The Ultimate Guide to 

Machine Learning Job 
Interviews 
 
Get your dream job, from hunting to accepting the offer. 
 

 
 
 
 

 
  

Table of Contents 
 
Introduction 5 

What Are AI, Machine Learning, and Deep Learning? 7 

Artificial Intelligence 7 
Machine Learning 8 
Deep Learning and Neural Networks 9 

Different Roles Within AI and Machine Learning 11 

Industries With AI and ML Careers 12 

How Companies Think About AI and Machine Learning 13 

Early Stage, Building a Machine Learning Product 13 
Mid-to-Large Companies Looking to Leverage Their Data 16 
Large Tech Companies With Strong ML Capabilities 19 

How to Look Into Companies 23 

Evaluate Their ML Technology and Approach 23 
Evaluate the Company Culture 26 

8 Paths to Getting a Job Interview 27 

Traditional Paths to Getting an Interview 27 
1. Job Boards and Standard Applications 27 
2. Recruiters 28 
3. Job Fairs and Trade Shows 28 
Proactive Paths to Getting an Interview 29 
4. Attend or Organize an Event 29 
5. Freelance and Build a Portfolio 31 
6. Get Involved in Open Source 32 
7. Participate in Competitions / Hackathons 32 
8. Informational Interviews 33 

Building Your Profile for Recruiters 33 

How to Use References and Your Network 33 
CV vs. LinkedIn 36 
Cover Letters 2.0 37 

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Preparing for an Interview 37 

What to Expect 37 
Phone Screen 38 
Take-Home Assignment 39 
Phone Call With the Hiring Manager 40 
On-Site Interview With the Manager 43 
Technical Challenge 43 
Executive Interview 43 

Key Interview Questions, Prep, and Solutions 44 

Behavioral 44 
Situational 46 
Technical Questions for Machine Learning Interviews 49 
Mathematical Skills 50 
Statistics & Probability 62 
Autoencoders 68 
Programming Skills 69 
Algorithms and Learning Theory 72 
Data Sets and Big Data 75 
Model and Feature Selection 78 
Deep Learning 82 
Regularization 85 
Clustering 86 
Natural Language Processing (NLP) 87 
Loss Optimization 89 
Monte Carlo Methods 91 
Representation 92 
Dimensionality Reduction 94 
Interest and Understanding of ML 95 
Case Studies/Scenarios 97 
Product Management Skills 98 

In Their Own Words: What Hiring Managers Are Looking For 99 
Susie Pan - Royal Bank of Canada, Product Lead 99 
Integrate.ai - Rachel Jacobson, VP of People; Brennan Biddle, AI Recruiter 101 

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Geetu Ambwani - Data Science Lead, Flat Iron Health 104 

In Their Own Words: How Successful Candidates Made It 106 

Patrick Lung - Product Manager, Microsoft 106 
Srdjan Santic - Principal Data Scientist, Logikka 108 
Val Andrei Fajardo - Director of Machine Learning Science, Integrate.ai 111 
Jasmine Kyung - Senior Operations Engineer, Raytheon 113 

Takeaways 114 

7 Things to Do After the Interview 115 

1. Send a (good) follow-up thank you note 115 
2. Share thoughts on something brought up during the interview 115 
3. Send relevant work/homework to the employer 116 
4. Keep in touch, the right way 117 
5. Leverage connections 117 
6. Accept rejection with professionalism 118 
7. Keep up hope 118 

How to Handle Offers 119 

What to Assess 119 
Company Culture 119 
Team 120 
Location 120 

Negotiating Your Salary 121 

Industry Benchmarks for Salaries 122 
What to Do Once You Accept 123 

Conclusion 123 

Final Checklist 124 

Special Thanks 125 

About the Author 125 

 
 

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Introduction 
The rapid success of Springboard's M ​ achine Learning Engineering Career 
Track​ has reinforced our belief that there isn't enough easily accessible 
education about this exciting and fast-growing field. This tactical career 
guide is one way we can help. 

While working with machine learning experts to design the course and 
talking to aspiring learners, we found that there was a mishmash of 
resources that discuss ML job interviews, but no complete guides. There 
were individual profiles and collections of interview questions, but no 
comprehensive resource with solutions, no profiles that spoke to: how do I 
actually get this job? 

The goal of this guide is to help you navigate the entire process, from A to Z, 
to find and secure an interview in a machine learning job, whether as an 
engineer, analyst, product manager, data scientist, researcher, or whatever 
role you determine is right for you.  

To develop this ebook, we wanted to talk to both hiring managers and job 
candidates, people from both sides of the table, to outline what this 
experience looks like -- and what the job market looks like—right now. We 
wanted to talk to recruiters who source candidates, hiring managers who 
conduct interviews and make offers, and successful candidates who have 
made it through challenging machine learning interviews. 

At Springboard, we’ve taught thousands of people the data science and 

machine learning skills needed to switch careers and land fulfilling jobs. We 
have a large network of students, alumni, and mentors, putting us in a unique 
position to provide a realistic perspective of what the machine learning 
interview process is like. 

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The investment in a machine learning career is significant and it's not 

without challenges. But the return is incredible. AI and machine learning have 
been hailed as the breakthrough of the century. AI has the power to 
completely change finance, health, education, and countless other 
industries.  

Becoming a machine learning engineer is a huge step toward future-proofing 

your career. 

So, you're interested in AI and machine learning. But how do you actually 
turn that interest into a career? Let's get into it. 
 
What Are AI, Machine Learning, and Deep Learning? 
If you're getting into the field, let's say as a programmer or an analyst, but 
you want to brush up on your knowledge of ​key terms and definitions​ of AI, 
machine learning, and deep learning, this section is for you. 

Artificial Intelligence 

Artificial intelligence has been around since at least the 1950s, but it’s only in 
the past few years that it’s become ubiquitous. Companies we interact with 
every day— Amazon, Facebook, and Google—have fully embraced AI. It 
powers product recommendations, maps, and our social media feeds. But 
it’s not only the tech giants that employ AI in their products. Now, startups, 
banks, consulting companies, and even governments are integrating AI 
solutions. 

Simply put, artificial intelligence describes a machine that m

​ imics human 
behavior​ in some way. AI can make the user experience similar to interacting 
with a human. The human part is the output. The input is huge amounts of 

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data. That’s what allows the AI to learn and adapt. It takes in reams of 
information and data and processes it. If it encounters a problem, it learns 
from the situation and recognizes a pattern. 

There are many different terms being used, sometimes interchangeably and 
sometimes incorrectly, to describe artificial intelligence. AI is an umbrella 
term encompassing several different forms of learning. The main buckets 
are m
​ achine learning, deep learning, and neural networks​. 

Here's a simple visual for you to keep in mind: 

Machine Learning 

Machine learning​ is a subset of AI. It is a set of techniques that give 

computers the ability to learn without being explicitly programmed to do so. 
One example is classification, such as classifying images: in a very simplistic 

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interpretation, for example, a computer could automatically classify pictures 

of apples and oranges to go in different folders. And with more data over 
time, the machine will become better and better at the job. 

Andrew Ng, one of modern AI’s pioneers, offers this helpful t​ able on what 
machine learning can do​: 
 

Deep Learning and Neural Networks 

Deep learning​ is a further subset of machine learning that enables 

computers to learn more complex patterns and solve more complex 
problems. One of the clearest applications of deep learning is in ​natural 
language processing​, which powers chatbots and voice assistants like Siri. 
It’s the recent advent of deep learning that has really been driving the AI 
boom. 

Deep learning is based on neural networks, which is the idea that machines 
could mimic the human brain, with many layers of artificial neurons. ​Neural 
networks​ are powerful when they are multi-layered, with more neurons and 

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interconnectivity. Neural networks have been explored for years, but only 
recently has research been pushed to the next level and commercialized. 

Conceptually, here is a c
​ omparison​ of a simple neural network to what a 
multi-layered neural network in deep learning may look like: 

It’s important to keep in mind that these are general, simplified definitions. 
Different organizations could have different definitions of each of these 
terms. And they could also have varying ideas about the depth they are 
looking for from an applicant. This can be difficult for candidates because 
there may be dramatically different job and interview requirements.  

My recommendation is to supplement the technical section of this guide by 

searching for information about the company you’re interested in to identify 
what you’ll need to know. It's completely reasonable to do the following: 

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● Read as much as possible about the company to understand what 

kind of AI it uses and how deep a technical product it is. 
● Look on Glassdoor to see if any employees have shared information 
about job interviews and/or the general nature of the business. 
● Search LinkedIn to find ML-related employees and consider how 
experienced they are. For example, if they all have a Ph.D. in computer 
science or statistics, the company may have a complex, in-depth take 
on artificial intelligence. 
● Reach out to the company directly, perhaps to someone in HR or a 
current machine learning team member. There's no harm in asking for 
additional insight. 

Different Roles Within AI and Machine Learning 

There are many different roles within the machine learning industry. In this 
book, I'm going to highlight the key areas you could work in and the most 
commonly associated roles: 

● Engineering: Most commonly, a machine learning engineer. You handle 

the bulk of coding applications. You create systems that move data 
and implement algorithms designed by data scientists. 
● Data Science: You could be a data analyst or a data scientist. Your job 
is to design machine learning models that create distinctions in data.  
● Business Intelligence: You help query and present business 
implications, typically from data-driven insights. 
● Research: While the other roles tend to be more applied, a research 
scientist is typically pushing the boundaries of artificial intelligence 
through new discoveries rather than by applying existing algorithms 
and models. 

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● Product: Finally, there are roles like a machine learning product 

manager or lead. This person brings together tech, business, and 
design in order to create the product. They're often responsible for 
facilitating the product development agenda and even managing profit 
and loss of a product. 

 
Industries With AI and ML Careers 
Before we talk more about roles, let's explore the industries that employ 
people in AI and ML careers. 

Industries often focus on different areas of knowledge and have specific 

needs, language, and data types. For example, a software company will be 
focused on different metrics than a banking company. One of the key 
methods to keep in mind is c ​ ode switching​, which is not a reference to 
computer programming, but to the language and key terms that you express 
yourself in. Different industries have different jargon, and often, using it can 
help you converse properly and find a role at a company. Specifically, it can 
help you pass screening tests. 

If you are looking to get into a certain industry, you’ll want to optimize your 
resume and LinkedIn profile with keywords that are more common in that 
industry. It's important for screening purposes.  

According to L​ inkedIn's Emerging Jobs Report​, the largest hiring industries 

for machine learning, artificial intelligence, and data science talent are 
software, higher education, and consulting/finance companies. It turns out 
that these industries also often pay the most for machine learning talent. 

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Different industries also focus more on certain types of roles. For example, 
software, medicine, and telecom companies are typically the largest 
employers of data scientists. On the other hand, aerospace and information 
technology companies hire more engineers. And analysts tend to be hired by 
healthcare as well as consulting and banking companies. 

It's important to be aware of the industry your potential employers will be in 
so you can learn more about their needs and also how they express 
themselves. 

 
How Companies Think About AI and Machine Learning 
Different companies can have very distinct interview processes. 

In general, we can split companies into three rough categories: 

Early Stage, Building a Machine Learning Product 

The dream: a Silicon Valley paradise, working with a small team, raising 
millions of dollars, and changing the world. Besides the glory, there are major 
opportunities in working with an early-stage startup. For one, you may be 
able to work the fastest within one, and potentially see a large amount of 
success in a short period of time.  

One important thing to keep in mind if you join an early-stage company is 
that your job description probably will not be static. You'll likely be required to 
do a number of different things across a number of different areas. Also, 
you'll probably be short on resources, so you'll need to be self-motivated, 
resourceful, and flexible.  

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Another element to keep in mind in a startup is that the front-loaded nature 

of your efforts might be quite significant. You typically won’t have a lot of 
existing data to work with. And if you're looking to use other people's data for 
your own machine learning products, you're going to have to demonstrate a 
high level of reliability, security, and utility early on, all things that can be 
difficult for a smaller company (versus a larger company that has a lot of its 
own data or pre-existing relationships with customers). Also important to 
consider is whether the co-founders are unique and pioneering individuals 
within AI.  

In a startup, you could have the opportunity of a lifetime, not only in terms of 
learning but in the potential financial windfall. But there's also a high risk that 
it could fail, as most new businesses do. 

Examples of this company type: ​Kite​, L

​ ooker​, N
​ udge.ai 

Sample job postings: M

​ achine Learning Engineer​, D
​ ata Analyst  

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Mid-to-Large Companies Looking to Leverage Their Data 

AI and machine learning are still relatively new on the hype cycle, and there 
are a number of companies that have built sizeable data sets that can 
incorporate ML into their business. That way, they can leverage those data 
sets to improve their existing products and potentially to develop new 
products. 

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Every company with data is realizing that taking advantage of it is a top 

priority. Many companies are still figuring out how to do this, though. A 
common strategy is to create a startup team within the company that can 
turn data into insights and eventually new products for the business. Most 
companies realize that leveraging their data has become essential to 
remaining competitive. So, that means if you're seeking out a machine 
learning opportunity with a midsize to a larger company, you know that you 
have a strong case to make. 

Mid to large companies will be more rigid in their culture or in the systems 
that they have set up, which can make it harder to innovate. But you'll have 
data that you can use to build machine learning models based on millions of 
data points. And you also know that you have a chance to immediately make 
more of an impact at scale, given the number of users and customers that 
you're likely to have. 

While some of these companies may not be on the cutting edge of machine 
learning or AI innovations, they still offer a fantastic opportunity to learn, and 
you'll have solid compensation and benefits, as well as an overall solid 
foundation to stand on. 

Examples of this company type: Capital One, JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley, 

Coca-Cola, Walmart, General Motors 

Sample job postings: S

​ oftware Engineer, Machine Learning​, B
​ ig Data 
Engineer 

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Large Tech Companies With Strong ML Capabilities 

Some large technology companies already have very established machine 

learning teams. These are typically large software companies because they 
are the ones that pioneered these fields. They often have big technical teams 

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and some of the most talented employees in the world. You'll often be 
working on complicated problems that require very innovative thinking. 

If you want a challenge and some of the best training in the world, this is the 
target. You will have access to immense amounts of data. You likely won't 
be able to move as fast as some of the early-stage startups, but you'll have a 
good balance between those and a traditional company, with an impressive 
compensation package, and often a very well recognized brand on your 
resume when you decide to move on. 

