If you’ve been wondering about the technical interviews for Data Science roles and just thinking about it makes you feel tense, no worries, I’ve got your back.
Let’s see the keys for a successful technical interview so you can feel prepared and ready to shine during your next interview.
The keys to a successful technical interview
If you just have a couple of seconds to read this post and want the essential information right away, there it is:
Data science interviews evaluate the overall package you could bring to the company – not just your ability to produce clean, bug-free code.
During the interview, they want to see your thinking process, how you communicate, and how you apply your data expertise to real-world business challenges.
The technical part is really more about seeing your thinking process than getting the perfect solution as fast as possible.
How to ace the technical interview?
Focus on breaking down the problem and thinking out loud rather than just trying to code the perfect solution, all while using your typical language.
What hiring managers want to see is how you approach challenges, not just whether you can produce bug-free code on the first try.
To give you an example, let’s say the interviewer gives you a coding challenge to find the kth largest element in an unsorted array.
The typical response from someone feeling nervous and feeling the pressure of the interview is to just start coding up something right away. But a much better approach is to talk out loud your thinking.
For example, you could say something like, “OK, to find the kth largest element, first I’ll need to sort the array in descending order. Then, I can return the element at index k-1. To sort the array, I could use a quicksort algorithm. Let me walk through how I’d implement quicksort…”
Basically, you just need to invite the interviewer to “see” up close how you structure things in your head to solve a problem.
That’s the “secret” to your success during the interview.
And I know, you might be thinking…
What if I don’t know how to solve the problem?
Well, we know that data problems can get really tricky, and it’s completely fine if you don’t know the answer or need to ask extra questions to clarify.
Keep in mind that interviewers know the problems can be challenging.And they just want to see how you face roadblocks to get to a solution.So basically, not knowing is part of the interview. It is part of the challenge.
They want to see how you react when you don’t know how to solve the problem and if you can communicate effectively and stay calm under pressure.
Your behavior will give them clues about your priorities when there isn’t much time to solve a problem.
Why?
Well, because all of the previous is the day-to-day life of working with complex projects, big and messy datasets, and being part of a team.
And if you don’t arrive at the right solution, that’s okay.
The interviewer will be way more impressed by someone who says, “I’m stuck here; let me think through this step-by-step,” than someone who just sits in silence trying to code.
Can you see the difference?
Keep this big-picture perspective in mind and be ready to shine in your next technical interview.
xx
Lina Marieth