5 Tips to Prepare for a Data Science

Interview​
5 Tips to Prepare for a Data Science Interview​
Let’s have a look at the following tips that a data aspirant must follow in order to successfully
get through the data science interview:​
Data Science Interview Preparation Tip # 01 - Practice Coding Questions​
What are data science coding questions? These are the questions that require coding in any
programming language to get the desired answer. You have to get through the coding interview
if you are applying for a data science job.​
Purpose of Coding Questions​
Here’s why you are asked these questions:​
• You know that data science is a technical field in which you have to collect, clean and process
data into usable formats. So, the coding questions test not only your technical skills but also
determine your thought process and approach you use to break down the complicated
questions into simpler solutions. Therefore, preparing fundamental coding concepts are a
must to ace the data science interview.​
• These questions also test whether you use a logical approach to solve real-world problems or
not. It’s true that there are multiple solutions to a single problem but the goal is to find the
solution that is optimized in terms of run time and storage. So, you must be able to come up
with the optimal solution to any real-world problem.​
• The interviewer also evaluates your overall code quality by checking whether you consider
all edge cases into your solution or not.​
Practice Coding Questions​
As you know now the importance of the coding questions, you must prepare yourself to solve
them appropriately in a given amount of time. For this, you need to practice as many data
science interview questions as you can to gain a better insight into different scenarios. Try to
focus more on real-world problems. This way you will be able to break down complex questions
into simple parts by logically coming up with an optimal solution. You can practice lots of
problem statements from LeetCode, GlassDoor and our very own Stratascratch. Don’t get
discouraged by the types of questions that may appear daunting to you at first sight. You will
take time to prepare them but for that, you must have a good grasp of the basic programming
concepts and machine learning algorithms. In order to achieve a more comprehensive
understanding, you may also come up with multiple solutions to a single problem, compare
their strengths and weaknesses to select the best possible approach.​

Now let’s see a real question example from the StrataScratch platform.​

Here is the question from Microsoft Interview.​

Finding Updated Records​
Interview Question Date: November 2020​
MicrosoftEasyID 10299​

We have a table with employees and their salaries, however, some of the records are old and
contain outdated salary information. Find the current salary of each employee assuming that
salaries increase each year. Output their id, first name, last name, department ID, and current
salary. Order your list by employee ID in ascending order.​
Table: ms_employee_salary​

Link to the question: https://platform.stratascratch.com/coding/10299-finding-updated-records​

In this question, Microsoft asks us to find the current salary of each employee assuming that
salaries increase each year.​
The reason for finding this was explained that some of the records contain outdated salary
information.​
Here is our data frame, the name is ms_employee_salary.​
Table: ms_employee_salary​
Show allToggle dTypes​
The expected output contains the id, first name, last name, department ID, and current salary.​

Now, let’s start by exploring our dataset first. Let’s look at it closer by using the head method.​
1 ms_employee_salary.head()

Here is the output.​

All required columns and the first 5 rows of the solution are shown​

As we can see from the output, there are many different salaries exist for the same people.
Mainly, the question asks us to find the maximum salaries of employees, because that means
this one their final salary due to regular increases made.​
First, let’s load the numpy and pandas to be able to do further analysis.​
 1 import pandas as pd
2 import numpy as np

To do that first, we should select first_name, last_name, salary, and department_id, since our
question wants us to input these.​
To do that, we can use the groupby() method as follows.​
1 ms_employee_salary.groupby(['id','first_name','last_name','department_id'])

Yet, we should find the maximum value of salary, so should first select salary with bracket
indexing and then max() method in Python to find the maximum salary.​
1 ms_employee_salary.groupby(['id','first_name','last_name','department_id'])['sal

Great, now, let’s reset the indexes. Since we use the groupby() method, our id set as our index.
Let’s reset_index() and then sort_values() by id, to see id ordered DataFrame, as we saw before
beginning.​
1 import pandas as pd
2 import numpy as np
3 result = ms_employee_salary.groupby(['id','first_name','last_name','department_i

Go to the question on the platform​

PythonTables: ms_employee_salary​
1
2
3
4
import pandas as pd​
import numpy as np​
result = ms_employee_salary.groupby(['id','first_name','last_name','department_id']​
)['salary'].max().reset_index().sort_values('id')​
The dataset has already been loaded as a pandas.DataFrame. print() functions and the last line
of code will be displayed in the output.​
In order for your solution to be accepted, your solution should be located on the last line of the
editor and match the expected output data type listed in the question.​
ResetRun CodeCheck Solution​
Use Alt + Enter to run query​

Here is the output.​

All required columns and the first 5 rows of the solution are shown​

As we can see, it matches with the expected output.​

Communicate your thought process​
What if you know how to solve a problem but don't know how to communicate it. Practice
improving your communication skills because you must be able to explain your solution to other
people to reinforce understanding.​
You can follow the below preparation tips to effectively communicate your thought process to
the interviewer:​
• Conduct a mock interview with your peers as it will actually help you in better delivery of
your concepts.​
• In case you are not able to do that, you can conduct a session with yourself and practice in
front of a mirror. You can also write down the main points you’ll be going to say in the
interview.​
• Finally, you can watch tons of mock interview videos of people in the Data Science
community on YouTube. You can follow our very own channel as there’s a lot for everyone
to learn.​
Data Science Interview Preparation Tip # 02 - Practice Product Questions​
No one is good at product questions unless they have seen them before. Product interview
questions are the specific type of interview questions that aim to test your ability to understand
how to build products and how you would respond to the natural life cycle of a product.​