Examples of this company type: Google, Microsoft, Uber, Airbnb, Facebook 

Sample job postings: S

​ oftware Engineer, Machine Learning​, D
​ ata Scientist, 
Strategic Analytics 

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How to Look Into Companies 
One of the most important parts of getting a good job in machine learning 
and AI is first identifying the quality of the company that you want to join.  

Evaluate Their ML Technology and Approach 

From a technological perspective, you'll want to consider what problems the 

company is trying to solve, its approach, its data, how it audits and monitors 
itself, and whether the company is thoughtfully applying machine learning. 

I've quoted these strong guiding questions verbatim from Karen Hao's recent 
publication in the ​MIT Technology Review​, because they are simply so 
spot-on: 

1. What is the problem it’s trying to solve?​ What does the company says 
it’s trying to do, and is it worthy of machine learning? Perhaps we’re talking 
to ​Affectiva​, which is building emotion recognition technology to accurately 
track and analyze people’s moods. Conceptually, this is a pattern recognition 
problem and thus would be one that machine learning could tackle (see: 
What is machine learning?​). It would also be very challenging to approach 
through another means because it is too complex to program into a set of 
rules. 

2. How is the company approaching that problem with machine learning? 

Now that we have a conceptual understanding of the problem, we want to 
know how the company is going to tackle it. An emotion recognition 
company could take many approaches to building its product. It could train a 
computer vision system to pattern match on people’s facial expressions or 

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train an audio system to pattern match on people’s tone of voice. Here, we 
want to figure out how the company has reframed its problem statement 
into a machine-learning problem, and determine what data it would need to 
input into its algorithms. 

3. How does the company source its training data?​ Once we know the kind 
of data the company needs, we want to know how the company goes about 
acquiring it. Most AI applications use supervised machine learning, which 
requires clean, high-quality labeled data. Who is labeling the data? And if the 
labels are subjective like emotions, do they follow a scientific standard? In 
Affectiva’s case you would learn that the company collects audio and video 
data voluntarily from users, then employs ​trained specialists​ to label the data 
in a rigorously consistent way. Knowing the details of this part of the pipeline 
also helps you identify any potential sources of data collection or labeling 
bias (See: ​This is how AI bias really happens​). 

4. Does the company have processes for auditing its products? N ​ ow we 
should examine whether the company tests its products. How accurate are 
its algorithms? Are they audited for bias? How often does it re-evaluate its 
algorithms to make sure they’re still performing up to par? If the company 
doesn’t yet have algorithms that reach its desired accuracy or fairness, what 
plans does it have to make sure they will before deployment? 

5. Should the company be using machine learning to solve this problem? 

This is more of a judgement call. Even if a problem can be solved with 
machine learning, it’s important to question whether it should. Just because 
you can create an emotion recognition platform that reaches at least 80% 
accuracy across different races and genders doesn’t mean it won’t be 
abused. Do the benefits of having this technology available outweigh the 
potential human rights violations of emotional surveillance? And does the 

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company have mechanisms in place to mitigate any possible negative 

impacts? 

In my opinion, a company with a quality machine learning product should 

check off all the boxes: it should be tackling a problem fit for machine 
learning, have robust data acquisition pipeline and auditing processes, have 
high accuracy algorithms or a plan to improve them, and be grappling 
head-on with ethical questions. Oftentimes, companies pass the first four 
tests but not the last. For me, that’s a major red flag. It demonstrates that 
the company isn’t thinking holistically about how its technology can impact 
people’s lives and has a high chance of pulling a Facebook later on. 

So, use this fantastic five-question framework from Karen Hao to assess 
whether a company is really on the right track with their machine learning 
product. 

An even shorter, no-messing-around list from a friend of mine in the startup 

space is: 

● Competent and transparent leadership 

● Smart and stupidly high-energy people 
● Early stage, maybe first official product or engineering hire 
● Validated product-market fit with lots of product work to do 
● Extremely difficult problems that’ll keep you up at night 
● Solving a real fundamental need 

Whatever your most important criteria are, put those first, and don't settle. 

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Evaluate the Company Culture 

People talk all the time about culture and how important fit is, both for a 
candidate and for a company. 

My ultimate recommendation is that this is best done during the interview 

process, specifically the behavioral portions. There is nothing like in-person 
time with a company to learn more about how it really operates. That being 
said, there are some simple ways that you can “screen” a company to find 
out more about its culture and people. 

1. Check out Glassdoor. ​It’s probably the best online repository of 
information about companies, including reviews from people who have 
interviewed with the company as well as current and former 
employees. If you see a lot of bad reviews, it’s pretty simple: you 
should probably stay away. So, it's a good, quick reference check to 
evaluate a company’s reputation. However, the Glassdoor approach 
can be tricky, especially with a very small or very large company. With 
the former, it's possible that there won’t be any reviews at all. On the 
other hand, with a very large company, it's possible that none of the 
reviews pertain to the machine learning part of the business.  
2. Read up on recent company news.​ One of the easiest ways to do this 
is to go to the company's website and check out their online press 
room to see what they've been putting out recently. But that’s just the 
company’s approved PR. You should also do at least some light 
Google searching. Obviously, if they've had some bad press recently, 
you might want to do additionally due diligence about the business. 
3. Look on LinkedIn.​ Check out people who currently work at the 
company, both people you would directly work with and employees at 
the director level and higher. You might want to check out their 
backgrounds to see the schools they attended, activities they are 

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involved in, and of course their most recent work history and how they 
describe their career. If you see some similarities and some things that 
interest you, that could be a sign that the company is a good fit for 
you. You should also keep in mind that some companies simply hire 
differently. For example, some are looking for specialists versus 
generalists. Some are looking for fully formed candidates while others 
are looking for people that they can train. Looking at profiles of current 
employees can help you get a sense of what that company typically 
likes, and then you can consider whether that works for you. 

Now that you've looked into companies a bit, let's look into getting an 
interview. 

 
8 Paths to Getting a Job Interview  
Scoring an interview is sometimes the hardest (and most frustrating) part of 
getting the job, even more than getting through the interview. So in this 
section, we're going to help you figure out how to land an interview in the 
first place. 

I separated the section into both traditional approaches as well as newer 

proactive approaches, which could help separate you from the candidate 
pool at startups in particular. 

Traditional Paths to Getting an Interview 

1. Job Boards and Standard Applications

Most companies post jobs on their career site. You can always target a 
company and respond to a specific job posting or submit a general 
application expressing broader interest in the company through that jobs 

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portal. You can also find machine learning job postings on websites like 
Indeed​ or ​LinkedIn​. These are old faithfuls. Definitely invest some time there.  

Recent job seekers have told me that they like ​Breakoutlist​, A

​ ngelList​, and 
Triplebyte​.  

There are specific job boards for the machine learning space, such as ​ML 
Jobs List​, as well. 

I've also heard that aggregators from VCs such as ​First Round Capital​, 
Greylock​, and ​Costanoa​ are quite good. 

2. Recruiters

You’ll typically work with a recruiter during the interview process, but you 
don’t just have to wait for them to contact you. Sometimes you may want to 
reach out directly to recruiters, either at the company itself (the in-house 
recruiter) or third-party recruiters who put companies in touch with great 
candidates.  

There are recruiters who specialize in machine learning and artificial 

intelligence. Very often they include this in their LinkedIn profile title, or they 
may list something more general, such as "technology recruiter." What's 
important about recruiters is that they may know about the jobs that aren't 
even posted online. Keep in mind that something like 50% of the jobs are not 
even listed publicly. Quickly searching LinkedIn will give you a sense of some 
recruiters near you who might be able to find you the most relevant 
companies. 

3. Job Fairs and Trade Shows

Job fairs present a rather daunting perspective: who wants to be milling 

around with a whole bunch of other candidates trying to chase down 

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company representatives at a booth? But major universities in particular can 

have decent job fairs. However, my real recommendation is that networking 
events and meetups within your local machine learning community will 
probably be better than a traditional job fair. (Read on for more on those!) 

Proactive Paths to Getting an Interview 

While the options above are pretty traditional, it's more and more common 
for candidates to take a different tack when it comes to getting a job 
interview. Often you'll need to hustle and demonstrate creativity and grit in 
order to get a position. Startups are one of the main areas of new jobs in AI 
and machine learning, and are known for pioneering a different type of 
interview style. 

4. Attend or Organize an Event

This is often the best way to meet people interested in AI and machine 
learning in your community, and you may also learn about job opportunities 
from attendees. There are large conferences and smaller or more focused 
community meetups that you can target, depending on what you’re looking 
for. 

Conferences 

International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML) 

ICML is one of the leading international machine learning conferences in the 

world, with over 35 years in the business. Usually hosted in California, it's full 
of expert speakers on the current state and future of machine learning. You 

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should consider this event if you're a machine learning engineer, but there's 
likely something for everyone connected to machine learning at this one. 

Artificial Intelligence Conference 

This conference focuses on the latest breakthroughs in AI and machine 

learning. It's an O'Reilly event that brings together science and business, 
featuring speakers from top software companies, training courses, and 
networking opportunities. It's a great place to learn about different 
applications of artificial intelligence. It's especially well aligned to product 
managers and business intelligence developers. 

Neural Information Processing Systems Conference 

Another long-time conference (since 1987), this one is probably the most 
focussed on theory and research into the latest developments in machine 
learning. There is a significant focus on computational neuroscience, so it 
would be perfect for machine learning researchers or individuals from 
theoretical backgrounds to consider. 

Meetups 

Sometimes it may be more in your interest to attend smaller community 

events where you're able to make a bigger impression and potentially even 
take on a leadership role after some time. It's also a way to get to know 
people in a local community. Often, large events are chock-full of vendors 
and people focused on bigger partnerships. Small events can give you easier 
access to hiring managers and help you connect with peers who could help 
you down the road. You also may be able to find an opportunity to snag a 
speaking gig or start to build your name within the community. 

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One of the best stops for meetups is very simply ​Meetup.com​. You’ll find all 
sorts of them on the site. Some are quite large; for example, the N
​ YC 
Machine Learning Meetup​ has more than 13,000 members. But don’t let that 
intimidate you; many people will register for a Meetup but not actually 
attend. Typically a smaller meetup is between 10-200 people. 

Another alternative if you can't find a good meetup or one nearby: create one 
yourself! I know many candidates for roles that have gotten jobs because 
they started the relevant community group. It makes you a connector or an 
influencer in the community. And that's a great role to add to your CV. 

5. Freelance and Build a Portfolio

There's no reason that you can't start doing machine learning work right 
way. One of the easiest ways is to start freelancing. This will likely be easiest 
for designers, engineers, and data scientists, though there certainly can be 
opportunities for researchers and product managers as well. Sites like 
Upwork​ or T
​ opTal​ make it easy as a skilled professional to create a profile 
and find work in short-term contracts and ongoing projects, or even 
longer-term engagements. 

A portfolio can help you build your brand and also be an online record of 
experience for your work. It can also give you some early references and 
testimonials that you can pass on to potential employers. And of course, it 
could allow you to do some genuinely interesting work that could inspire 
articles for blogs or other content that you can use to expand your profile. 

Ultimately, freelancing may also simply be a good idea for you to validate the 
different types of work and industries that you are interested in, to help you 
narrow your job search and be more specific in the future. 

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6. Get Involved in Open Source

Another way to make connections in the machine learning community is to 

get involved in open-source projects. These are non-proprietary code bases 
and repositories that are worked on by distributed communities and are 
typically not meant for profit or owned by a company. They are often in 
open-source repositories on ​Github​. This includes the N​ atural Language 
Toolkit project​, which helps deal with human language as a data source, and 
the various libraries that make up the Python d​ ata science and machine 
learning toolkit​.  

Companies hiring engineers are often particularly known to hire ​based on 
open-source contributions​, and sometimes will find you through what you 
wrote. It's similar to the portfolio effect. People will often look you up online 
and want to see what you worked on. 

7. Participate in Competitions / Hackathons

If you prefer to use your skill set in a more confined or time-limited 

environment, perhaps a competition or a hackathon is the way to go. 

There are machine learning competitions like ​Kaggle​ and ​many hackathons 
that allow you to work quickly on real business or social problems. It's a 
great way to put your skills in machine learning and artificial intelligence to 
use, and you will be able to meet people as well as showcase your ability to 
make a difference. 

8. Informational Interviews

The final path in, or step that you can take, is a classic, but it may be 
irreplaceable. Ultimately, relationships are what can start you on the path to 
a job, and help you close the deal. More than half of jobs aren't even posted 

30 
  

on job boards and sometimes the only way through a company’s seemingly 
impenetrable shell is to start meeting people from that company and build 
strong relationships with them. 

One of the best ways to network is to request only a little bit of someone’s 
time. A quick coffee date is ideal. Meet them on their schedule, at a place of 
their choosing. Reach out via email or a LinkedIn message with a very short 
note. All you need is one sentence about why you're unique as a candidate. 
You could also use this g​ reat framework​ from Steve Blank. 

If you’re successful in getting coffee, treat it as an opportunity to seek advice 

and information from people in the field. And if you're good at growing your 
network, you’ll really get a sense of how the industry works. 

 
Building Your Profile for Recruiters 

How to Use References and Your Network 

Let's go deeper into networking. One of the most powerful sources of 
information for companies is a strong referral, especially if that referral is 
coming from someone who's already part of the company. If you have 
someone looking out for you on the inside, they'll ensure that your 
application gets looked at, and sometimes you can even jump ahead in the 
interview process. 

What's important to know is that these referrals don't need to be friends. It 
could be as simple as having basic name recognition with a person and 
making a good impression. They might put in a good word and say, "Yeah, I 
met Rob once, he was great." That could help you make it past the initial 
screen. 

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The important thing is to build relationships before you need them. You want 
to take a long-term view on this and regularly be looking to build new 
relationships and nurture them. That way, when an opportunity comes along 
you’ll already have great relationships or places to turn to get the right 
referrals. You won’t be as successful if you're only invested in these 
relationships when you need help. You need to invest in them as well. 

If you find yourself in a place where you need a referral right away, you could 
use something that is known as the informational interview technique. This 
technique is about reaching out to people in the field to get a sense of what 
they are working on. If you approach in the right way, people can be very 
generous with their time and offer to help you. 

My advice is to target people on networks like ​LinkedIn​ and ​AngelList​. Once 

you’ve found the people that you're interested in talking to, send them a 
LinkedIn message or find their email and send them a note. 

Here's an example template that you could use: 

Hi [name], 
 
I am very interested in the problems that Google is working on using machine learning. I’ve 
been aspiring to break into the field, and being a passionate follower of the ​Think with 
Google blog​, I regularly read updates on how Google is advancing the frontiers of AI and 
machine learning.  
 
