Misc1: A Real Life DS Coding Test

We will be talking about the role this was for, the questions asked, and what the winning candidate did.

The Role

This coding test was created for a co-op student that is currently attending university, and wants to get some experience with data science during the summer. This role is meant as a simple way for the company to solve some of their data pipeline problems, and for a student to earn some extra income to deal with them ‘super fun’ student loan problems.

This specific role was going to involve doing a lot of data wrangling in Python. However, since the target of this position is a student, the expectation will not be super high. The student will be expected to go over some of the already created pipelines, and develop some simple schemas, and optimize the current performance of a few already existing ones. This role would be a simple 9-5, and if you do the Cost of Livings Adjustment (COLA) to something like NYC, this role pays about $90k USD. Great for a student to grab some experience before their degree is done, and get some hands on experience with Python. Although this isn’t a perfect Data Science (it’s a bit more skewed towards the data engineering side), at a super junior level it really wouldn’t make that much of a difference.

FYI: This was a finance role.

The requirements for this role were:

1. 0 to 1 years of experience

2. Knowledge with Python, SQL, and working in an AGILE environment (means dealing with impromptu requests)

3. A basic working knowledge of linear algebra

4. A basic working knowledge of Capital Markets

Table of Contents:

1. The Questions

2. The Winning Candidate

3. Why He Won

1 - The Questions

Now comes the part you are all interested in, what kind of questions did they encounter for this position. Take a look at the image below.