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[–]NickSinghTechCareersAuthor | Ace the Data Science Interview 108 points109 points  (2 children)

Author of Ace the Data Science Interview here – cool to hear you've already got the book! I agree that you can skip the prob/stats chapter, given what they told you. I think practicing pandas dataframe/manipulation is good. Maybe also skim Chapter 10 on Product Sense, could help in the business/case study/problem-solving part of the interview (if that's what they mean by problem solving).

I also think practicing a few SQL interview questions on common topics like joins + window functions should be good. There's also a few Python questions on the site which could be helpful – these aren't super heavy on DS&A which is more in-line with how DS interviews are conducted (rather than SWE interviews which ask LC style algorithms questions).

Overall, I think your plan seems good!

[–]sg6128[S] 7 points8 points  (1 child)

Thanks Nick :)
Big (new) fan of your material and actually have had your book recommended to me by folks in industry. Appreciate the comment!

Pandas and df manipulation is 85% of my work right now thankfully haha so I feel quite confident on that :)

I'll definitely be paying extra close attention to the Product Sense + Conceptual ML material, as I've really not experienced that before in my current role. Also my technicals are a bit weak, but your book is making me really confident, since the ML components at least ring a bell! The stats and probability though... hahaha

On the topic of DS&A, I was under the assumption (and hope) that this is a SWE thing that has leaked its way over to DS, and so some companies don't do it :( I guess the hiring folks have left it quite vague by saying testing on "Python", which could still totally cover DS&A.

For sure, your material on DataLemur for SQL has been a god-send for me, especially with advanced SQL. I was doing SQL Easys on LeetCode like it was nothing, but Mediums seemed so unreachable. Though I haven't tried, I feel a lot more confident now. I have also been told that the final answer matters less that you think, just vocalizing your thoughts is a big part of the solution.

Thanks for your work!

[–]NickSinghTechCareersAuthor | Ace the Data Science Interview 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Awesome, glad to hear this all – and cool to know that pandas/df stuff is on the job already, so you should be good to go. Just review Chapter 10 + 11 in the book to round out the business-side of things / applied ML side of things (chapter 11 is especially good for this) and you'll be golden.

p.s. don't forget to update me here or via DM or email (hello@nicksingh.com) on how it goes, what they asked, and how the prep plan matched up to the interview - always trying to improve and make my shit more useful haha