Are you aware of the significance of product interview questions? If not, then here’s the answer
to this question. Actually, data scientists don’t work in isolation. They usually work with a
project manager or a business based person and contribute directly to the product that is to be
built. That is why you need to have a clear understanding of the product that needs to be built
so that you can align the work you do and can actually implement it in the product.​

The interviewers ask product questions because they are actually looking for the following five
things:​

• Analytical and Logical Thinking​

If you have a product, you must be able to translate it into a way that can be solved with data
science. So, the interviewers look for whether you are able to take the context that’s over there
in the business side and can actually translate that into a problem that can be solved using data
science.​

• Product Sense​
Product sense refers to your understanding of the product as a whole. It’s not about solving
problems and getting stuck in the technical details rather it is about having a clear
understanding of the context. You must know the purpose of the product you are building, why
it is important to you, and how you can use this product to serve people.​

• Communication​
You must be able to communicate your thought process and understanding of the problem to
the partners you are working with.​

• Problem Solving Abilities​

Problem-solving ability does not imply that you know what the problem is. It implies that you
must know how you can use data science to solve the problem under consideration. So, you
must be able to come up with a framework or an optimal approach to solve the problem and
result in the production of a better product.​

• Flexibility​
You must be flexible because in the real industry environment as things pop up that never
actually go as expected. So, this is the part where the interviewers test if you are able to adapt to
these changes where they are going to throw you off.​
How to Prepare Product Questions for Data Science Interview​
Now, let’s have a look into how you can practice the product questions. In actual, it’s hard to
find a lot of product interview questions and it’s even harder to find the solutions from all over
the internet in data science. But their in-depth analysis reveals that these questions are similar
to product management and management consultant questions. So, what you need to do is to
look at some of the management consultant frameworks in a way that they approach business
questions and apply that to a specific product. This is how you can answer product questions
well in a data science interview.​

Now let’s discover a product question from our platform asked by Yelp in an interview.​

In this question, yelp asks us to propose a brand new Yelp feature.​

Yelp is a go-to platform for people looking for local business reviews, particularly for dining
options. While Yelp already offers many useful features, one feature that could be a game-
changer would be price comparison.​
Most of us would love to dine at a highly-rated restaurant, but budget constraints often hold us
back. Therefore, integrating a feature that allows users to see menu prices for different
restaurants and compare them would be highly valuable.​
This feature would enable users to make more informed decisions and help them find the best
dining options that fit their budget.​
Data Science Interview Preparation Tip # 03 - Practice Behavioral Questions​
These questions intend to gain a better understanding of how you would respond to different
workplace situations, and how you solve problems to achieve a successful outcome.​

The main thing that the interviewers present you with is some sort of question that allows you
to showcase how you encountered a conflict and then how you resolved that. The purpose of
these questions is to let the interviewer know whether you are the best fit for their team or not.​

Below given are some of the typical behavioural questions that are likely to come up in a data
science interview:​
• How have you used data insights to persuade an opinion?​
• Have you ever made a mistake in a data science team project?​
• Give an example of a team conflict.​
• Describe a decision you made that wasn’t popular.​
• Give an example of how you worked in a team.​
• How have you used data to elevate the customer experience?​

A simple strategy to prepare and handle the data science behavioural questions is broken into
the following two parts:​

• Select and refine stories​

You need to think about your past, what you’ve been through, and can come up with four to
five stories that demonstrated some sort of conflict and also demonstrated some sort of
resolution. It’s very important that you have your own personal story for answering the
behavioural questions because if you are talking in a hypothetical situation like I would have
done this, it’s not going to be as memory impacting on the interviewer. Also, they are not going
to feel like you have the experience because you don’t have the story to showcase for the
question asked.​
• Implement Stories into STAR Framework​
The second part is to implement the stories into a STAR technique to answer the question given.
So, what is a STAR technique? STAR is how you set up a storyline in order to answer the question
in a better and effective manner.​
1. S - Situation​
First, start with a situation for the interviewers to understand what is the context of the
storyline.​
2. T - Task​
Let the interviewers know about your roles and responsibilities in that storyline.​
3. A - Action​
Then, move into the actions and let them know what actions you took and what you did not
take.​
4. R - Result​
Finally, the most important thing is the result. Let the interviewers know what type of
beneficial result came out of your action.​

