Prepare for and practice interview questions from Vrbo across topics like SQL, Python, Algorithms and more.

Vrbo Interview Questions

Vrbo Interview Guides

Data Structures & Algorithms

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

Merge Sorted Lists

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

Given a list of tuples featuring names and grades on a test, write a function to normalize the values of the grades to a linear scale between 0 and 1.

Normalize Grades

Stop Words Filter

Machine Learning

Encoding Categorical Features

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

Rejection Reason

Job Recommendation

Bank Fraud Model

Lasso vs Ridge

Probability

First to Six

500 Cards

Raining in Seattle

Found Item

Given three uniform(0,4) random variables, what is the probability that the median of them is greater than 3?

Median Probability

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

User Experience Percentage

Distance Traveled

Write a query to retrieve the number of users that have posted each job only once and the number of users that have posted at least one job multiple times.

Repeat Job Postings

A/B Testing

Experiment Validity

Delivery Estimate Model

Button AB Test

A/B Test Power Size

Network Experiment Design

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?

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>

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 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 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

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

Example:

Input:

<code>users</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>INTEGER</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<code>rides</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>passenger_user_id</code></td>
<td>INTEGER</td>
</tr>

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

<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>

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

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

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?

Netflix Retention

How do we measure the success of acquiring new users through a free trial

Product Sense & Metrics

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

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>

Download Facts

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?

Email Open Rate

WAU vs Open Rates

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

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

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

Let’s say that you work at a B2B SAAS company that’s interested in testing the pricing of different levels of subscriptions.

Your project manager comes to you and asks you to run a two-week-long A/B test to test an increase in pricing.

How would you approach designing this test? How would you determine whether the increase in pricing is a good business decision?

Testing Price Increase

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

Bagging vs Boosting

In an A/B test, how can you check if assignment to the various buckets was truly random?

In an A/B test, which of the following is a common method to determine if the assignment to the test groups was truly random?

In an A/B test, which of the following is a common method to determine if the assignment to the test groups was truly random?

Random Bucketing

Given a table of job postings, write a query to retrieve the number of users that have posted each job only once and the number of users that have posted at least one job multiple times.

Each user has at least one job posting. Thus the sum of <code>single_post</code> and <code>multiple_posts</code> should equal the total number of distinct <code>user_id</code>’s.

Example:

Input:

<code>job_postings</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>job_id</code></td>
<td>INTEGER</td>
</tr>

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

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

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

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

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

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>

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

Let’s say we want to build a new delivery time estimate model for consumers ordering food delivery.

How would you determine if the new model predicts delivery times better than the old model?

When rolling out a new delivery time estimate model in production, what is an important consideration?

When rolling out a new delivery time estimate model in production, what is an important consideration?

Delivery Estimate Model I

What is one way to measure the performance of a new delivery time estimate model for food delivery?

What is one way to measure the performance of a new delivery time estimate model for food delivery?

Delivery Estimate Model II

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

Given a string, find the first non-repeating character in it and return its index. If it doesn’t exist, return -1.

Example questions:

Consider a string where all characters are lowercase alphabets.

Example 1:

Input:

<pre tabindex="0" class="chroma"><code>s = &#39;helloworld&#39;
</code></pre>

Output:

<pre tabindex="0" class="chroma"><code>first_uniq_char(s) -&gt; 0
</code></pre>

In the string ‘helloworld’, the first non-repeating character is ‘h’, which is at index 0.

Example 2:

Input:

<pre tabindex="0" class="chroma"><code>s = &#39;concussion&#39;
</code></pre>

Output:

<pre tabindex="0" class="chroma"><code>first_uniq_char(s) -&gt; 4
</code></pre>

In the string ‘concussion’, the first non-repeating character is ‘u’, which is at index 4.

This problem involves finding the first non-repeating character in a given string. The solution involves iterating over the string and keeping track of the frequency of each character. The first character that has a frequency of 1 is the first non-repeating character.

Find the First Non-Repeating Character in a String

You’re a data scientist working for a smart grocery platform that helps families automatically plan their Christmas dinner based on their dietary preferences and pantry availability.

Each Christmas recipe consists of several ingredients, and each ingredient has different brands with different prices. Families want the cheapest possible ingredient combination but only using brands they have marked as acceptable and only those ingredients they do not already have in their pantry.

Write a SQL query to determine the cheapest valid shopping cost for each recipe for family_id = 1, while also identifying whether the recipe is feasible to make.

For each recipe, compute:

<ol>
<li><code>missing_ingredients</code>: number of ingredients the family does not already have in their pantry</li>
<li><code>min_total_cost</code>: total minimum cost required to buy missing ingredients</li>
<li>feasible:

<ul>
<li><code>&#39;Yes&#39;</code> if every missing ingredient has at least one acceptable brand available</li>
<li><code>&#39;No&#39;</code> otherwise (and <code>min_total_cost</code> should be <code>NULL</code>)</li>
</ul></li>
</ol>

Note: Sort results by <code>missing_ingredients</code> ASC and <code>min_total_cost</code> ASC (NULLS LAST)

Schema

Input

<code>recipes</code> Table

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

<tbody>
<tr>
<td>recipe_id</td>
<td>INTEGER</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td>ingredient_id</td>
<td>INTEGER</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<code>ingredient_brands</code> Table

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

<tbody>
<tr>
<td>ingredient_id</td>
<td>INTEGER</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td>brand_id</td>
<td>INTEGER</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td>price</td>
<td>DECIMAL</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<code>pantry</code> Table

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

<tbody>
<tr>
<td>family_id</td>
<td>INTEGER</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td>ingredient_id</td>
<td>INTEGER</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<code>acceptable_brands</code> Table

