Zapier Data Scientist Interview Questions
& Process

So I had a recruiter call, then a hiring manager interview, and then I got a take-home assignment. But while I was working on it, they told me they'd already hired someone and were closing the interviews. They didn't give me a deadline for the assignment, so I spent a lot of time on it, which felt disrespectful. Also, the take-home seemed really involved for something that should only take a few hours. I don't really like that they make you do these, 'cause you can't tell how long people spend on them, making comparisons unfair. Aside from that, the recruiter and hiring manager were nice, but Zapier needs to be more upfront about interview timelines so they don't waste people's time.

Started with an online questionnaire, then a recruiter reached out after about three weeks to set up a video call. The recruiter call was a standard intro, covering personality and cultural fit with a 'get to know you' vibe, then passed me to the hiring manager. The hiring manager asked some straightforward data analysis questions with simple bar graphs, which was a bit surprising as I expected tougher ones. He gave positive feedback and said I was moving on to a take-home assignment heavy on SQL. He also mentioned a company retreat, so interviewers might be hard to reach for questions. I followed up with the recruiter about the take-home, and they sent over the details. It seemed focused on data analysis skills rather than ML basics, and we had a week to complete it, with the option to ask questions. I spent two nights on it, going over the suggested six hours. The day before it was due, after the retreat, I asked the recruiter about ML expectations and got a vague answer. The day after submitting, I got a generic rejection email citing 'errors in the ETL'. When I asked for specifics, she mentioned errors in the code, and I pushed back, pointing out potential data integrity issues in the raw data. She then said those were intentional 'real-world data' issues, bragging about how hard their interview process is. I noted that 'real-world data' usually means external sources, not internal user data from their own platform.

I had an initial phone or video interview, followed by more interviews and a knowledge test. The recruiter I spoke with was great, and they kept me updated after the interviews.