So, at first, you need to have four to five stories ready to go and then you can use the STAR
technique to practice implementing them for effectively answering the behavioural questions in
a data science interview.​
Data Science Interview Preparation Tip # 04 - Practice Machine Learning,
Statistics, and Modeling Questions​
They are generally non-coding questions but the interviewer is trying to test your technical
knowledge on both the theory and implementation of these three types of questions. So the
questions that the interviewer asks generally fall into one or two buckets:​
• Theory part​
• Implementation part​
Focus on theory and learn how to implement it​
So, do you know how to improve your theory and implementation knowledge? What I can
suggest is that you must have a few personal project stories. By few, I mean that you should
have two to three stories where you can talk in detail and in-depth about a data science project
you’ve done in the past. Furthermore, you should be able to answer questions like:​
• Why did you choose this model?​
• What assumptions do you need to validate in order to use this model correctly?​
• What are the trade-offs with that model?​
If you are able to answer these questions, you are basically proving to the interviewer that you
know both the theory and have implemented a model in the project. The project can be an
academic project, a personal project, or any project that you’ve done in your recent job. So,
some of the modeling techniques that you may need to know are:​
• Regressions​
• Random Forest​
• K-Nearest Neighbour​
• Gradient Boosting and more​
Explain your projects to the interviewers​
These are the common models that every data scientist must know and should have experience
in implementing them. So, the best way to showcase your knowledge is by talking about your
projects to prove to the interviewers that you’ve got your hands dirty and have implemented
these models. Further, if you want to be an effective data scientist, then in addition to just
implementing the models, you need to clean the data, build a data pipeline, interpret the
results, and communicate the results to the stakeholders. So, if you prove to the interviewer that
you know the entire data science process from end to end i-e; from obtaining the data all the
way to explaining the results to the stakeholders and explain in detail exactly why you
performed each step, then the interviewer would be definitely satisfied in knowing that you are
able to complete data science projects.​

Now, let’s discover a question asked by Amazon in an interview.​

In this question, Amazon asks the difference between linear regression and t-test. "What is the
difference between linear regression and t-test?"​
Linear regression and t-tests are both statistical methods of data analysis, although they serve
differently and have been used in different contexts.​

Linear regression is a method for modeling the connection between two or more variables by
fitting a linear equation. It is commonly used for predicting the value of a dependent variable
based on one or more independent variables. Linear regression may be applied to continuous
data, such as the link between age and income.​

On the other hand, a t-test is used to find out whether the means of two groups of data are
significantly different from each other. It is generally used to compare the means of a continuous
variable between two groups, such as the mean longevity of men and women in a population.​

In summary, linear regression is used to model the relationship between two or more
continuous variables, while t-tests are used to compare the means of two groups of data.​
Data Science Interview Preparation Tip # 05 - Doing General Preparation​
How do you actually prepare for a data science interview? This is one of the major challenges
because there are a whole host of problems everywhere on the internet and you have to follow
an organized and structured process in preparing for your data science interview.​

How to prepare for a long-term data science interview that’s two to three months out and
short-term interview in terms of the night before?​
How to prepare for a long-term data science interview?​
For a long-term interview, I would suggest you break down the questions into several sections
like :​
• Machine learning models​
• Statistical questions​
• Data science questions​
• Modeling questions​

You have to clearly separate the questions like pre questions, post questions, and some videos
and content in between that you can study. Then try the pre section, see how you do on them,
where your weaknesses are, write some notes on them. Basically, the aim is to keep track of
where you are weak, fast or slow so that you can get to know which part you need to practice
more. If you are not keeping track of what you’ve studied and where you are weak, it’s going
to be really hard for you to improve because you have no idea where to improve. So, focus on
the questions you get wrong to know where you need to improve.​
How to prepare for a short-term data science interview?​
For a short-term interview, I would suggest you not to study because it’s the night before you
need to relax. Get a full night's rest and have a good meal the next day. You need to be at your
peak strength and if you’ve worked out really hard the day before, you’re likely just going to
be very depleted and exhausted to give an interview. So, be relaxed and confident because
that’s how you’re gonna perform at your best.​
Points to Remember - An important part of this data science interview
preparation guide​
We have discussed some of the important data science interview preparation tips that can help
you ace the data science interview. Now, we need to remember the following points at our
fingertips before applying for our desired role.​
• For data science roles, companies care a lot about technical abilities. The candidate must
remember to brush up on optimizing queries, memorizing as many machine learning
algorithms as possible, and solving algorithms.​
• The candidate must remember fundamental machine learning concepts, modeling, and
business case questions. This is because the employers might ask some vague questions in
which the candidate will be expected to apply machine learning to a business scenario.​
Conclusion​
We have discussed how to crack a data science interview by showcasing leadership skills,
professionalism, good communication, and technical skills. But if you come across a situation
during the interview where the recruiter or the hiring manager points out your mistake, do not
get shy or afraid from accepting it. You are a human, and a human is a statue of mistakes, so
accept your mistake as it will portray you as a mature person open to criticism and open to
learning. Being stubborn and arguing around will not help because as much as your technical
skills are important, your organizational behaviour and soft skills matter equally when getting
hired for a data science job.​

We also recommend checking out our previous guide on how to write a perfect data science
cover letter because a well-written data science cover letter can also help you stand out from
others.​