?

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

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.

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

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

Example:

Input:

<code>accounts</code> table

<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>
<code>downloads</code> table

<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>
Output:

<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

Amy and Brad take turns in rolling a fair six-sided die. Whoever rolls a “6” first wins the game. Amy starts by rolling first.

What’s the probability that Amy wins?

Amy and Brad take turns in rolling a fair six-sided die. Whoever rolls a “6” first wins the game. Amy starts by rolling first.

What’s the probability that Amy wins?

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.

Example 1:

Input:

<pre tabindex="0" class="chroma"><code>weights = {&#39;A&#39;: 1, &#39;B&#39;: 2}
</code></pre>

Output:

<pre tabindex="0" class="chroma"><code>random_key(weights) -&gt; return A 1/3 of the time, B 2/3 of the time
</code></pre>

Example 2:

Input:

<pre tabindex="0" class="chroma"><code>weights = {&#39;A&#39;: 1, &#39;B&#39;: 1}
</code></pre>

Output:

<pre tabindex="0" class="chroma"><code>random_key(weights) -&gt; return A 1/2 of the time, B 1/2 of the time
</code></pre>

Weighted Keys

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

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.

How would you set up this test?

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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?

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

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

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

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

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

P-value to a Layman

You are given a binary tree of unique positive numbers. Each node in the binary tree is represented as a dictionary with the following keys:

<ul>
<li><code>data</code>: integer value stored in the node</li>
<li><code>left</code>: reference to the left child (or <code>None</code>)</li>
<li><code>right</code>: reference to the right child (or <code>None</code>)</li>
</ul>

<pre tabindex="0" class="chroma"><code>node = {
 &#34;data&#34;: 6,
 &#34;left&#34;: {
 &#34;data&#34;: 3,
 &#34;left&#34;: {...},
 &#34;right&#34;: {...}
 },
 &#34;right&#34;: {
 &#34;data&#34;: 9,
 &#34;left&#34;: {...},
 &#34;right&#34;: {...}
 }
}
</code></pre>

Given two node values as input (<code>value1</code> and <code>value2</code>), write a function to return the value of the nearest common ancestor (lowest node in the tree that has both nodes as descendants).

Note: If one of the nodes doesn’t exist in the tree, return <code>-1</code>.

Example:

Input:

<pre tabindex="0" class="chroma"><code># Diagram of the binary tree
&#39;&#39;&#39;
 6 
 / \ 
 3 9 
 / \
 2 11
 / \
 5 8
&#39;&#39;&#39;
value1 = 8
value2 = 2
</code></pre>

Output:

<pre tabindex="0" class="chroma"><code>common_ancestor(root,value1,value2) -&gt; 3
</code></pre>

Explanation:

<ul>
<li>Ancestors of <code>8</code>: <code>11 → 3 → 6</code></li>
<li>Ancestors of <code>2</code>: <code>3 → 6</code></li>
<li>Common ancestors: <code>3</code> and <code>6</code></li>
<li>The nearest common ancestor is <code>3</code>.</li>
</ul>

Write a function to return the value of the nearest node that is a parent to both nodes.

Nearest Common Ancestor

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. 

Example:

Input:

<code>user_sessions</code> table

<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>
Output:

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

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

<tr>
<td><code>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

You’re given a string that may contain the characters <code>{</code>, <code>}</code>, <code>[</code>, <code>]</code>, <code>(</code>, and <code>)</code>.

Task: Verify that the string is balanced. A balanced string is one where every opening character, <code>{</code>, <code>[</code>, or <code>(</code>, has a corresponding closing character, <code>}</code>, <code>]</code>, or <code>)</code>.

Write a function called <code>is_balanced(string: str) -&gt; bool</code> which verifies the balance of a string.

Example:

<pre tabindex="0" class="chroma"><code>is_balanced(&#39;(())[]{}&#39;) -&gt; True
</code></pre>

<pre tabindex="0" class="chroma"><code>is_balanced(&#39;{([(){}])()}&#39;) -&gt; True
</code></pre>

<pre tabindex="0" class="chroma"><code>is_balanced(&#39;{}[]())&#39;) -&gt; False
</code></pre>

<hr/>

Write a function that tests whether a string of brackets is balanced.

The Brackets Problem

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.

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

Input:

<code>big_table</code> table

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

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

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

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

Random SQL Sample

The probability that it will rain tomorrow is dependent on whether or not it is raining today and whether or not it rained yesterday.

If it rained yesterday and today, there is a 20% chance it will rain tomorrow. If it rained one of the days, there is a 60% chance it will rain tomorrow. If it rained neither today nor yesterday, there is a 20% chance it will rain tomorrow.

Given that it is raining today and that it rained yesterday, write a function <code>rain_days</code> to calculate the probability that it will rain on the nth day after today.

Example:

Input:

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

Output:

<pre tabindex="0" class="chroma"><code>def rain_days(n) -&gt; 0.39968
</code></pre>

Given that it is raining today and that it rained yesterday, write a function to calculate the probability that it will rain on the nth day after today.

Rain in N Days

You are given two rectangles <code>a</code> and <code>b</code> each defined by four ordered pairs denoting their corners on the <code>x</code>, <code>y</code> plane. Write a function <code>rectangle_overlap</code> to determine whether or not they overlap. Return <code>True</code> if so, and <code>False</code> otherwise.

Note: If the two rectangles border one another, or share a corner like two diagonally adjacent positions on a chessboard, they are said to overlap.

Note: The lists of ordered pairs are in no particular order. The first entry in list <code>a</code> could be the top left corner while the first in list <code>b</code> is the bottom right.

Example:

Input:

<pre tabindex="0" class="chroma"><code>
a = [(-3,5), (-3,2),(0,5),(0,2)]
b = [(-1,4), (3,4), (3,1), (-1,1)]
</code></pre>

Output:

<pre tabindex="0" class="chroma"><code>def rectangle_overlap(a, b) -&gt; True
</code></pre>

As point <code>(0,2)</code> is fully contained in rectangle <code>b</code> and point <code>(-1,4)</code> is fully contained in a rectangle <code>a</code>.

Write a function to determine whether or not two rectangles overlap.

Rectangle Overlap

Let’s say at Netflix we offer a subscription where customers can enroll for a 30-day free trial. After 30 days, customers will be automatically charged based on the package selected.

Let’s say we want to measure the success of acquiring new users through the free trial.

How can we measure acquisition success and what metrics can we use to measure the success of the free trial?

Let’s say we want to measure the effectiveness of Netflix’s 30-day free trial plan.

What is NOT a metric we would use?

Let's say we want to measure the effectiveness of Netflix's 30-day free trial plan.

What is NOT a metric we would use?

Let’s say that you’re a data scientist on the engagement team. A product manager comes up to you and says that the weekly active users metric is up 5% but email notification open rates are down 2%.

What would you investigate to diagnose what’s happening?

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