Based on my background in engineering and design, I might be able to help come up with 
some creative ideas on how to help Google's latest projects. 
 
I’d love to take you out to coffee and get a greater sense of what problems you are 
working on in your role. And perhaps I can help! Would you have some time in the coming 
weeks? 

32 
  

 
Cheers, 
[your name] 
[your LinkedIn or email] 

Take a shot with something like that and see how far you get. One thing to 
keep in mind: don’t get discouraged too easily. It may simply be a numbers 
game, because people are quite busy. Don't feel personal disappointment if 
someone doesn't respond to you.  

One of the most helpful ways that you can use LinkedIn is to check out your 
second-degree connections. You might be able to identify some mutual 
connections that you can mention to the person you’re targeting. 

If you do meet up with someone for a coffee or an informational interview, 

do your homework beforehand. Do some deeper research on the company 
as well as the person you're talking to. That way you can make sure the 
conversation flows.  

Finally, you may also find from the interview that you are not interested in 
working at that company or on that specific team, which will save you 
valuable time!   

CV vs. LinkedIn 

Particularly if you're coming from an academic background, this is an 

important section for you. When you're looking for a job, people are not 
necessarily interested in perusing your CV—at least not at first. Perhaps for a 
highly specific research role, but otherwise you need to present yourself in a 
more comprehensible form, often through LinkedIn. Even if you have an 

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impressive CV, LinkedIn is a golden standard for recruitment. Having a 

well-designed and clear LinkedIn profile will allow potential employers and 
recruiters to discover you, evaluate you, and potentially find you a job 
opportunity. 

Everyone is on LinkedIn. If you're not standing out on LinkedIn, you may 

already be losing out to other candidates. Resumes are often considered 
overrated, but I don't believe that LinkedIn profiles are. It's more than just a 
list of your accomplishments. It should tell a story, and often you using your 
LinkedIn profile for different activities can often help you be seen.  

There are many people I know who have regularly receive job and speaking 
offers thanks to the content and the comments that they post on LinkedIn 
regularly. One of my strategies is to follow people who matter in my industry 
and comment on their posts and like what they do. Then intentionally send 
them a message after you’ve established a presence through these 
engagements. 

Those coming from academia tend to value publication. But when searching 
for these kinds of jobs, it's all about being succinct and talking about the 
impact and metrics that you've driven within your accomplishments. 
Recruiters tend to run through these very quickly, so you're going to want to 
be as concise as possible. Use keywords for the industry. Use meaningful 
numbers. And don't sell yourself short. 

Cover Letters 2.0 

The way you were probably taught to do this in school is totally different 
from how you should actually do it. And it is very important, especially for 
smaller companies and the hottest startups. They care about who you are as 
a person and how you’ll fit within the culture. 

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Email the hiring manager and include a couple of key paragraphs or some 
bullets points about your experiences and interests. Keep it short, sweet, and 
personalized. Highlight why your background would be valuable to their 
company and what you hope to get out of the experience. That really might 
be all you need. 

Here​ is a more in-depth guide with some great examples of how to make a 
cover letter better. 

 
Preparing for an Interview 
Once you secure an interview—or several—you'll be invited to start the 
process, typically on a screening call with a recruiter. 

In this section, I will outline what a typical interview process looks like in AI 
and machine learning careers. 

What to Expect 

An interview in the machine learning industry typically combines behavioral 

questions with an array of challenging technical questions. It's important to 
remember that every company is unique, and hiring processes for different 
positions could be very distinct. Some companies will want to focus on 
in-depth, highly technical challenges. Others will focus heavily on culture fit 
and the behavioral questions. Odds are that you will have a mix of both, so 
it's good to prepare thoroughly and holistically.  

For example, one of the companies that we highlight later on, Integrate.ai, 
focuses heavily on the behavioral interview, and even if a candidate has the 
best technical interview, they won't move forward if they aren't a cultural fit. 

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A typical and thorough process will look like this: 

Phone Screen 

Phone screens are about filtering out candidates who don't meet the base 
parameters of the job. They are also about validating whether a candidate's 
claimed experience is legitimate.  

There's a good likelihood that the interview will be conducted by someone 

from human resources rather than the hiring manager, in order to save time. 
These interviews are typically more about culture fit and seeing how you 
work with teams. And it's an important opportunity to showcase your 
communication skills 

During the call, you'll answer questions, but you’ll also want to ask your own, 
such as: 

● What kind of problems is the machine learning team facing? 

● What are the company’s business priorities? 
● What are the main values of the company? 
● Whom would I report to? 
● Are you able to share an expected compensation range for the 
role?  
● What would the interview process look like if I were to move 
forward? 
● If I were to move forward, how should I best prepare for the next 
stage? 

And consider other thoughtful questions that could help you to understand 
their business and the space that they operate in, as well as the role itself. 

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Take-Home Assignment 

After a phone interview, companies will often give you an assignment and a 
deadline, usually a few days or a week. This is typically a second screening 
stage that companies use to ensure that you have a minimum level of 
technical skills and understanding for the role, as well as some reasoning 
power and problem-solving ability. It also screens out candidates with 
commitment issues.  

So, what are some examples of take-home assignments? It could be 

anything from deep analysis on a specific data set to the deconstruction of a 
machine learning algorithm to demonstrate your understanding of it. It may 
also be a coding assignment to construct an application. One of your goals 
in this process should be to see what kind of problems you might be working 
on. 

The important thing to remember is that most interviews consider your 

approach and problem-solving methods rather than solely focusing on the 
results or whether you’ve gotten the correct solutions. It’s often OK to fail—if 
you exemplify some level of creativity and problem-solving ability. If you 
need to code extensively, write it clearly and comprehensively so that an 
interviewer can easily follow your thought patterns and understand what you 
did. 

Ap
​ ost on KDNuggets​ recommends that you: 

1. Prepare an ML template with reusable functions. 

2. Make an API on top of SciKit-Learn and Matplotlib so that you can 
quickly perform EDA and build basic models. 
3. Consider stacking different models or using one model prediction in 
the other, in order to raise the eyebrows of an interview. 

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For case studies, consider reading blogs of major companies like Google, 
Facebook, Twitter, and others as you can often get a better sense of how 
these companies tackle business problems with machine learning. 

Something to note for take-home assignments is that you'll typically be given 

a timeline; for example, it may take 5-6 hours and you may have to return it 
within a couple of days. The goal is of course to keep within those bounds 
and be honest. Go as far as you can and if you're edging past the expected 
boundaries, write some quick bullet points about what you would continue to 
do if you had more time to work on the problem.  

Phone Call With the Hiring Manager 

If you make it past these first couple of screens—some people have 

suggested these can remove 50% of candidates—you'll likely be headed to a 
call with the hiring manager (i.e., the person who is actually hiring you). 

The likely focus of this interview will be your technical skills, and it will 
probably be the last screen and phone call before you go on-site. Often this 
is split into two or three different components, usually taking place over one 
long call, but sometimes during three shorter phone calls of 30 minutes 
each. 

Coding  

This part of the interview is the most common, especially for a machine 
learning engineer. You'll likely be evaluated on your ability to solve a coding 
challenge by presenting pseudocode, or in tougher interviews, compile-ready 
code. If you're applying for a data position, it will probably be more about 
asking how to query data with SQL. The questions you will be asked are 
likely in the programming scripting languages that you said you're 

38 
  

experienced in already—that could be Python, Java, Ruby, or whatever 

language you work in. 

Your interviewer may use some sort of online whiteboarding software to 
evaluate you online, or ask you to share your screen. Alternatively, they may 
ask you to directly collaborate with them on a text editor and have you type 
in your solution. Be ready for these scenarios and train with tools like 
HackerRank ​or ​Collabedit​ if you can. 

For coding interviews, there are myriad online resources available, everything 
from C
​ racking the coding interview​ to ​Interview cake​. Take advantage of 
them. 

Mathematics and Statistics 

You may have a call that screens for key mathematical and statistical 
concepts. This is particularly relevant for those applying for data science 
roles. Web companies will tend to focus on your knowledge of A/B split 
testing, your understanding of how p-values are calculated, and what 
statistical significance means. Energy companies may touch more heavily 
on regression in linear algebra. The key in any of these interviews is to share 
your entire thought process. 

For example, if you're asked about A/B tests, describe the process in detail, 
emphasize what to watch out for, and voice your experiences running 
experiments. Treat these questions like mathematical proofs and showcase 
your ability to statistically reason. And also, don't hesitate to tell a story 

39 
  

about why this matters and what insights you could share with a company 
based on the result. 

Qualitative Discussion 

The final aspect of the phone call with the hiring manager will focus on how 
you communicate and whether you’ll mesh with the rest of the team. (This 
could be a separate call from the technical phone screens.) The goal of this 
call is for the hiring manager to get a feel for who you are: your character, 
your motivations, your fit with the team, and also a general sense of your 
intelligence. The goal is to showcase who you are and why you're the right 
person for the job—not just for your skills, but your personality and traits. 

The way to prepare for this part of the interview is to think about the 
problems the hiring manager is facing and the kind of person they're looking 
for. They may already have a mental model of what kind of qualities that 
person has. Your goal here is not to be a chameleon, but you can do some 
tailoring of your conversation and focusing in on specific traits of yours. 
Another helpful element to think about is if you would pass "the airplane 
test." If you were sitting next to each other for several hours on an airplane, 
would you enjoy the experience? 

On-Site Interview With the Manager 

If you've made it through the screens, it's now time to meet your hiring 
manager in person. They'll be judging you from both a technical and 
non-technical perspective. This will go deeper into evaluating who you are as 
a candidate. 

40 
  

On-site is also where things get more intense. I've documented a full set of 
questions below that you might engage with in this interview or in the next 
several portions. 

Technical Challenge 

If you don't encounter a technical challenge during your first on-site 

interview, it's likely that you'll have another one, especially for an engineering 
role. You could be asked to whiteboard and write down how you would 
implement certain algorithms or how to think about certain business 
problems. 

Brushing up on your technical skills and knowledge of key terms is important 

for this. If you don't succeed or at least show potential in the technical 
portion of the on-site interview, you're unlikely to get the job. 

Executive Interview 

If you make it through an interview or two with the hiring manager, you're 
likely near the end of the process, and around that time you'll likely meet 
executive team members. If it's a startup, this could even be a founder 
and/or the CEO. 

Good job if you've made it this far. Typically, it means you've already 
"passed" the other portions, and now is the time for final decisions and 
choosing between star candidates. The key now is to make it clear why you 
are the best person for the role. Basically, keep doing what you've done, and 
don't let nerves get to you.  

The executive interview usually won't be technical. Odds are, it's about 
solidifying their choice based on fit and how you get along with the strategic 
vision of the company. It's also a good opportunity to discuss how you could 

41 
  

see yourself growing with the organization, not just how you would fit in for a 
specific role. 

 
Key Interview Questions, Prep, and Solutions 
I have divided this broadly into two categories: behavioral and technical. I've 
further divided the technical portion into several sub-categories (e.g., 
algorithms, probability, and more). 

One general recommendation I've been given is to review the entirety of 
chapter five of the MIT Press “Deep Learning” book, which focuses on 
machine learning basics. You can access it for free h
​ ere​.  

Below, I've done my best to pull together tactical examples, proofs, and 
resources that you can directly apply toward verified questions in machine 
learning interviews. 

Behavioral 

These questions are used to evaluate an applicant’s qualitative skills and fit, 
including past work situations and scenarios, as well as teamwork skills. 

Past work 

Can you tell me about an AI / machine learning project that you have done in 
the past? 

Intent: The intent of the question is to understand your depth of knowledge 

and contributions from past experiences. It tests your ability to tell a story 
around your work and whether you can tie it to impact on the company you 
worked with.  

42 
  

How to answer the question:  

■ Try to describe a project that demonstrates both product and engineering 

experience. For example, if you identified a machine learning model that 
could solve a business problem, you should explain how these topics 
furthered company growth. 

■ Go into detail about your specific contribution and the outcome from a 
business goal perspective. The interviewer wants to know what you 
specifically did while trying to understand the overall goal of the project.  

■ Rehearse your experiences many times. This is a very common question, 

so have two or three go-​to projects about which you can get into significant 
detail.  

What have you liked or disliked about your previous position? 

Intent: The intent of the question is to identify whether the role you’re 
interviewing for is suitable for you, and to identify why you’re moving on from 
a previous position.  

How to answer the question:  

■ Understand the role well. If possible, before the interview, use your HR 
contact to get as much information as possible about the role and its 
challenges. The HR person can be a treasure trove of information about the 
role, team, history, and key immediate business goals.  

■ Avoid talking about issues you had with specific people, and be 
professional when talking about what you disliked. Introspect carefully and 
talk to what makes you passionate. For example, discuss solving a machine 
learning problem in an actionable way as something you enjoy. You could 

43 
  

also talk about learning new technologies that make machine learning 
applicable across an organization. You might dislike how the organization is 
not placing AI/ML at the center of its strategy or that the company has had 
significant attrition at the management level and the direction of the team is 
unclear. Keep it positive and away from personal situations.  

● Bad: “I didn't like that management didn’t have a clue what the company 
direction was!”  

● Good: “I realized I wanted to work in a company where AI and ML is part 

of its core strategy and where the company has a clear direction.” 

Situational

Tell me about a time when you had to convince others to take your position 
on a specific matter. ​What was the outcome? 

Intent: The intent is to find out how good are you at defending your position 
and your ability to make change within a team.  

How to answer the question: T ​ ry to find an example where you were 

successful at making the change and then discuss how the change was 
quantifiable in its impact. If possible, use a machine learning or AI example. 
It’s important that you demonstrate your communication and leadership 
skills here.  

I often use ​a framework to describe situations and outcomes​ that has its 
origins at prestigious business consulting firm McKinsey: 

The Situation-Complication-Resolution framework  

44 
  

● Situation - the framing of the important, recent context the audience 

already knows and accepts as fact. 
● Complication - the reason the situation requires action. 
● Resolution - the action required to solve a problem (or capture an 
opportunity). 

Bottom line is, you want to describe a situation that was happening as 
normal, a trigger event or complication that messed things up, and then how 
you pushed the team to come to resolution. This will show that you don't 
simply react instinctually, but that you think about how to solve problems. 

Note: this is as general framework that you can use for many situational 
questions. 

