Data Science Interviews
Know what to expect from the process.
All interviews exist to determine if you’re capable of doing the job that you’re applying to. As such, interviews for data science jobs are conducted to determine if you’re comfortable with both the technical skills required, such as writing Python code and using Git version control, as well as the more nebulous skill of solving business problems with data. Depending on the maturity of the data science team at the company that you’re interviewing at, the business problem-solving piece may be a smaller or bigger part of the job requirement; regardless, in interviews, it’s important to show that you have the ability to connect business goals and actionable recommendations to data science projects that you work on.
To assess if you meet these qualifications, most data science interviews include these steps:
- Phone screen
- Take-home data challenge
- Technical screen
- Coding test
- Technical interview
- On-site interview
Each of these steps is described in more detail below.
Phone screen
The first step after getting through the resume screen is often a phone call conducted by a human resources professional or a recruiter. These individuals have varying degrees of technical knowledge and the purpose of this interview is for them to confirm that you are likely to…