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

<tbody>
<tr>
<td>family_id</td>
<td>INTEGER</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td>brand_id</td>
<td>INTEGER</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
Output

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

<tbody>
<tr>
<td>recipe_id</td>
<td>INTEGER</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td>missing_ingredients</td>
<td>INTEGER</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td>min_total_cost</td>
<td>DECIMAL</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td>feasible</td>
<td>VARCHAR</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
Example

Input

<code>recipes</code> Table

<table>
<thead>
<tr>
<th>recipe_id</th>
<th>ingredient_id</th>
</tr>
</thead>

<tbody>
<tr>
<td>1</td>
<td>100</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td>1</td>
<td>200</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td>1</td>
<td>300</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td>2</td>
<td>200</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td>2</td>
<td>400</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<code>pantry</code> Table

<table>
<thead>
<tr>
<th>family_id</th>
<th>ingredient_id</th>
</tr>
</thead>

<tbody>
<tr>
<td>1</td>
<td>100</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<code>ingredient_brands</code> Table

<table>
<thead>
<tr>
<th>ingredient_id</th>
<th>brand_id</th>
<th>price</th>
</tr>
</thead>

<tbody>
<tr>
<td>200</td>
<td>10</td>
<td>3.50</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td>200</td>
<td>11</td>
<td>2.99</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td>300</td>
<td>20</td>
<td>8.50</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td>400</td>
<td>30</td>
<td>6.75</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<code>acceptable_brands</code> Table

<table>
<thead>
<tr>
<th>family_id</th>
<th>brand_id</th>
</tr>
</thead>

<tbody>
<tr>
<td>1</td>
<td>10</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td>1</td>
<td>20</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td>1</td>
<td>30</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
Output

<table>
<thead>
<tr>
<th>recipe_id</th>
<th>missing_ingredients</th>
<th>min_total_cost</th>
<th>feasible</th>
</tr>
</thead>

<tbody>
<tr>
<td>1</td>
<td>2</td>
<td>12.00</td>
<td>Yes</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td>2</td>
<td>2</td>
<td>10.25</td>
<td>Yes</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>

<h3>Explanation</h3>

For Recipe 1, the required ingredients are 100, 200, and 300. The pantry already contains ingredient 100, so only 200 and 300 are missing. The cheapest acceptable option for ingredient 200 is brand 10 at $3.50, since brand 11 is not allowed. For ingredient 300, the cheapest acceptable option is brand 20 at $8.50. This makes the total cost $12.00, and the recipe is feasible.

For Recipe 2, the required ingredients are 200 and 400. The cheapest acceptable choice for ingredient 200 is again $3.50, and for ingredient 400 it is $6.75. The total comes to $10.25, and this recipe is also feasible.

Write a SQL query to determine the cheapest valid shopping cost for each recipe for family_id = 1, while also identifying whether the recipe is feasible to make.

Christmas Dinner Ingredient Optimization

Write a Python function called <code>max_profit</code> that takes a list of integers, where the i-th integer represents the price of a given stock on day i, and returns the maximum profit you can achieve by buying and selling the stock.

You may complete, at most, two complete buy/sell transactions to maximize profits on a stock.

Input:

<pre tabindex="0" class="chroma"><code>prices = [3, 3, 5, 0, 0, 3, 1, 4]
</code></pre>

Output:

<pre tabindex="0" class="chroma"><code>def max_profit(prices) -&gt; 6
</code></pre>

Explanation:

<pre><code>Buy on day 4 (price = 0) and sell on day 6 (price = 3): profit = 3 - 0 = 3.
Then buy again on day 7 (price = 1) and sell on day 8 (price = 4): profit = 4 - 1 = 3.
Total profit: 3 + 3 = 6.
</code></pre>

Maximum Profit

Let’s say that you’re a data scientist working on a distribution team at Amazon.

Create a report displaying which shipments were delivered to customers during their membership period.

If the transaction is shipped during the membership period, column <code>is_member</code> should have the value <code>Y</code>. If not, the column should have the value <code>N</code>.

Hint: You may assume that <code>customer_id</code> is unique and that shipments are made only to registered customers.

Example:

Input:

<code>customers</code> table

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

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

<tr>
<td><code>membership_start_date</code></td>
<td>DATETIME</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td><code>membership_end_date</code></td>
<td>DATETIME</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<code>shipments</code> table

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

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

<tr>
<td><code>ship_date</code></td>
<td>DATETIME</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td><code>customer_id</code></td>
<td>INTEGER</td>
</tr>

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

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

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

<tr>
<td><code>ship_date</code></td>
<td>DATETIME</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td><code>customer_id</code></td>
<td>INTEGER</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td><code>is_member</code></td>
<td>TEXT</td>
</tr>

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

Create a report displaying which shipments were delivered to customers during their membership period.

Completed Shipments

Given a string <code>str</code>, write a function <code>perm_palindrome</code> to determine whether there exists a permutation of <code>str</code> that is a palindrome.

Example:

Input:

<pre tabindex="0" class="chroma"><code>str = &#39;cacerra&#39;
def perm_palindrome(str) -&gt; True
</code></pre>

“cacerra” returns True since it can be rearranged to form “racecar” which is a palindrome.

Determine whether there exists a permutation of an input string that is a palindrome.

Permutation Palindrome

Let’s say you’re a Product Data Scientist at Instagram. How would you measure the success of the Instagram TV product?

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

Vrbo Interview Questions

Vrbo Interview Guides

Vrbo Interview Questions

Challenge

Vrbo Salaries by Position

Discussion & Interview Experiences

Discussion & Interview Experiences