General Project Workflow for ML projects 

This is one of the most helpful frameworks​ that I've seen on how to 
approach an ML project in general. Here it is: 

● Specify the business objective. Are we trying to win more customers, 

achieve higher satisfaction, or gain more revenue? 
● Define the problem. What is the specific gap in your ideal world and the 
real one that requires machine learning to fill? Ask questions that can 
be addressed using your data and predictive modeling (ML 
algorithms). 
● Create a common-sense baseline. But before you resort to ML, set up 
a baseline to solve the problem as if you know zero data science. You 
may be amazed at how effective this baseline is. It can be as simple as 
recommending the top N popular items or some other rule-based 

45 
  

logic. This baseline can also serve as a good benchmark for ML 
algorithms. 
● Review ML literature. To avoid reinventing the wheel and get inspired 
on what techniques / algorithms are good at addressing the questions 
using our data. 
● Set up a single-number metric. What does it mean to be successful 
(high accuracy, lower error, or bigger AUC?) and how do you measure 
it? The metric has to align with high-level goals. Set up a single-number 
against which all models are measured. 
● Do exploratory data analysis. Play with the data to get a general idea of 
data types, distribution, variable correlation, facets, etc. This step 
would involve a lot of plotting. 
● Partition data. The validation set should be large enough to detect 
differences between the models you’re training; the test set should be 
large enough to indicate the overall performance of the final model; for 
the training set, needless to say, the larger the merrier. 
● Preprocess. This would include data integration, cleaning, 
transformation, reduction, discretization, and more. 
● Engineer features. Coming up with features is difficult, 
time-consuming, and requires expert knowledge. Applied machine 
learning is basically feature engineering. This step usually involves 
feature selection and creation, using domain knowledge. It can be 
minimal for deep learning projects. 
● Develop models. Choose which algorithm to use, what 
hyperparameters to tune, which architecture to use, etc. 
● Ensemble. Ensemble methods can usually boost performance, 
depending on the correlations of the models/features. So it’s always a 
good idea to try out. But be open-minded about making 
tradeoffs—some ensemble methods are too complex/slow to put into 
production. 

46 
  

● Deploy models. Deploy models into production for inference. 

● Monitor models. Monitor model performance and collect feedback. 
● Iterate. Iterate the previous steps. Data science tends to be an iterative 
process, with new and improved models being developed over time. 

Technical Questions for Machine Learning Interviews 

There’s a plethora of technical questions that you can encounter in a 

machine learning interview and they could vary greatly based on the role and 
the company. Your interview could include algorithms and theory, 
mathematics and probability, your programming skills and application of 
theory into code, and ultimately your general understanding of AI and 
machine learning. Because the field is moving so fast, it's critical to stay on 
top of the latest trends. There will also likely be company- or 
industry-specific questions that will challenge you to apply your general 
knowledge into actionable insights for the business. 

47 
  

Note: I directly quote verbatim questions and solutions from many sources 
and have done my best to give attribution and links everywhere that I can. I 
exclude quotations to keep it streamlined. This is a compilation of the 
excellent work of others, and I've gathered the best and most concise 
solutions possible. 

These include many parts of S ​ pringboard's machine learning questions list 

by Roger Huang​, as well as these key sites:  

Data Science Q & A 

Cracking The Machine Learning Interview​ (this is the longest set of 
questions that I've seen) 

Popular Machine Learning Interview Questions to Assess Candidates 

Other specific sources are listed inline within the sections. 

Mathematical Skills

Linear Algebra 

What are scalars, vectors, matrices, and tensors? 

More reading and solutions from ​Quantstart 

The two primary mathematical entities that are of interest in linear algebra 
are the vector and the matrix. They are examples of a more general entity 
known as a tensor. Tensors possess an order (or rank), which determines 
the number of dimensions in an array required to represent it. Scalars are 

48 
  

single numbers and are an example of a 0th-order tensor. Vectors are 

ordered arrays of single numbers and are an example of 1st-order tensor. 
Vectors are members of objects known as vector spaces. Matrices are 
rectangular arrays consisting of numbers and are an example of 2nd-order 
tensors. 

What is Hadamard product of two matrices? 

More reading and solution from ​Medium 

Hadamard product of two vectors is very similar to m

​ atrix addition​; elements 
corresponding to the same row and columns of given vectors/matrices are 
multiplied together to form a new vector/matrix.  

Hadamard product of vector g, h, and m 

The order of matrices/vectors to be multiplied should be the same and the 

resulting matrix will also be of the same order. 

Hadamard product of Matrix G and Matrix H (both of order 2x3), gives 

another Matrix N 

49 
  

Matrix N is of the same order as input matrices (2x3) 

Hadamard product is used in image compression techniques such as JPEG.  

What is broadcasting in connection to linear algebra? 

Solution from M
​ achine Learning Mastery 

Broadcasting is the name given to the method that NumPy uses to allow 
array arithmetic between arrays with a different shape or size. 

Although the technique was developed for N

​ umPy​, it has also been adopted 
more broadly in other numerical computational libraries, such as ​Theano​, 
TensorFlow​, and O
​ ctave​. 

Broadcasting solves the problem of arithmetic between arrays of different 

shapes by, in effect, replicating the smaller array along the last mismatched 
dimension. 

The term broadcasting describes how numpy treats arrays with different 
shapes during arithmetic operations. Subject to certain constraints, the 
smaller array is “broadcast” across the larger array so that they have 
compatible shapes. 

— ​Broadcasting​, SciPy.org 

50 
  

NumPy does not actually duplicate the smaller array; instead, it makes 
memory and computationally efficient use of existing structures in memory 
that in effect achieve the same result. 

The concept has also permeated ​linear algebra​ notation to simplify the 
explanation of simple operations. 

In the context of deep learning, we also use some less conventional notation. 
We allow the addition of matrix and a vector, yielding another matrix: C = A + 
b, where Ci,j = Ai,j + bj. In other words, the vector b is added to each row of 
the matrix. This shorthand eliminates the need to define a matrix with b 
copied into each row before doing the addition. This implicit copying of b to 
many locations is called broadcasting. 

— Page 34, ​Deep Learning​, 2016. 

A quick ​toolbox and reference for linear algebra 

More on ​linear algebra for machine learning​ (includes resources and 

refreshers) 

More on ​Hadamard product 

Linear and Logistic Regression 

More on ​linear regression​ and ​logistic regression 

What is linear regression and logistic regression? 

51 
  

Linear and logistic regression are commonly used for ML algorithms. You 
can expect at least one of these questions in an interview. 

A linear regression models the relationship between the dependent variable 

Y and the independent variable X. 

A logistic regression models a binary dependent variable. 

Analyze a data set and give a model that can predict this response variable. 

Example from ​Vimarsh Karbhari 

Source: Wikipedia 

52 
  

The cost of one pen is x$. The cost of ten pens is 10x$ . This is the most 
classic layman’s form of linear regression. The simplest form of the 
regression equation with one dependent and one independent variable is 
defined by the formula y = c + b*x, where y = estimated dependent variable 
score, c = constant, b = regression coefficient, and x = score on the 
independent variable. In our pen example, c=0, y is the cost of pens and x is 
the number of pens. If we know the unit cost of one pen b we can calculate 
the cost of any number of pens. A complex form of linear regression is used 
in housing price predictions. 

For any scenario-based problem in an interview, it is an easy mistake to start 

with a complex ML algorithm. Most interviewees make the mistake of 
starting with something that the problem resembles. They may start with 
neural networks or SVMs. ALWAYS start with linear/logistic regression if 
possible. This helps you level set on the most basic benchmark performance 
for the solution. Approach that question like a p
​ rogramming interview​ where 
you start with a benchmark and you proceed to a more optimized solution. 

Source: L
​ ogistic regression 

53 
  

Linear regression is used for continuous targets while logistic regression is 
used for binary targets as sigmoid curve in the logistic model forces the 
features to either a 0 or 1. 

Support Vector Machine 

Logistic regression vs. SVMs: When to use which one? 

Solution from T
​ owards Data Science 

 
SVM tries to maximize the margin between the closest support vectors while 
LR the posterior class probability. Thus, SVM finds a solution which is as fair 
as possible for the two categories while LR does not have this property. 

Try logistic regression first, because it is simpler. If logistic regression fails 

and you have reason to believe your data won’t be linearly separable, try an 
SVM with a non-linear kernel like a Radial Basis Function (RBF). 

54 
  

More on ​support vector machines vs. logistic regression 

How can the SVM optimization function be derived from the logistic 
regression optimization function?  

 
This one is a bit too long to include in its entirety here, so check out ​this 
resource​, particularly slides 5 and 10.  
 
More on ​Demystifying the math of support vector machines 

55 
  

What is a large margin classifier? 

Solution from ​Quora 

● SVM is a type of classifier which classifies positive and negative 

examples, here blue and red data points. 
● As shown in the image, the largest margin is found in order to avoid 
overfitting. That is, the optimal hyperplane is at the maximum distance 
from the positive and negative examples (equally distant from the 
boundary lines). 

56 
  

● To satisfy this constraint, and also to classify the data points 

accurately, the margin is maximized, that is why this is called the large 
margin classifier. 

Numerical Optimization 

According to J
​ ason Brownlee​, the core of machine learning models are an 
optimization problem. Each is really a "search" for terms with unknown 
values needed to fill an equation.  

Ordinary Least Square and Maximum Likelihood 

A solution from Zarantech​ describes both the ordinary least square and 
maximum likelihood methods to reaching these values. 

OLS is to linear regression. Maximum likelihood is to logistic regression. 

Explain the statement. 

Answer: OLS and maximum likelihood are the methods used by the 
respective regression methods to approximate the unknown parameter 
(coefficient) value. In simple words, ordinary least square is a method used 
in linear regression which approximates the parameters resulting in 
minimum distance between actual and predicted values. Maximum 
likelihood helps in choosing the values of parameters which maximizes the 
likelihood that the parameters are most likely to produce observed data. 

Maximum likelihood 

More on ​optimization 

More on ​considering numerical problems as a search 

57 
  

What is underflow and overflow? 

From ​Quora​ (Richard Urwin) 

Overflow is when the absolute value of the number is too high for the 
computer to represent it. Underflow is when the absolute value of the 
number is too close to zero for the computer to represent it. 

You can get overflow with both integers and floating point numbers. You can 
only get underflow with floating point numbers. 

To get an overflow, repeatedly multiply a number by ten. To get an 

underflow, repeatedly divide it by ten. 

If the variable x is a signed byte it can have values in the range -128 to +127, 
then 

1. x = 127 
2. x = x + 1 

will result in an overflow. +128 is not a valid value for x. 

For floating point numbers, the range depends on their representation. If x is 
a single precision (32-bit IEEE) number, then 

1. x = 1e-38 
2. x = x / 1000 

will result in an underflow. 1e-42 is not a valid value for x. 

Statistics & Probability

What is Bayes’ Theorem? How is it useful in a machine learning context? 

58 
  

More reading: ​An Intuitive (and Short) Explanation of Bayes’ Theorem 

(BetterExplained) 

Bayes’ Theorem gives you the posterior probability of an event given what is 
known as prior knowledge. 

Mathematically, it’s expressed as the true positive rate of a condition sample 

divided by the sum of the false positive rate of the population and the true 
positive rate of a condition. Say you had a 60% chance of actually having the 
flu after a flu test, but out of people who had the flu, the test will be false 50% 
of the time, and the overall population only has a 5% chance of having the 
flu. Would you actually have a 60% chance of having the flu after having a 
positive test? 

Bayes’ Theorem says no. It says that you have a (.6 * 0.05) (True Positive 
Rate of a Condition Sample) / (.6*0.05) (True Positive Rate of a Condition 
Sample) + (.5*0.95) (False Positive Rate of a Population) = 0.0594 or 5.94% 
chance of getting the flu. 

Bayes’ Theorem is the basis behind a branch of machine learning that most 
notably includes the Naive Bayes classifier. That’s important to consider 
when you’re faced with machine learning interview questions. 

What is the difference between Type I error and Type II error?  

More reading: ​Type I and type II errors (Wikipedia) 

Type I error is what is referred to as a “false positive,” or the incorrect 

rejection of the null hypothesis. Type II error is what is referred to as a “false 
negative,” or the incorrect acceptance of the null hypothesis. So, effectively: 
Type I error means claiming something has happened when it hasn’t, while 

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Type II error means that you claim nothing is happening when in fact 
something is. 

You may want to communicate your grasp of the concepts with an example 
and how it might be relevant to the business at hand. Type I error, or a false 
positive, would be telling a man he was pregnant, while Type II error would 
be telling a pregnant woman she wasn’t.  

If you were running a fraud detection business, you might have a very high 
tolerance for false positives (a client will not fuss about an email on the 
potential of fraud), but a false negative (not detecting fraud when it is 
happening) could be disastrous. 

Confidence Intervals 

What are the population mean and the sample mean? 

Solution from K
​ ey Differences 

The sample mean is an average of a random sample derived of the 

population. Population mean is the average of an entire group. 

The sample mean is calculated as under: 

 
n
S ample M ean x = 1
n
∑ = 1ai  
i

where, n = Size of sample 

∑ = Add up 

ai = All the observations 

60 
  

population mean can be calculated as: 

N
P opulation M ean μ = 1
N
∑ = 1ai  
i

where N = Size of the population 

∑ = Add up 

ai = All the observations 

What is population standard deviation and sample standard deviation? 

Solution from ​Khan Academy 

Standard deviation measures the spread of a data distribution. It measures 

the typical distance between each data point and the mean. 

The formula we use for standard deviation depends on whether the data is 
being considered a population of its own, or the data is a sample 
representing a larger population. 

● If the data is being considered a population on its own, we divide by 

the number of data points, N 
● If the data is a sample from a larger population, we divide by one fewer 
than the number of data points in the sample, n-1 

Population standard deviation: 

σ = N ∑(xi−μ)2  

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​Sample standard deviation: 

sx = n−1∑(xi−xˉ)2  

The steps in each formula are all the same except for one—we divide by one 
less than the number of data points when dealing with sample data. 

For step-by-step solutions, read the rest of the article h

​ ere​. 

Probability Distribution Type of Variables 

What is a probability distribution? 

Answer from T
​ owards Data Science 

Probability distributions provide the likelihood for all possible values of a 

given process. It describes how likely it is that a single observation of a 
random variable is equal to a particular value or range of values. In other 
words, for any given random process there is both a range of values that are 
possible and a likelihood that a single draw from the random process will 
take on one of those values.  

Check out this in-depth article on probability distributions ​here​. 

