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Data Scientist Interviews

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Data Scientist Interview Questions

In a data scientist interview, expect employers to ask questions that assess your data modeling, problem-solving, and programming skills. Be prepared to answer general questions that test your knowledge of statistics and data science. You should also be ready to answer open-ended questions that test your creativity, communication skills, and formal education in data modeling and programming.

Top Data Scientist Interview Questions & How to Answer

Question 1

Question #1: Which data modeling techniques do you prefer and why?

How to answer
How to answer: Turning data into understandable and actionable information is a critical part of the data scientist's job. This question allows employers to understand your data modeling skills and background. List and discuss your preferred data modeling techniques, including benefits such as ease of use, flexibility, etc.
Question 2

Question #2: How would you detect bogus Instagram accounts used for scamming consumers?

How to answer
How to answer: Questions like this one allow an employer to test your problem-solving skills. When answering open-ended questions such as these, feel free to ask clarifying questions and use whiteboards to demonstrate your coding and diagramming skills. Share your thought process as you work through the problem.
Question 3

Question #3: Describe circumstances that require a list, tuple, or set in Python.

How to answer
How to answer: Interviewers will use questions such as this one to test your Python programming skills. Review Python basics such as lists, tuples, and sets before your interview. You should be able to explain when and how each tool is used by data scientists.

54,359 data scientist interview questions shared by candidates

There is a pool of people who took Uber rides from two cities that were close in proximity, for example Menlo Park and Palo Alto, and any data you could think of could be collected. What data would you collect so that the city the passenger took a ride from could be determined? If some type of supervised classification algorithm was used to split the two populations, for example Support Vector Machine, what type of business decision would you make on points that appear close to the hyperplane?
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Data Scientist

Interviewed at Uber

3.7★
Apr 8, 2015

There is a pool of people who took Uber rides from two cities that were close in proximity, for example Menlo Park and Palo Alto, and any data you could think of could be collected. What data would you collect so that the city the passenger took a ride from could be determined? If some type of supervised classification algorithm was used to split the two populations, for example Support Vector Machine, what type of business decision would you make on points that appear close to the hyperplane?

The challenge had 3 parts: SQL, Experiment Design, and Machine Learning. In the SQL portion you had to write some queries to answer complicated real world questions (without any data given, just a schema). In the experiment design portion you are asked to create a hypothetical plan to answer testing a new app. In the Data Science portion, you are asked to perform binary classification on a given data set, and return insights from the classification.
avatar

Data Scientist

Interviewed at Uber

3.7★
Nov 2, 2017

The challenge had 3 parts: SQL, Experiment Design, and Machine Learning. In the SQL portion you had to write some queries to answer complicated real world questions (without any data given, just a schema). In the experiment design portion you are asked to create a hypothetical plan to answer testing a new app. In the Data Science portion, you are asked to perform binary classification on a given data set, and return insights from the classification.

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Glassdoor has 54,359 interview questions and reports from Data scientist interviews. Prepare for your interview. Get hired. Love your job.