A Structured Approach

to Analytics Interviews
ANKIT JAIN
Who am I?
• Data Scientist@Uber
• Previously, led Data Science@startup in India
• Worked at Facebook, BofA
• UCB, IIT Bombay (India)
• Half Marathon Runner
• Husband
Why to enter into Data
Analytics/Science?

2.5 18
*10 Bytes of data generated everyday (--IBM)

150,000 Shortage of Data Scientists in US alone in

2018 ( -- Mckinsey and Co.)

Analytics Interview is not Rocket Science
What are Employer’s Requirements
What are Employer’s Requirements?
• Technical Skills
• Knowledge of Statistics
• Structured Thinking
• Business Understanding
• Communication Skills
• Attention to details
Types of Interviews
Analytics Interview

Case
Technical Behavioral
Interviews
Technical Interviews
• SQL : Joins, GroupBy , Where, Having, Window Functions, Query optimizations,
NoSQL
• R/Excel : Level depends on the job
• Tableau or other BI tool: Useful if you are going for reporting/dashboarding
kind of role
Guesstimates (Type 1 Case Interviews)
• These are the kinds of interviews where you are required to estimate a number
by putting a framework to the problem, making assumptions and coming up
with a final number.
• For e.g. “ Estimate the number of balls/ liquor bottles in USA”
• Few pointers:
• It is the approach that matters – not the final numbers
• Call out all the assumptions and possible blind spots
• Clearly state the framework and segmentations you make
Real Life Case Study
A case interview starts with a broad business question and narrows down in a particular
direction. It generally starts with a very simple problem and then interviewers tend to increase
the complexity as you solve the problems.
Few pointers:
• Case study is all about three things : Structure, Structure, Structure. Focus on putting a frame
work to the problem.
• Again call out all the assumptions.
• Think out loud, interviewer is looking for your thought process
• Communicate effectively
Some more things
1. Update your Linkedin profile
2. Attend local meetups
3. Keep yourself updated through:
1. News sites like www.datatau.com (hacker news for data
science/analytics)
2. Follow data science/analytics leaders on Twitter ( for e.g DJ Patil,
Andrew Ng etc. )
 CASE STUDY EXAMPLE

Source : https://modeanalytics.com/
Yammer ($1.2Bn Acquisition by Microsoft)

Yammer is a social network for communicating

with coworkers. Individuals share documents,
updates, and ideas by posting them in
groups.Think of it like Facebook for Work.
Yammer has web,mobile and tablet apps.
Investigating a Drop in User Engagement

What caused this dip in engaged users?

Prior Hypothesis
• Holiday
• Broken Feature/App
• Error in Data Recording Script
• One Time Marketing Event
• Etc…
User Growth on Yammer Platform
Growth Rates
look normal.
High on
weekdays and
low on
weekends
Engagement of Old Users
Engagement By Device

Major Engagement Drop for Mobile

Users
Zooming in on Mobile Users
Further Exploration
It seems the issue is with the mobile app related to long-time user
retention. Possible issues can be:

1. Mobile app has become too heavy with new features and it
crashes
2. Re-engagement Emails that were sent for retaining users are not
been viewed on mobile clearly
3. A bug in recording data in mobile
4. Etc …
Thank You