What is a probability mass function? 

Solution from ​StatisticsHowTo 

A probability mass function (PMF)— also called a frequency function— gives 

you probabilities for ​discrete random variables​. “Random variables” are 

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variables from experiments like dice rolls, choosing a number out of a hat, or 
getting a high score on a test. The “discrete” part means that there’s a set 
number of outcomes. For example, you can only roll a 1,2,3,4,5, or 6 on a die. 

A PMF equation looks like this: 

P(X = x) 

That just means “the probability that X takes on some value x.” 

It’s not a very useful equation on its own; what’s more useful is an equation 
that tells you the probability of some individual event happening. For 
example: 

P(X=1) = 0.2 * 0.2. 

How you come up with these equations depends mostly on what type of 
event you have. For example, the ​binomial distribution​ PMF is: 

And the P
​ oisson distribution​ PMF is: 

63 
  

Full solution and explanation h

​ ere​. 

What is a probability density function? 

Solution from ​Penn State​; more reading from ​Wikipedia 

The probability density function is used to specify the probability of the 

random variable​ falling within a particular range of values, as opposed to 
taking on any one value.  

To find the probability that X falls in an interval (a, b) you need to find P(a < X 
< b). 

Continuous random variable X with support S is an integrable function f(x) 

satisfying the following: 

(1) f(x) is positive everywhere in the support S, that is, f(x) > 0, for all x in S 

(2) The area under the curve f(x) in the support S is 1, that is: 

∫Sf (x)dx = 1  

64 
  

(3) If f(x) is the p.d.f. of x, then the probability that x belongs to A, where A is 
some interval, is given by the integral of f(x) over that interval, that is: 

P (X∈A) = ∫Af (x)dx  

Full example and solution h

​ ere​. 

Autoencoders

What is an autoencoder? What does it “auto-encode”? 

Solution from ​Towards Data Science 

Autoencoders (AE) are neural networks that aim to copy their inputs to their 
outputs. They work by compressing the input into a latent-space 
representation, and then reconstructing the output from this representation.  

Autoencoders are learned automatically from data examples. It means that 

it is easy to train specialized instances of the algorithm that will perform well 
on a specific type of input and that it does not require any new engineering, 
only the appropriate training data. 

This kind of network is composed of two parts: 

1. Encoder: This is the part of the network that compresses the input into 
a latent-space representation. It can be represented by an encoding 
function h=f(x). 
2. Decoder: This part aims to reconstruct the input from the latent space 
representation. It can be represented by a decoding function r=g(h). 

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Architecture of an autoencoder 

The autoencoder as a whole can thus be described by the function g(f(x)) = r 

where you want r as close as the original input x. 

More reading on ​Autoencoders​. 

Programming Skills

Pick an algorithm and write the pseudocode for a parallel implementation. 

More reading: ​Writing pseudo-code for parallel programming (Stack Overflow) 

 
This kind of question demonstrates your ability to think in parallelism and 
how you could handle concurrency in programming implementations dealing 
with big data. Take a look at pseudo-code frameworks such as P ​ eril-L​ and 
visualization tools such as W
​ eb Sequence Diagrams​ to help you 
demonstrate your ability to write code that reflects parallelism. 

What are some differences between a linked list and an array? 

More reading: ​Array versus linked list (Stack Overflow) 

66 
  

An array is an ordered collection of objects. A linked list is a series of objects 

with pointers that direct how to process them sequentially. An array 
assumes that every element has the same size, unlike the linked list. A linked 
list can more easily grow organically: an array has to be pre-defined or 
redefined for organic growth. Shuffling a linked list involves changing which 
points direct where — meanwhile, shuffling an array is more complex and 
takes more memory. 

Describe a hash table. 

More reading: ​Hash table (Wikipedia) 

 
A hash table is a data structure that produces an associative array. A key is 
mapped to certain values through the use of a hash function. They are often 
used for tasks such as database indexing. 

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SQL 

Although you don't have to be a SQL expert for most machine learning 
positions—it is more common for a data scientist role—definitely some 
SQL-related questions could come up.  

Here's a good and quick refresher on ​the different types of joins​: 

● (INNER) JOIN: Return records that have matching values in both tables 
● LEFT (OUTER) JOIN: Return all records from the left table, and the 
matched records from the right table 
● RIGHT (OUTER) JOIN: Return all records from the right table, and the 
matched records from the left table 
● FULL (OUTER) JOIN: Return all records when there is a match in either 
left or right table 

Other SQL resources to do a refresher: 

1. W3schools SQL 
2. SQLZOO 

How would you implement a recommendation system for our company’s 

users? 

More reading: ​How to Implement A Recommendation System? (Stack Overflow) 

68 
  

A lot of machine learning interview questions of this type will involve 

implementation of machine learning models to a company’s problems. You’ll 
have to research the company and its industry in-depth, especially the 
revenue drivers the company has, and the types of users the company takes 
on in the context of the industry it’s in. 

Algorithms and Learning Theory

What’s the trade-off between bias and variance? 

More reading: ​Bias-Variance Tradeoff (Wikipedia) 

Bias is error due to erroneous or overly simplistic assumptions in the 

learning algorithm you’re using. This can lead to the model underfitting your 
data, making it hard for it to have high predictive accuracy and for you to 
generalize your knowledge from the training set to the test set. 

 
Variance is error due to too much complexity in the learning algorithm you’re 
using. This leads to the algorithm being highly sensitive to high degrees of 
variation in your training data, which can lead your model to overfit the data. 
You’ll be carrying too much noise from your training data for your model to 
be very useful for your test data. 
 

The bias-variance decomposition essentially decomposes the learning error 

from any algorithm by adding the bias, variance, and a bit of irreducible error 
due to noise in the underlying data set. Essentially, if you make the model 
more complex and add more variables, you’ll lose bias but gain some 
variance—in order to get the optimally reduced amount of error, you’ll have to 
trade off bias and variance. You don’t want high bias or high variance in your 
model. 

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What is the difference between supervised and unsupervised machine 

learning? 

More reading: ​What is the difference between supervised and unsupervised machine 
learning? (Quora) 

Supervised learning requires labeled training data. For example, in order to 
do classification (a supervised learning task), you’ll need to first label the 
data you’ll use to train the model to classify data into your labeled groups. 
Unsupervised learning, in contrast, does not require labeling data explicitly. 

How is KNN different from k-means clustering? 

More reading: ​How is the k-nearest neighbor algorithm different from k-means clustering? 
(Quora) 

K-nearest neighbors is a supervised classification algorithm, while k-means 

clustering is an unsupervised clustering algorithm. While the mechanisms 
may seem similar at first, what this really means is that in order for k-nearest 
neighbors to work, you need labeled data you want to classify an unlabeled 
point into (thus the nearest neighbor part). K-means clustering requires only 
a set of unlabeled points and a threshold: the algorithm will take unlabeled 
points and gradually learn how to cluster them into groups by computing the 
mean of the distance between different points. 

The critical difference here is that KNN needs labeled points and is thus 
supervised learning, while k-means doesn’t and is thus unsupervised 
learning. 

What’s your favorite algorithm, and can you explain it to me in less than a 
minute? 

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This type of question tests your understanding of how to communicate 

complex and technical nuances with poise and your ability to summarize 
quickly and efficiently. Make sure you have an answer and can explain 
different algorithms so simply and effectively that a five-year-old could grasp 
the basics! 

What’s a Fourier transform? 

More reading: ​Fourier transform (Wikipedia) 

A Fourier transform is a generic method to decompose generic functions 

into a superposition of symmetric functions. Or as this m ​ ore intuitive tutorial 
puts it, given a smoothie, it’s how we find the recipe. The Fourier transform 
finds the set of cycle speeds, amplitudes, and phases to match any time 
signal. A Fourier transform converts a signal from time to frequency 
domain—it’s a very common way to extract features from audio signals or 
other time series such as sensor data. 

Data Sets and Big Data

What cross-validation technique would you use on a time series data set? 

More reading: ​Using k-fold cross-validation for time-series model selection 

(CrossValidated) 

 
Instead of using standard k-folds cross-validation, you have to pay attention 
to the fact that a time series is not randomly distributed data—it is inherently 
ordered by chronological order. If a pattern emerges in later time periods, 
your model may still pick up on it even if that effect doesn’t hold in earlier 
years! 
 

71 
  

You’ll want to do something like forward chaining, where you’ll be able to 
model on past data then look at forward-facing data. 
 

fold 1 : training [1], test [2] 

fold 2 : training [1 2], test [3] 

fold 3 : training [1 2 3], test [4] 

fold 4 : training [1 2 3 4], test [5] 

fold 5 : training [1 2 3 4 5], test [6] 

How is a decision tree pruned? 

More reading: ​Pruning (decision trees) 

 
Pruning is what happens in decision trees when branches that have weak 
predictive power are removed in order to reduce the complexity of the model 
and increase the predictive accuracy of a decision tree model. Pruning can 
happen bottom-up and top-down, with approaches such as reduced error 
pruning and cost complexity pruning. 
 

Reduced error pruning is perhaps the simplest version: replace each node. If 
it doesn’t decrease predictive accuracy, keep it pruned. While simple, this 
heuristic actually comes pretty close to an approach that would optimize for 
maximum accuracy. 

72 
  

How do you handle missing or corrupted data in a data set? 

More reading: ​Handling missing data (O’Reilly) 

 
You could find missing/corrupted data in a data set and either drop those 
rows or columns, or decide to replace them with another value. 

 
In Pandas, there are two very useful methods that will help you find columns 
of data with missing or corrupted data and drop those values: isnull() and 
dropna(). If you want to fill the invalid values with a placeholder value (for 
example, 0), you could use the fillna() method. 

How would you handle an imbalanced data set? 

More reading: ​8 Tactics to Combat Imbalanced Classes in Your Machine Learning data 
set (Machine Learning Mastery) 
 

An imbalanced data set is when you have, for example, a classification test 
and 90% of the data is in one class. That leads to problems: an accuracy of 
90% can be skewed if you have no predictive power on the other category of 
data! Here are a few tactics to get over the hump: 

 
1- Collect more data to even the imbalances in the data set. 

2- Resample the data set to correct for imbalances. 

3- Try a different algorithm altogether on your data set. 

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What’s important here is that you have a keen sense for what damage an 
unbalanced data set can cause, and how to balance that. 

Do you have experience with Spark or big data tools for machine learning? 

More reading: ​50 Top Open Source Tools for Big Data (Datamation) 

 
You’ll want to get familiar with the meaning of big data for different 
companies and the different tools they’ll want. Spark is the big data tool 
most in demand now, able to handle immense data sets with speed. Be 
honest if you don’t have experience with the tools demanded, but also take a 
look at job descriptions and see what tools pop up: you’ll want to invest in 
familiarizing yourself with them. 

Model and Feature Selection

What’s the difference between a generative and discriminative model? 

More reading: ​What is the difference between a generative and discriminative algorithm? 
(Stack Overflow) 

 
A generative model will learn categories of data while a discriminative model 
will simply learn the distinction between different categories of data. 
Discriminative models will generally outperform generative models on 
classification tasks. 

Which is more important to you: model accuracy or model performance? 

More reading: ​Accuracy paradox (Wikipedia) 

74 
  

This question tests your grasp of the nuances of machine learning model 
performance! Machine learning interview questions often look toward the 
details. There are models with higher accuracy that can perform worse in 
predictive power— how does that make sense? 

Well, it has everything to do with how model accuracy is only a subset of 
model performance, and at that, a sometimes misleading one. For example, 
if you wanted to detect fraud in a massive data set with a sample of millions, 
a more accurate model would most likely predict no fraud at all if only a vast 
minority of cases were fraud. However, this would be useless for a predictive 
model—a model designed to find fraud that asserted there was no fraud at 
all! Questions like this help you demonstrate that you understand model 
accuracy isn’t the be-all and end-all of model performance. 

What’s the F1 score? How would you use it? 

More reading: ​F1 score (Wikipedia) 

 
The F1 score is a measure of a model’s performance. It is a weighted 
average of the precision and recall of a model, with results tending to 1 being 
the best, and those tending to 0 being the worst. You would use it in 
classification tests where true negatives don’t matter much. 

When should you use classification over regression? 

More reading: ​Regression vs Classification (Math StackExchange) 

75 
  

Classification produces discrete values and data set to strict categories, 

while regression gives you continuous results that allow you to better 
distinguish differences between individual points. You would use 
classification over regression if you wanted your results to reflect the 
belongingness of data points in your data set to certain explicit categories 
(e.g., if you wanted to know whether a name was male or female rather than 
just how correlated they were with male and female names). 

Name an example where ensemble techniques might be useful. 

More reading: ​Ensemble learning (Wikipedia) 

 
Ensemble techniques use a combination of learning algorithms to optimize 
better predictive performance. They typically reduce overfitting in models 
and make the model more robust (unlikely to be influenced by small changes 
in the training data).  

 
You could list some examples of ensemble methods, from bagging to 
boosting to a “bucket of models” method and demonstrate how they could 
increase predictive power. 

How do you ensure you’re not overfitting with a model? 

More reading: ​How can I avoid overfitting? (Quora) 

 
This is a simple restatement of a fundamental problem in machine learning: 

76 
  

the possibility of overfitting the training data and carrying the noise of that 
data through to the test set, thereby providing inaccurate generalizations. 

There are three main methods to avoid overfitting: 

1. Keep the model simple: reduce variance by taking into account fewer 
variables and parameters, thereby removing some of the noise in the 
training data. 
2. Use cross-validation techniques such as k-folds cross-validation. 
3. Use regularization techniques such as LASSO that penalize certain 
model parameters if they’re likely to cause overfitting. 

What evaluation approaches would you work to gauge the effectiveness of a 

machine learning model? 

More reading: ​How to Evaluate Machine Learning Algorithms (Machine Learning Mastery) 

 
You would first split the data set into training and test sets, or perhaps use 
cross-validation techniques to further segment the data set into composite 
sets of training and test sets within the data. You should then implement a 
choice selection of performance metrics—here is a fairly ​comprehensive list​. 
You could use measures such as the F1 score, accuracy, and the confusion 
matrix. What’s important here is to demonstrate that you understand the 
nuances of how a model is measured and how to choose the right 
performance measures for the right situations. 

How would you evaluate a logistic regression model? 

More reading: ​Evaluating a logistic regression (CrossValidated)​, ​Logistic Regression in 

Plain English 

77 
  

A subsection of the question above. You have to demonstrate an 

understanding of what the typical goals of a logistic regression are 
(classification, prediction, etc.) and bring up a few examples and use cases. 

