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Microsoft Data Scientist Interview Questions

Review this list of 14 Microsoft Data Scientist interview questions and answers verified by hiring managers and candidates.
  • +12

    "I work at a startup that makes software for Law Enforcement and the FBI. Our product analyzes calls being made by prison inmates and "listens" for predictors of violence and criminal behavior. Our clients are some of the top state prisons in the country. Recently one of the largest states in the country decided to evaluate our product for their prison system. I demo'd the product to the officers and they seemed to like everything. During the presentation they asked us if the product was ADA com"

    Aabid S. - "I work at a startup that makes software for Law Enforcement and the FBI. Our product analyzes calls being made by prison inmates and "listens" for predictors of violence and criminal behavior. Our clients are some of the top state prisons in the country. Recently one of the largest states in the country decided to evaluate our product for their prison system. I demo'd the product to the officers and they seemed to like everything. During the presentation they asked us if the product was ADA com"See full answer

    Data Scientist
    Behavioral
    +6 more
  • Microsoft logoAsked at Microsoft 
    Video answer for 'Tell me about yourself.'
    +117

    "As you know, this is the most important question for any interview. Here is a structure I like to follow, Start with 'I'm currently a SDE/PM/TPM etc with XYZ company.... ' Mention how you got into PM/TPM/SDE field (explaining your journey) Mention 1 or 2 accomplishments Mention what you do outside work (blogging, volunteer etc) Share why are you looking for a new role Ask the interviewer if they have any questions or will like to dive deep into any of your experience"

    Bipin R. - "As you know, this is the most important question for any interview. Here is a structure I like to follow, Start with 'I'm currently a SDE/PM/TPM etc with XYZ company.... ' Mention how you got into PM/TPM/SDE field (explaining your journey) Mention 1 or 2 accomplishments Mention what you do outside work (blogging, volunteer etc) Share why are you looking for a new role Ask the interviewer if they have any questions or will like to dive deep into any of your experience"See full answer

    Data Scientist
    Behavioral
    +14 more
  • Microsoft logoAsked at Microsoft 

    "For any project based questions, it is important to structure your response clearly, showcasing your thought process, technical skills, problem-solving abilities, and how your work added value. Besides the STAR method, you can also use this kind of framework: 1. Start by selecting a relevant project (related to the role) Give the project background and what specific problem it solved. 2. Align the project's objective and your role Be specific about your role: were you the le"

    Malay K. - "For any project based questions, it is important to structure your response clearly, showcasing your thought process, technical skills, problem-solving abilities, and how your work added value. Besides the STAR method, you can also use this kind of framework: 1. Start by selecting a relevant project (related to the role) Give the project background and what specific problem it solved. 2. Align the project's objective and your role Be specific about your role: were you the le"See full answer

    Data Scientist
    Behavioral
    +8 more
  • Microsoft logoAsked at Microsoft 
    +24

    "We can use dictionary to store cache items so that our read / write operations will be O(1). Each time we read or update an existing record, we have to ensure the item is moved to the back of the cache. This will allow us to evict the first item in the cache whenever the cache is full and we need to add new records also making our eviction O(1) Instead of normal dictionary, we will use ordered dictionary to store cache items. This will allow us to efficiently move items to back of the cache a"

    Alfred O. - "We can use dictionary to store cache items so that our read / write operations will be O(1). Each time we read or update an existing record, we have to ensure the item is moved to the back of the cache. This will allow us to evict the first item in the cache whenever the cache is full and we need to add new records also making our eviction O(1) Instead of normal dictionary, we will use ordered dictionary to store cache items. This will allow us to efficiently move items to back of the cache a"See full answer

    Data Scientist
    Data Structures & Algorithms
    +6 more
  • Microsoft logoAsked at Microsoft 
    +1

    "A good answer is describing an experience where you either proposed something that was selected after discussion or an alternate approach was taken, or you disagreed with a decision and argued for something else, either successfully or not. A good answer would be you had cogent arguments, the decision went another way for some reason, and you then fully backed the decision (agree to disagree is another way of stating it). You did not take it personally and you fully committed to the deci"

    Mrinalini R. - "A good answer is describing an experience where you either proposed something that was selected after discussion or an alternate approach was taken, or you disagreed with a decision and argued for something else, either successfully or not. A good answer would be you had cogent arguments, the decision went another way for some reason, and you then fully backed the decision (agree to disagree is another way of stating it). You did not take it personally and you fully committed to the deci"See full answer

    Data Scientist
    Behavioral
    +3 more
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  • Microsoft logoAsked at Microsoft 
    +3

    "Conflict is a GREAT opportunity to really demonstrate that you care about someone and, through effective conflict resolution, build stronger authentic relationships with the people you work with. When faced with conflict, I prioritize understanding all perspectives involved. I start by actively listening to the other parties: asking clarifying questions to pinpoint the source of the conflict, reflecting back what I'm hearing to make sure I understand them correctly, and ultimately identify"

