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How Visualization & Dashboarding are Tested

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Data visualization and dashboarding is one of the most important and commonly required skill sets for data analysts—not just at big tech companies, but across nearly every analytics role today.

Why? Because visualizations are how you translate complex data into decisions. Whether you're sharing insights with stakeholders, tracking performance metrics, or telling a story through data, dashboards are often the final product of your analysis.

Tools big tech companies use

Depending on the company or the preference of the team, here are some tools that team may use when designing dashboards

  • Tableau – Most popular for interactive, enterprise-level dashboards
  • Google Data Studio (Looker Studio) – Often used for marketing, web, or lightweight BI reporting
  • Excel / Google Sheets – Still widely used for lightweight dashboards or internal reviews
  • Looker, Power BI, Mode – Also common, depending on the tech stack

Similar to Excel/Sheets, you may not face a dedicated "dashboard round" at big tech companies. However, data visualization is often embedded into:

  • Hiring manager interviews
  • Problem-solving case rounds
  • Take-home assignments
  • Even behavioral interviews where you're asked about previous projects and your experience in building dashboards
TypeWhat they’re looking forExample
Behavioral / Experience-BasedYour past experience with tools, stakeholders, and impact“Tell me about a dashboard you built. Who was it for, and what did it help them do?”
Live Problem-SolvingYour real-time thinking, data-to-insight skills, and ability to present visually“Here’s a retention dataset and results—how would you visualize this to a PM?”
Take-Home AssignmentsYour ability to design a clean, effective, and actionable dashboard from a real dataset“Build a dashboard showing performance trends over time with insights on key metrics.”

In the upcoming lessons, we’ll walk through:

  • The most commonly used types of charts
  • Best practices for dashboard design
  • How to prepare for interviews