Deep Learning

What is deep learning, and how does it contrast with other machine learning 
algorithms? 

More reading: ​Deep learning (Wikipedia) 

Deep learning is a subset of machine learning that is concerned with neural 

networks: how to use backpropagation and certain principles from 
neuroscience to more accurately model large sets of unlabeled or 
semi-structured data. In that sense, deep learning represents an 
unsupervised learning algorithm that learns representations of data through 
the use of neural nets. 

Why does deep learning matter? Why is it useful? 

Solution from: ​Forbes 

Deep learning networks avoid the drawback of machine learning because 

they excel at unsupervised learning. The key difference between supervised 
and unsupervised learning is that data are not labeled in unsupervised 
learning. For example, if you were building an image recognition network, 
even though the pictures of cats don't come with the label "cat," deep 
learning networks could still learn to identify the cats.  

You can imagine that the ability to learn from unlabeled or unstructured data 
is an enormous benefit for applications in the real world. It allows you to 

78 
  

create systems that can learn from a chaotic and spontaneous world, with 
many different inputs. 

More reading on ​deep learning​. 

What kinds of architectures are there? 

Solution from D
​ eep Learning 

Most deep learning methods use n ​ eural network​ architectures, which is why 
deep learning models are often referred to as deep neural networks. 

One of the most popular types of deep neural networks is known as 
convolutional neural networks​ (CNN or ConvNet). A CNN involves learned 
features with input data, and uses 2D convolutional layers, making this 
architecture well suited to processing 2D data, such as images. 

CNNs eliminate the need for manual f​ eature extraction​, so you do not need 
to identify features used to classify images. The CNN works by extracting 
features directly from images. The relevant features are not pretrained; they 
are learned while the network trains on a collection of images. This 
automated feature extraction makes deep learning models highly accurate 
for computer vision tasks such as object classification. 

Other networks include: 

● Unsupervised Pretrained Networks (UPNs) 

● Recurrent Neural Networks 
● Recursive Neural Networks 

More on ​deep learning architectures​; more on n

​ eural networks​. 

79 
  

How would you develop an image recognition network? 

There is a great full solution for this h

​ ere​. 

At a high level, it looks like: 

● Collecting the data set 

● Importing libraries and splitting the data set 
● Building the CNN 
● Full connection 
● Data augmentation 
● Training our network 
● Testing 

But it's best that you take a look at the solution. 

How would you develop a time series network? 

I found another long, incredibly comprehensive solution here for this on 
Machine Learning Mastery​. 

It goes through: 

● How to develop CNN models for univariate time series forecasting. 

● How to develop CNN models for multivariate time series forecasting. 
● How to develop CNN models for multi-step time series forecasting. 

The same author also wrote a great guide on ​building a time series model 
more generally. 

Regularization

Explain the difference between L1 and L2 regularization. 

80 
  

More reading: ​What is the difference between L1 and L2 regularization? (Quora) 

 
L2 regularization tends to spread error among all the terms, while L1 is more 
binary/sparse, with many variables either being assigned a 1 or a 0 in 
weighting. L1 corresponds to setting a Laplacean prior on the terms, while 
L2 corresponds to a Gaussian prior. 

What is dropout? 
From ​Machine Learning Mastery 

​
Dropout is a r​ egularization​ technique patented by Google​ for reducing 
overfitting in neural networks by preventing complex co-adaptations on 
training data. 

A single model can be used to simulate having a large number of different 

network architectures by randomly dropping out nodes during training. It 
very computationally cheap and is a remarkably effective regularization 
method to r​ educe overfitting and improve generalization error​ in deep neural 
networks of all kinds. 

Clustering

What is distortion function? Is it convex or not-convex? 

Solution from ​Towards Data Science 

The k-means clustering distortion function measures how well the data fits a 
cluster and is computed as a simple sum of squared distances: 

81 
  

Single cluster distortion 

For a given cluster j, we add the squared distances from all the cluster points 
x to the cluster center w. The total distortion is just the sum of all distortions 
for a given value of K: 

Total distortion for K 

The scree plot shows how the total distortion changes as we increase K. At 
the limit, when K equals the number of samples in the data set, when every 
point in the data set corresponds to its own cluster, the total distortion is 
zero. 

This function is not-convex. 

More reading h
​ ere​; more on convex vs not-convex and proof ​here​. 

Describe the EM algorithm 

82 
  

From ​Data Science Central 

The ​EM algorithm​ finds maximum-likelihood estimates for model 

parameters​ ​when you have incomplete data. The "E-Step" finds probabilities 
for the assignment of data points, based on a set of hypothesized probability 
density functions; The "M-Step" updates the original hypothesis with new 
data. The cycle repeats until the parameters stabilize. 

More reading h
​ ere​. 

Natural Language Processing (NLP)

What is WORD2VEC? 

Solution from S
​ kymind.ai 

  

WORD2VEC is a two-layer neural net that processes text. Its input is a text 
corpus and its output is a set of vectors: feature vectors for words in that 
corpus. While Word2vec is not a ​deep neural network​, it turns text into a 
numerical form that deep nets can understand. D ​ eeplearning4j​ implements 
a distributed form of Word2vec for Java and Scala, which works on Spark 
with GPUs. 

Word2vec’s applications extend beyond parsing sentences in the wild. It can 

be applied just as well to g
​ enes, code, likes, playlists, social media graphs, 
and other verbal or symbolic series​ in which patterns may be discerned. 

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More fantastic reading and in-depth on WORD2VEC h

​ ere​. 

What is t-SNE? Why would you use PCA instead of t-SNE? 

Solution from D
​ ataCamp 

t-Distributed Stochastic Neighbor Embedding (t-SNE) is a non-linear 

technique for dimensionality reduction that is particularly well suited for the 
visualization of high-dimensional data sets. It is extensively applied in image 
processing, NLP, genomic data, and speech processing. 

How it works: 

● The algorithm starts by calculating the probability of similarity of 

points in high-dimensional space and calculating the probability of 
similarity of points in the corresponding low-dimensional space. The 
similarity of points is calculated as the conditional probability that a 
point A would choose point B as its neighbor if neighbors were picked 
in proportion to their probability density under a Gaussian (normal 
distribution) centered at A. 
● It then tries to minimize the difference between these conditional 
probabilities (or similarities) in higher-dimensional and 
lower-dimensional space for a perfect representation of data points in 
lower-dimensional space. 
● To measure the minimization of the sum of difference of conditional 
probability, t-SNE minimizes the sum of ​Kullback-Leibler divergence​ of 
overall data points using a gradient descent method. 

More reading h
​ ere​. 

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Loss Optimization

Name some typical loss functions used for regression. Compare and 
contrast. 

Solution from ​Heartbeat of Fritz.ai 

Mean square error, quadratic loss, L2 loss 

Mean square error (MSE)​ is the most commonly used regression loss 
function. MSE is the sum of squared distances between our target variable 
and predicted values. 

Mean absolute error, L1 loss 

Mean absolute error​ (MAE) is another loss function used for regression 
models. MAE is the sum of absolute differences between our target and 
predicted variables. It measures the average magnitude of errors in a set of 
predictions, without considering their directions.  

Huber loss, smooth mean absolute error 

Huber loss​ is less sensitive to outliers in data than the squared error loss. It’s 
also differentiable at 0. It’s basically absolute error, which becomes 
quadratic when error is small. How small that error has to be to make it 
quadratic depends on a hyperparameter, 𝛿 (delta), which can be tuned. 
Huber loss approaches MAE when 𝛿 ~ 0 and MSE when 𝛿 ~ ∞ (large 
numbers). 

When to use which? 

One big problem with using MAE for training of neural nets is its constantly 
large gradient, which can lead to missing minima at the end of training using 

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gradient descent. For MSE, gradient decreases as the loss gets close to its 
minima, making it more precise. 

Huber loss can be really helpful in such cases, as it curves around the 
minima which decreases the gradient. And it’s more robust to outliers than 
MSE. Therefore, it combines good properties from both MSE and MAE. 
However, the problem with Huber loss is that we might need to train 
hyperparameter delta, which is an iterative process. 

More reading and full solutions ​here​. 

What is the 0–1 loss function? Why can’t the 0–1 loss function or 
classification error be used as a loss function for optimizing a deep neural 
network? 

From ​Encyclopedia of Machine Learning 

Zero-one loss is a common ​loss​ function used with ​classification learning​. It 
assigns 0 to loss for a correct classification and 1 for an incorrect 
classification. 

The reason it isn't a good fit as a loss function for optimization has to do 
with convexity. It is non-convex and also non-differentiable at 0. Therefore, 
even if you derive a derivative to make the function differentiable, the 
function remains non-convex and difficult to optimize. Convex functions are 
a better choice, such as the hinge loss in conjunction with the SVM model. 

More reading from Quora h

​ ere​. 

Monte Carlo Methods

What are Monte Carlo algorithms? 

Solution from ​Towards Data Science 

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Monte Carlo (MC) methods are a subset of computational algorithms that 

use the process of repeated random sampling to make numerical 
estimations of unknown parameters. The method finds all possible 
outcomes of your decisions and assesses the impact of risk.  

More on the Monte Carlo simulation ​here​; how to estimate Pi using the 
Monte Carlo method ​here​. 

What are deterministic algorithms? 

Solution from ​GeekforGeeks 

In deterministic algorithms, for a given particular input, the computer will 

always produce the same output going through the same states. 
Deterministic algorithms are the most common type of algorithm, and most 
practical, because they can run on computers efficiently. But in the case of 
non-deterministic algorithms, for the same input, the compiler may produce 
different outputs in different runs. In fact, non-deterministic algorithms can’t 
solve the problem in polynomial time and can’t determine what the next step 
is.  

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Representation

What is representation learning? Why is it useful? 

From ​Quora​, citing Yoshua Bengio's o

​ riginal paper 

Representation learning is learning representations of input data typically by 

transforming it, making it easier to perform a task like classification or 
prediction. There are various ways of learning different representations. For 
instance: 

● in the case of probabilistic models, the goal is to learn a representation 

that captures the probability distribution of the underlying explanatory 
features for the observed input. Such a learned representation can 
then be used for prediction. 
● in deep learning, the representations are formed by composition of 
multiple non-linear transformations of the input data with the goal of 
yielding abstract and useful representations for tasks like 
classification, prediction, etc. 

It is useful because models are dependent on the presentations that they 

learn to output. In deep learning, it is useful because representation allows a 
complex block to transform an input into a rich representation, which only 
requires a simple layer to do task specific preparation (in using BERT for 
NLP tasks, for example). The model outputs representations of input that 
can be used for a number of NLP tasks. Further, understanding how different 
representations are good for specific tasks can help practitioners better 
know various deep learning model architectures. 

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What trade-offs does representation learning have to consider? 

Solution from ​Deep Learning Book 

 
Most representation learning problems face a trade-off between preserving 
as much information about the input as possible and attaining nice 
properties (such as independence). 

Dimensionality Reduction

Describe the curse of dimensionality with examples. Why do we need 

dimensionality reduction techniques? 

From ​Towards Data Science 

As the dimensionality of the features space increases, the number of 

configurations can grow exponentially, and thus the number of 
configurations covered by an observation decreases. Basically, the more 
data there is, the more processing power we need, and we also need to have 
more training data in order to have a meaningful model. 

A one-dimensional features space with five data points 

 

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A two-dimensional features space with 25 data points 

 

A three-dimensional features space with 125 data points 

So you can see that if there's a way to reduce dimensionality, you can 
economize. The technique of dimensionality reduction can help to compress 
data without losing too much signal.  

More on dimensionality reduction ​here​. 

Interest and Understanding of ML

What are the last machine learning papers you read? 

More reading: ​What are some of the best research papers/books for machine learning? 
 

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Keeping up with the latest scientific literature on machine learning is a must 

if you want to demonstrate interest in a machine learning position. This 
overview of ​deep learning in Nature​ by the scions of deep learning 
themselves (from Hinton to Bengio to LeCun) is a good example of the kind 
of paper you might want to cite. 

Do you have research experience in machine learning? 

Related to the last point, most organizations hiring for machine learning 
positions will look for your formal experience in the field. Research papers, 
co-authored or supervised by leaders in the field, can make the difference 
between you being hired and not. Make sure you have a summary of your 
research experience and papers ready—and an explanation for your 
background and lack of formal research experience if you don’t. 

What are your favorite use cases of machine learning models? 

More reading: ​What are the typical use cases for different machine learning algorithms? 
(Quora) 

 
The Quora thread above contains some examples, such as decision trees 
that categorize people into different tiers of intelligence based on IQ scores. 
Make sure that you have a few examples in mind and describe what 
resonated with you. It’s important that you demonstrate an interest in how 
machine learning is implemented. 

How do you think Google is training data for self-driving cars? 

More reading: ​Waymo Tech 

 
Machine learning interview questions like this one really test your knowledge 

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of different machine learning methods, and your inventiveness if you don’t 

know the answer. Google is using r​ ecaptcha​ to source labeled data on 
storefronts and traffic signs. They are also building on training data collected 
by Sebastian Thrun at Google X, some of which was obtained by his grad 
students driving buggies on desert dunes! 

How would you simulate the approach AlphaGo took to beat Lee Sidol at Go? 

More reading: ​Mastering the game of Go with deep neural networks and tree search 
(Nature) 

 
AlphaGo beating Lee Sidol, the best human player at Go, in a best-of-five 
series was a seminal event in the history of machine learning and deep 
learning. The paper above describes how this was accomplished with 
“Monte-Carlo tree search with deep neural networks that have been trained 
by supervised learning, from human expert games, and by reinforcement 
learning from games of self-play.” 

Case Studies/Scenarios

These are more specific scenarios that a company could give you that apply 
directly to their business.  

What do you think of our current data process? 

More reading: ​The Data Science Process Email Course (Springboard) 

This kind of question requires you to listen carefully and impart feedback in a 
manner that is constructive and insightful. Your interviewer is trying to gauge 
if you’d be a valuable member of their team and whether you grasp the 
nuances of why certain things are set the way they are in the company’s 

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data process based on company- or industry-specific conditions. They’re 

trying to see if you can be an intellectual peer. Act accordingly. 

How can we use your machine learning skills to generate revenue? 

More reading: ​Startup Metrics for Startups (500 Startups) 

This is a tricky question. The ideal answer would demonstrate knowledge of 
what drives the business and how your skills could relate. For example, if you 
were interviewing for music-streaming company Spotify, you could remark 
that your skills at developing a better recommendation model would 
increase user retention, which would then increase revenue in the long run. 