    Zakery K. - "Conflict is a GREAT opportunity to really demonstrate that you care about someone and, through effective conflict resolution, build stronger authentic relationships with the people you work with. When faced with conflict, I prioritize understanding all perspectives involved. I start by actively listening to the other parties: asking clarifying questions to pinpoint the source of the conflict, reflecting back what I'm hearing to make sure I understand them correctly, and ultimately identify"See full answer

    Data Scientist
    Behavioral
    +3 more
  • Microsoft logoAsked at Microsoft 
    +26

    "we can use two pointer + set like maintain i,j and also insert jth character to set like while set size is equal to our window j-i+1 then maximize our answer and increase jth pointer till last index"

    Kishor J. - "we can use two pointer + set like maintain i,j and also insert jth character to set like while set size is equal to our window j-i+1 then maximize our answer and increase jth pointer till last index"See full answer

    Data Scientist
    Data Structures & Algorithms
    +4 more
  • Microsoft logoAsked at Microsoft 
    +26

    "def reverseString(s): chars = list(s) l, r = 0, len(s) - 1 while l < r: chars[l], chars[r] = chars[r], chars[l] l += 1 r -= 1 reversed_str = "".join(chars) return reversed_str `"

    Erjan G. - "def reverseString(s): chars = list(s) l, r = 0, len(s) - 1 while l < r: chars[l], chars[r] = chars[r], chars[l] l += 1 r -= 1 reversed_str = "".join(chars) return reversed_str `"See full answer

    Data Scientist
    Data Structures & Algorithms
    +4 more
  • Microsoft logoAsked at Microsoft 
    Video answer for 'Implement k-means clustering.'

    "at first I want to know number of cluster I will put random number if I don't know and I will use method called Elbow method or Silhouette Score ,Gap Statistic and Davies–Bouldin Index to know the best number of cluster and I will use scikit-learn library to import kmeans from sklearn.cluster import KMeans kmeans = KMeans(nclusters=2, randomstate=0) kmeans.fit(X) and X this my data "

    Taheia S. - "at first I want to know number of cluster I will put random number if I don't know and I will use method called Elbow method or Silhouette Score ,Gap Statistic and Davies–Bouldin Index to know the best number of cluster and I will use scikit-learn library to import kmeans from sklearn.cluster import KMeans kmeans = KMeans(nclusters=2, randomstate=0) kmeans.fit(X) and X this my data "See full answer

    Data Scientist
    Analytical
    +5 more
  • Microsoft logoAsked at Microsoft 
    +2

    "WITH RECURSIVE fibonacci_series AS ( SELECT 1 AS n, 0 AS fib1, 1 AS fib2 UNION ALL SELECT n + 1 AS n, fib2 AS fib1, fib1 + fib2 AS fib2 FROM fibonacci_series WHERE n < 20 -- Limit the series to 20 numbers ) SELECT n, fib1 AS fib FROM fibonacci_series ORDER BY n; `"

    Yashasvi V. - "WITH RECURSIVE fibonacci_series AS ( SELECT 1 AS n, 0 AS fib1, 1 AS fib2 UNION ALL SELECT n + 1 AS n, fib2 AS fib1, fib1 + fib2 AS fib2 FROM fibonacci_series WHERE n < 20 -- Limit the series to 20 numbers ) SELECT n, fib1 AS fib FROM fibonacci_series ORDER BY n; `"See full answer

    Data Scientist
    Coding
    +4 more
  • "In the Transformer architecture, the decoder differs from the encoder primarily in its additional mechanisms designed to handle autoregressive sequence generation. Here's a breakdown of the key differences: Self-Attention Mechanism: Encoder: The encoder has a standard self-attention mechanism that allows each token to attend to all other tokens in the input sequence. Decoder: The decoder has two types of self-attention. The first is the same as in the encoder, but the second is mas"

    Ranj A. - "In the Transformer architecture, the decoder differs from the encoder primarily in its additional mechanisms designed to handle autoregressive sequence generation. Here's a breakdown of the key differences: Self-Attention Mechanism: Encoder: The encoder has a standard self-attention mechanism that allows each token to attend to all other tokens in the input sequence. Decoder: The decoder has two types of self-attention. The first is the same as in the encoder, but the second is mas"See full answer

    Data Scientist
    Statistics & Experimentation
  • Data Scientist
    Coding
  • Microsoft logoAsked at Microsoft 

    "Leetcode 347: Heap + Hashtable Follow up question: create heap with the length of K instead of N (more time complexity but less space )"

    Chen J. - "Leetcode 347: Heap + Hashtable Follow up question: create heap with the length of K instead of N (more time complexity but less space )"See full answer

    Data Scientist
    Data Structures & Algorithms
    +3 more
Showing 1-14 of 14