Skillz Data Scientist Interview Questions
& Process

Hiring manager reached out via email and then we setup call. Then spoke to HR about benefits etc. First interview was 4 hr long hackerrank assessment. A model building exercise, simple and straightforward. Then the HR scheduled 4 interviews 2 technical 1 with team and 1 with Hiring manager. 1st interview - python assessment! Gave me a sample data frame, gave a problem statement and asked me to code up some equation. The interviewer was hinting me in the right direction and specifically said me I can google anything I want! That round went well 2nd interview was on discussing data science assessment and open discussion around a hypothetical case study! It was pretty good too 3 days before next interview recruiter called me saying they are not moving ahead and will be cancelling other scheduled calls! I wasn’t told these were eliminating rounds! Also the recruited said me they wanted someone with strong python skills! I stumbled in the first interview on one simple thing so I chose to google it! In my opinion that was something the interviewer caught up and possibly rejected me stating they need someone strong in python. In my opinion you can’t be ‘open to google’ and reject someone for googling something simple at the same time! Anyway not my loss ! Saved myself two hrs ! Hope you find it helpful

The first interview was a recruiter screening with basic questions, then I got to ask about the company. After that, I had to complete a data science skill assessment online, which I had 4 hours for but finished sooner. The recruiter also encouraged me to play games on the Skillz app during this time. Once I passed the assessment, the technical interviews began. The first one was a live coding session in Python where I had to write a function for a data analysis problem. They asked a couple of follow-up questions about the code. I finished early and spent the rest of the hour asking them questions. The next technical interview was a case study involving a data science use case relevant to Skillz, with no coding. They presented the case and asked how I'd approach it, along with probing questions to understand my thought process. I finished this one early too and had time to interview the interviewer. Then, I gave a panel presentation about a past data science project I'd worked on. I prepared a presentation, and the panel asked questions about my project and background. Again, I had extra time to ask them questions. Finally, I met with the hiring manager to discuss the role and team fit. The hiring manager mostly asked about team fit and explained the role's opportunities. Unfortunately, my salary request was too high, so they decided to stop the interviews, even though I had received positive feedback throughout. They mentioned that if interviews had continued, I would have met with executives for culture fit before an offer. It was frustrating to be cut at this late stage over salary, especially after investing about 10 hours in interviews and prep, when they could have addressed it earlier. It seems Skillz might be looking for more junior data scientists. The team is young with growth potential. Overall, it was a positive experience talking with the data science team and learning about Skillz; everyone was friendly and respectful.

I wasn't given an agenda for the on-site interview. When I got there, I was handed a laptop and left alone in a room to do their SQL challenge in MySQL WorkBench (heads up, MySQL doesn't support the WITH clause...). They took the laptop back to "grade" it, and after about 15 minutes, someone gave me another laptop for their algorithms assessment. This part didn't have any data, just a coder pad-like notebook to outline a design in any language. I wasn't sure if they wanted to see Python skills (which I used to mock up the algorithm) or algorithm design ability via pseudocode. The expected output was unclear, and not having even a small data file didn't help. Each assessment took about an hour. After my work was "graded," I was let go early because it didn't meet their requirements for "graded" work.