The startup metrics linked above will help you understand exactly what 
performance indicators are important for startups and tech companies as 
they think about revenue and growth. 

Product Management Skills

Here are key questions and prompts from a great prep document from ​Rafi 
Lurie​. I haven't gone into specific solutions here as they are much more 
open-ended, but check the guide for additional breakdowns on how to think 
about these problems. 

Product design: Design a washing machine for blind people. 

● As a next step, design a laundromat full of those washing machines 

and describe the experience from the moment you walk in until the 
moment you leave. 

Product vision: What product do you feel has a lot of potential but hasn't 
achieved it yet? 

● Why? 

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● What would you build to help this product become successful? 

Conceptualizing, designing, and building a new feature is only half the battle. 
How do you launch a new feature? 

● How does it get incorporated into the existing product? 

● Does that stay stable over time or does this feature change throughout 
a user’s lifetime? 
● How would you spread awareness about your product? 

Related: a comprehensive outline of a product manager interview process 

here​; a good breakdown of how you should spend your ​preparation time​. 

 
In Their Own Words: What Hiring Managers Are Looking 
For 
We interviewed hiring managers from startups, software companies, and big 
corporations in order to give you a broad understanding of the different 
types of interviews. 

Further, these managers each have different roles and hire for different types 
of candidates. They should give you a decent sense of what each of them 
are looking for and what you can do to prepare and stand out. 

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Susie Pan - Royal Bank of Canada, Product Lead 

What do you look for? 

One of the first things we do is look at what a 

candidate has done on​ GitHub​. We want to see 
how active they are as a contributor and what 
personal projects they have worked on and/or 
open-source projects that they have contributed 
to. 

For junior people, we would also look at how they 

performed in university projects, hackathons, and research. But for senior 
people, it's far more about work experience. We would want to see that they 
have done work with real data, not just standard pre-processed data sets, 
and what they've done with it. 

What's an outline of your interview process? 

For machine learning engineers, it's: 

● Resume screen 
● Phone screen 
● Technical interview (mix of take-home challenge and on-site coding) 
● Deep, technical on-site interview (with our engineering team) with a 
product on-site interview (with our product team) 

What's the best advice that you can give job seekers? 

My best advice is to actively work on projects and have them available on 
your GitHub profile. 

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Also, work on real problems with real data because in the real world, most 
problems don't have perfect data. The majority of your time is going to be 
spent cleaning up data. 

You need to be able to show that you can go through the entire workflow 
from data engineering to modeling to productionizing your code. 

What are the key questions that you ask? Anything particularly unique? 

For technical questions, we would ask questions like: 

● When have you worked with a data set and what did you do with it? 
● We will ask, in different scenarios, why do you select one model versus 
another one? What are the pros and cons? 
● Can you explain how you got your results? How do you go through 
model validation? 
● What is the implication of what you found? 

For non-technical questions, we want to see your thought process: 

● How do you deal with ambiguity? 

● How do you figure out what to work on, not just how to work on it? 
● Do you understand the business implications of what you are working 
toward and its impact? 

What do you test for? 

Ultimately, we are testing for machine learning literacy, that you have the 
ability to use your knowledge in practical situations to see the whole process 
through, and that you have a genuine outside-of-work interest in ML and AI. 

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Integrate.ai - Rachel Jacobson, VP of People; Brennan Biddle, AI 

Recruiter

What do you look for? 

At Integrate.ai, we are incredibly values oriented. We look for people who 

share our DNA and people who are truly interested and excited to work with 
us. It's also important for us to know that a candidate is comfortable with 
the ambiguity and fast pace of a startup. Our key values are: love people, 
build trust, focus on impact, take action, and be present. 

We aren't looking for a cookie-cutter profile. Hiring for these roles used to 
mean "find someone in San Francisco that has a Ph.D." But it's a bit different 
now. These days, everyone and their neighbor calls themselves a machine 
learning scientist or a data scientist. So we have to go deeper. We look for 
diversity across a number of different angles. Yes, our researchers still tend 
to have Ph.D.s, but they don't have to be in data or stats: one of our 
engineers has a Ph.D. in astrophysics and did research on blackholes. 

We are also open to hiring from around the world and bringing people to 
Canada. 

Another note is that we don't typically employ consultants or contractors. 

For us, it's really important to build an employee base and culture. 

What's an outline of your interview process? 

Step 1: 30-minute phone call with a machine learning recruiter 

● Discuss projects you have worked on and the impact you have had on 
those projects. 
● What did you actually do to make it happen? 

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● What will it take for you to be happy working here? 

Step 2: 45-minute technical phone interview with a member of the machine 

learning team 

● Shared screen interview. 

● Writing code live with one of the team members (typically in Python). 

 
Step 3: 3-4 hour in-person interview 

● Behavior and values 

● This could even be with an entry-level employee, as long as they 
are well versed in the values of the company. 
● Technical - three 45-minute technical interviews, often with three 
different people 
● Each will focus on something different. Each interviewer will 
know something specific about the candidate. 
● We'll go through systems integrations, data structures, and 
algorithms (currently; we change these constantly). 
● Candidates don't need to hit a home run in all three, but they do 
have to do fairly well in all three (i.e., As in two with a C in the 
other). 

Note that: 

● We don't allow the skills and values interviewers to interact. 

● Sometimes this allows us to get to candidates that we wouldn't 
otherwise get to. 
● The hiring panel will meet either at the end of that day or early the next 
day. 

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● Even though it's an exhaustive experience, we're able to make an offer 

within 24-48 hours. 
● Shining differences for us: 
a. We don't hire machine learning scientists; we hire humans who 
do machine learning. 
b. There is a large amount of humanity in what we do. 
c. We want to get to know you as an actual person. 
d. We want Integrate to represent not just your best work years but 
the best years of your life. 

What's the best advice you can give? 

The best advice we can give is to be vulnerable and show your humanity in 
our interview process. We care about that just as much as your machine 
learning capabilities. 

What do you test for? 

Half of our interview process is focused on behavioral competencies and 

values. The other half is typically whiteboarding solutions to ambiguous 
problems, often using Python. We test for coding abilities, typically in Python. 
We also really care about software skills in data and being able to make 
sense out of and communicate insights about ambiguous data. 

Geetu Ambwani - Data Science Lead, Flat Iron Health

What do you look for? 

We are a health technology company focused on oncology. We use data to 

advance cancer research. We have a product-focused data science team, so 
we are hiring analysts, data scientists, and software engineers. They are 
focused on data-driven product discovery and making data-driven decisions. 

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What's an outline of your interview process? 

1. The first step is usually a cold analytical exercise, where we give you a 
data set and a few questions for you to answer. 

2. Then we have a phone/Zoom screen, testing for analytical skills, as well as 
to get to know you and the work that you have done. We'll ask you about 
one or two projects that you have done in your portfolio. And then the 
majority of the interview is really focused on an open-ended exercise, which 
is trying to get at your data modeling and data analytical skills. 

Besides your technical skills, we also index on your ability to take something 
that is ambiguously framed and then to dive into a business or product 
context. We are interested to understand how much information you can 
give when thinking about the user. 

3. Once you've finished the screen, you come on-site, usually speaking to 
four or five different groups. 

One is focussed on your product thinking skill set. We would present 1-2 
interesting open-ended product ideas that we would ask you to talk through 
and discuss how you would prioritize different decisions and trade-offs. 

Next up is a coding interview, which is about whiteboarding a coding 

problem. 

The third is a cross-functional collaboration exercise. Because of the nature 

of our work, we are in very cross-functional teams, everyone from medical 
professionals, oncologists, and data analysts on same team, side by side, as 
well as folks typical to a tech company, like a product manager. Everyone 
has a different set of skills and it's important for us to see how you could 
work in and collaborate across different functions. In this type of interview, it 

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typically focuses on behavioral questions to see how you can talk across 
your space to someone from a different background. 

The fourth exercise is something that is a bit experimental. Depending on 

your skill set or your path, we either give you a data science or a data 
modeling interview. Modeling is focused on—surprise—data modeling, as 
well as SQL and analytical skills, and how good you are at it. Data science is 
more statistical machine learning methodology.  

What's the best advice that you can give? 

Get your basics right. A lot of people are so focused on the buzzwords in 
machine learning and deep learning. Depending on where you're going, at 
least with us, we don't build large-scale systems or focus on the problems 
that Facebook or Google does. But for us, it's about understanding and 
framing an open-ended business problem into an analyst's domain. Take a 
business problem and understand how to use data to answer the question. 

Then, being able to have machine learning fundamentals, like regularization. 

What are the key questions that you ask? Anything particularly unique? 

We care about if you are able to turn questions back to the customer and 
keep the end user in mind. We aren't obsessed with technical nuances. What 
does an MVP look like? What would it look like if you double the resources? 
How do you measure your success? And do you take feedback well. 

What do you test for?  

We care a lot about cross-functional people who also understand product. 

We also have a "reverse interview" process where candidates are allowed to 
schedule meetings with different members and functions of our team so 
that they can really know what's going on. It's important for us. 

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In Their Own Words: How Successful Candidates Made It 

Patrick Lung - Product Manager, Microsoft  

What surprised you and what did you find difficult? 

I wasn't particularly surprised by any of the questions in the interview. I 

found during the interview process that it was very behavioral and a lot of it 
was about my own experiences and perspective; for example: "What do you 
think about machine learning and product development?" 

To be clear, they also did ask a solid number of product questions. But even 
though I was interviewing for a machine learning role, there weren't a lot of 
questions that were specific to machine learning. Much of the interview was 
framed with "Tell me about a time that you…" and you would adjust your 
answer accordingly.  

For example: "Tell me about a time you disagreed with an engineer." In my 
case, an example of a time that I disagreed with an engineer is when a 
machine learning algorithm we were working on together provided bad 
suggestions. Initially, we overreacted and realized that we did not create it in 
the way it's typically done. So we backtracked, made amends, and had an 
improved working relationship going forward. 

What advice would you give to ace the interview? 

Recognize if an application/problem is a good ml candidate for interview 

questions 

For the interview it's important to recognize what applications and problems 
are good candidates for using machine learning, and which are not. There 
are many scenarios where you don't need to use machine learning. Further, 

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there are times where employing machine learning could actually be 
counterproductive to the problem that you're trying to solve.  

The essential question to ask yourself when you encounter an interview 

problem is "could I meet 80% of my needs with a rules-based model?" There 
are three key benefits to using rules-based models:  

1) Rules-based models are cheaper. They take less time to build.  

2) Rules-based models are clearer to troubleshoot, because you code and 

create the logic.  

3) Some user behaviour is better off being deterministic. For example, user 
does X, so Y happens. It's more predictable. 

You are soon changing jobs to work at ​Kite​. Why did you decide to work 
there? 

I wanted to work somewhere where machine learning is a principle aspect of 

the problem. Not powering a side feature. This company depends on 
machine learning for their whole product. 

The second reason is that the team is very strong at machine learning. You 
want to learn the best practices and learn from the best. 

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Srdjan Santic - Principal Data Scientist, Logikka

What do you do? 

Right now I run Logikka, my own AI and ML 

consulting company. But my most recent job was 
at a startup that focuses on document 
classification and detecting sensitive information in 
documents. Much of it is about finding out the 
historical lineage of documents so that you can 
trace them back. 

What advice would you give to ace the interview? 

My advice is to be well prepared for the coding part of your interview. Your 
methodology matters significantly and most of the point of the interview is 
to show your work. 

Of course, you also need to be up on your statistics and machine learning 

skills. And more than knowing simply the techniques and solutions, you need 
to know these on an intuitive level. 

Knowing the math is obviously helpful as well. 

Be aware that you might be interviewed by business stakeholders, not just 

technical ones. But regardless of who is interviewing you, it is important to 
remember that you are there to solve a business problem. 

Also remember to be polite and kind to everyone, from the receptionist to the 
last person you talk to. 

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How did your interview process go? 

● Phone screen: this was for company fit and asking about my recent 
experience. 
● Then we had a take home challenge, which was a data set. 
● Technical interview with a senior data scientist. 
○ This is when we went through machine learning questions. It 
was where the tough questions became clearer. 
○ The important part was relating my answer to my previous 
experience. 

My general thoughts on the interview process are that: 

1. In-person is a lot more personal. It's easier for you to gauge what the 
other person is like. And ultimately, despite the technical questions, 
they want to get to know you as a person. In my opinion, you can 
evaluate the company better in person. But if you are remote: make 
sure to ask about the projects that the company has recently done. 
2. Ask questions like these:  
a. What would I work on if I were to come aboard? 
b. How are ML projects managed? Are they planned out? 
c. Are there agile practices in place? 
d. What hours do people typically work? 
e. How does the team keep up with current developments in the 
field? For example, some companies I have worked at have had 
a reading circle every Friday. 
f. When working on a project as a data scientist, whom would I 
report to? 

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Why did you choose your current job? 

I wanted to move! The company was based in Ireland and I wanted to be 
there. Also, the company was a startup and I really wanted to work in a small 
startup, building something from scratch. Further, the team looked really 
great, and I had a chance to talk to everyone during a session where we all 
got to meet each other. 

The technical interview was very challenging, but the interviewer was very 
pleasant, even in situations when we disagreed on something. So I knew that 
I would be learning from someone who was incredibly knowledgeable. 

Val Andrei Fajardo - Director of Machine Learning Science, 

Integrate.ai

What surprised you and what did you find 

difficult? 

Sometimes the job description may not 

exactly match what you end up interviewing 
for. I had come in for a more generalist 
position, but at one point there was an 
NLP-specific problem on the whiteboard. If I 
had known there had been an NLP problem for 
this role, I would have prepared for that. That 
can happen with a lot of companies and their job postings. 

Something that surprised me which was great was that there were a lot of 
values pieces at Integrate. Not a lot of companies do that. To make sure 
there was not a conflict between my values and the company was really 
important.  

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What advice would you give to ace the interview? 

There is a lot of white boarding. So prepare for lots of open-ended questions 

on building solutions to a complicated problem. You have a chance to use 
the mathematics and foundation that you have to build a solution. It may not 
have even been the same one that they interviewed. But it will still achieve 
the same outcome. 

If you can somehow get more specific prep from the company, without 
getting the actual questions, that can help you prepare. 

In my case, if I were to do it again, I would use the script that, "Hey, I'm 
typically a generalist so it's very helpful for me to know what specific 
problems and ML areas I can focus on for the interview." I would also ask 
about the kinds of numbers and problems they are looking at as a business. 
Getting some insight there will help you understand how to best prepare. 

One of the pitfalls in an interview like this is looking too narrowly at 
something—missing out on the big picture, the main values, the main 
elements that person is looking for. In my case, I was coming from more of a 
theoretical background. I faced a bias going into machine learning, people 
thinking that I was an academic, not as much of a coder. That's what you 
might face if you have a strong theoretical or stats background. 

Also, have evidence that you know how to code, taking a mathematical 
problem and turning that into production-ready code. The more examples 
you have of products and projects that you've worked on, the better chance 
you will have. 

The best advice I have for you on the behavioral side is only be yourself. 
Because if you have multiple behavioral interviews, you can't fake it multiple 

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times. Stay humble and demonstrate your curiosity. Be vulnerable and 

authentic—show your humanity. 

Why did you choose your current job? 

I chose this job because of the interview process. The people I got to meet 
during it were amazing. They made be feel like a human throughout. 

I also wanted to learn how machine learning could be used across a wide 
array of businesses. At Integrate, we work across a wide variety of 
industries. So… what better place to do that? 

Jasmine Kyung - Senior Operations Engineer, Raytheon

What surprised you and what did you find difficult about the interview? 

What I expected was a project that only focused on machine learning 

algorithms, but the project instead detailed even very basic code and didn't 
care too much about the algorithm in itself. The pre-analysis and my 
approach to solving the data science issue in itself was what they cared 
about. They weren't expecting something super complex or with 100% 
accuracy. It caught me off guard. 

Something else that surprised me throughout the interview was that they 
were more impressed by the way I ran a pre-analysis after cleaning the data. 
They were more impressed by that rather than just applying the machine 
learning algorithm. They cared whether I could actually find the right inputs 
beforehand. 

What advice would you give to ace the interview? 

Get information and derive insights before jumping into the algorithm. After 
data cleaning, you can play with the data to see what insights you can get 

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(e.g., a correlation chart). It's a simple analysis that you can do without any 
kind of algorithm. You can also share that with customers to get them 
excited fast.  

Go in confidently. Even if you're new to data science or machine learning, 

your talent will be in high demand. Know that you are valuable. It's also not 
just, "Do you know tons about algorithms?" They're looking more at your train 
of thought and how you approach certain questions.  

Why did you choose your current job? 

It seemed really exciting! I was going to be the first data scientist, the one 
who brings data-driven solutions to the company. It was a very nimble and 
flexible organization with many opportunities to learn. 

Also, the job seemed like a good one. It would get me ahead in the field.  

 
Takeaways 
The key takeaways for a machine learning interview are: 

1. Don’t think questions about basic material won’t be covered. Read up on 
technical fundamentals before you go through the interview process.  

2. Be prepared to do well in the behavioral interview. Companies care about 

your communication skills and your ability to get along with future 
co​workers as much as they care about your coding skills and ML knowledge.  

3. Have stories ready to share. Have a portfolio, especially on GitHub. Be 

prepared to storytell about who you are and why your passions and skills are 

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uniquely valuable for the company at hand. Having relevant projects and 
being very clear about what you contributed to those works will mark you as 
a candidate worthy of passing to the next round.  

4. Be patient. An interview process can take a long time. You’ll want to be 
prepared to wait.  

Now that we’ve gone through the actual machine learning interview process, 
let’s look at what happens after you’ve finished interviewing.  
7 Things to Do After the Interview  
After you’ve finished your machine learning interview, you might think your 
work is finished. That’s not necessarily the case.  

Here is a list of things you can do after the interview to ensure, as best as 
possible, that you maximize your chances of making the best impression on 
your potential employers.  

1. Send a (good) follow-up thank you note  

How you follow up on an interview can make the difference between internal 
advocates fighting to get you in and apathy. It is now customary to send a 
thank you note. With each office worker receiving an average of 1 ​ 21 emails a 
day​, however, you won’t want to just stick with a boilerplate “thank you for 
the opportunity” email. Make sure you’re remembered. A nice email is the 
bare minimum. Candidates who take the extra step of sending handwritten 
notes or a list of thoughts after the interview will stand out from the rest of 
the 120 emails.  

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2. Share thoughts on something brought up during the interview  

One easy way to differentiate yourself is to go beyond simply saying thanks. 

Remember what happened in the interview and make a conscious effort to 
tease out some of the pain points the employer is trying to solve. If sample 
problems within the interview are oriented toward a technical direction, or a 
question suggests a disconnect between different teams, you’ll want to 
make a note of it and send in-depth thoughts.  

After all, an interview isn’t just a test;it’s a discussion. If you listen carefully to 
the questions presented and ask the right questions yourself, you will know 
exactly what problems the company is facing. Why not send thoughts on the 
solutions you’d pursue? 

3. Send relevant work/homework to the employer  

It can be difficult envisioning how your skills could apply to the office, 
especially for somebody who has just met you. The sharpest hiring 
organizations will often give you a sample problem to solve that is sourced 
from real issues they are facing. This gives you the chance to demonstrate 
how your efforts could impact the business in a positive manner. 
Organizations that don’t do that will hesitate to hire the right candidate 
because they haven’t sufficiently demonstrated how they’d drive impact for 
the company in question. However, you can be proactive and use what you 
learned in the interview to follow up. You don’t have to stop at sending them 
thoughts that show you listened carefully;you can give them actual, tangible 
solutions. 

The author of t​ his post on Forbes​ was told that she didn’t have enough of a 
portfolio to get a job as a freelance copywriter. Having listened carefully 
throughout the interview, the candidate knew that a major project (the 

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re​design of a website) was just over the horizon. Instead of accepting defeat, 
she sent 10 proposed headlines for the website banner, free of charge. This 
burst of initiative got her a job doing the rest of the writing for the website​.  

You need to have a portfolio that shows the impact you can make, but 
sometimes that isn’t enough. If you’re astute and you ask the right questions, 
you can find a business problem or ML opportunity for the company. There’s 
always something—that’s why they’re hiring in the first place! There’s a 
project out there that everybody would love to see done or a thorny problem 
that no one can figure out. Send them a plan for what you’d do or play with 
some of the data they’ve divulged, and then give some solid insights into 
how you work. Initiative will go a long way to getting you an offer.  

4. Keep in touch, the right way  

One of the most awkward parts of the post-​interview process is waiting for a 
response. You don’t want to come off as desperate by following up too 
many times, but companies take their time if you don’t engage with them 
proactively. It is possible to affect the post interview decision from outside of 
the company, but you should keep in mind the appropriate channel to reach 
somebody. Make sure to ask before the interview ends how best to reach 
your interviewer. Everybody has a preferred mode of communication;if they 
specify short emails or a call, follow that rule and dispel some of the 
post​-interview awkwardness.  

As a rule of thumb, don't check in more than once every week, or better yet, 
in 10 days. Sometimes companies just take their time. 

5. Leverage connections  

Ideally, you’ll have come in with strong references both from external and 
internal sources. If you had been building your network and providing value 

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to them, you should have strong advocates who can support your 
candidacy. Check in with people who referred you internally every once in 
awhile, and if needed, get them to mention how excited you would be to 
work at the company and how lucky the company would be to hire you. 
Hiring is often network-​driven, and the best signal that you can send to a 
potential employer is a vibrant network of people who are willing to go to bat 
for you.  

6. Accept rejection with professionalism  

Look, there's a good chance you will get rejected. Sometimes you’re just not 
right for the role, or they might have found somebody who is a slightly better 
fit. It’s important at this point to maintain your composure, thank the 
employer for their time, and move on.  

People in the industry talk amongst themselves, and being unprofessional at 
this point will only be bad karma and might get you ignored at other 
companies. Being professional ensures the health of your network. More 
importantly, a no isn’t always a no. Sometimes companies really do keep 
your profile on file and will reach out in the future.  

Perhaps Winston Churchill put it best when he said, “Success is the ability to 
go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm.” J.K. Rowling has 
shared her rejection letters from publishers. Brian Chesky, the founder of 
Airbnb, published seven rejection letters from potential investors. In order to 
achieve greatness, you will have to endure rejection. Everybody successful 
already has.  

7. Keep up hope  

The interview process can be filled with great anxiety. Your future can be 
mapped out by deciding what company you work for. An interview can mean 

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the beginning of a career change. It can mean moving cities. It is a period in 
our lives where other people have disproportionate control over our 
destinies. Nevertheless, as seen in the previous steps, you control a lot more 
than you think. It’s important to keep your head up and do what you can.  

The most important thing you can do during the interview process is keep up 
hope. Interviews are lengthy. Companies take time to get back to you. There 
are many internal checks and processes before a candidate is accepted. You 
may go through multiple rounds of interviews with the same company and 
not seem any closer to a final offer. You have to set expectations. You 
should never be disheartened during your journey.  

 
How to Handle Offers 
Your goal is to get as many offers as possible that you can evaluate and 
potentially negotiate. While the process itself is difficult, and may take longer 
than you expect, once you start getting offers, you’ll have earned them. We 
can’t emphasize enough how important it is to manage your expectations 
and keep your hopes up.  

For many candidates in the AI and machine learning space, it can take 
months to even half ​a​ year to find the right role, particularly if they are 
coming from academia. Make sure you weigh what is presented to you and 
choose the future you deserve once you’ve put in all the hard work earning it.  

What to Assess 

If you complete the interview process successfully, you may have multiple 
offers. Congratulations! Accepting an offer is a commitment of a significant 
amount of your time to the company in question. Always keep that in mind. 

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There are several factors you can use to ascertain whether or not an offer is 
the right one for you.  

Company Culture  

This might be one of the most important factors in determining when an 
offer is one you should accept. Make sure you ask about the company 
culture. Look for signs that the company employs individuals who genuinely 
enjoy spending time with one another; run away from generic descriptors or 
companies that struggle to define their culture or even wave the question 
away.  

Great companies invest tons of time and effort into making sure they hire 
awesome people who love what they do. That’ll come through in your 
questioning. You should also check external and objective sources, such as 
company reviews on Glassdoor. Approach current employees as well as 
former ones (whom you can find on LinkedIn) to get their side of the story. 
You’ll often find candid tales that can give you a good preview of what 
working at your new job would be like.  

Team  

Company culture is an extension of the team that inhabits it, but you should 
be excited about coming to the office every day and working with everybody 
else. Make sure that you’re working with a team that you can learn from. You 
are t​ he average of the five people you spend the most time with​—and you’re 
going to be spending a lot of time with your colleagues. 

Location  

Make sure you’re comfortable with the company’s location, especially if 
you’re moving a significant distance to take the role. Moving is a difficult 

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process, so it’s important that you feel at ease with where you live. Factors 
like the weather and the transit system matter to a certain degree, especially 
if you’re planning to live under those conditions for several years.  

 
Negotiating Your Salary  
An astonishing 61% of people didn't negotiate their salary in their last job 
offer, despite the fact that those who do typically see their salary raised by 
13.3%, according to C ​ NBC and Glassdoor​.  

When you first get your offer, you’re at a unique leverage point that you 
might not see again for several years. This is the time to test what you’re 
worth. Reach out with a counteroffer—​​a company won’t fire you or cancel a 
contract offer because you were asserting your worth. Initial offers are sent 
with a buffer for slight negotiation. Take advantage.  

During a salary negotiation:  

1. Come with a well-​researched number representing what you think 

you’re worth. Look to industry averages (listed below) and get a sense 
from people working in the field what you should expect. Never come 
into a negotiation without knowing what you want out of it.  
2. Stay positive and don’t push too hard for what you think you “deserve.” 
Instead, use this as a positive experience to assert your worth and the 
value you can create.  
3. Know what your minimum is and ask for more. Negotiate a little bit 
higher than the amount you think you’ll actually get. Anybody 
experienced at negotiation will come back to you with a counter​, and 
you’d best be prepared for it.  
4. Most importantly, don’t fear rejection! So long as you keep the process 
moving forward civilly and professionally, a company will appreciate 

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you being frank and positive at what is often the most difficult part of 
the recruitment process for them. Before you accept the offer, make 
sure you know how committed you are to the company, team, and 
money.  
5. Use your other offers as leverage. It's always best to go into a salary 
negotiation with at least one other competitive offer. Even if you know 
the job you want, it's important to be able to negotiate to get what you 
want in terms of compensation. 

Industry Benchmarks for Salaries 

Negotiation is always easier if you have some information about average 

salaries to ground you. The more you know, the stronger you’ll be at the 
negotiation table.  

Salary data often changes, but here are some facts and figures that can start 
your research.  

Indeed.com​ cites an average salary of $141,000 for machine learning 

engineers, an average salary of $120,000 for data scientists, and 
approximately $140,000 for product managers at the biggest tech 
companies. This varies from region to region, with the highest salaries 
tending to cluster in the tech-heavy Bay Area. California has the highest 
range and median of all regions when it comes to data science, according to 
O’Reilly Media. Globally, the United States has the highest median and range 
of data science salaries, while the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Australia, 
and Canada aren’t too far behind. Asia and Africa tend to have the lowest 
medians.  

The highest-paying industries are technology and social networking 

companies, while the lowest-paying ones tend to be education and nonprofit 
sectors. Salary also varies based on skills and tools used. ​O’Reilly​ has a 

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definitive survey of hundreds of respondents in the industry. An open study, 

the results indicate a variety of factors that lead to different average salaries, 
including location, industry, and job title. 

Check out G​ lassdoor​ for more valuable salary data. And t​ his is a good 
resource​ for broader data on major tech companies.  

What to Do Once You Accept 

If you’ve accepted an offer, congratulations! Take a minute and exhale! 

You’ve accomplished the goal of this long process and broken into the job 
you’ve sought, a job that promises excellent compensation and the ability to 
drive significant social impact.  

Be aware that good companies will work to make you as comfortable as 
possible. You should reach out to future teammates and figure out what 
they do and how you can help them solve their business problems. Take the 
time to socialize and meet as many people as you can.  

More importantly, if you have time between when you accepted the offer and 
when you start, relax and enjoy! Make sure you catch up with as many 
people as you can in your life, take the chance to rest, and be completely 
refreshed for your first day at your new company.  

 
Conclusion 
The AI and machine learning interview process is one of the hardest 
recruitment processes to crack, and it’s one of the most competitive. Your 
fellow interviewees will likely be experienced engineers, Ph.D.s, researchers, 
or product managers. And some of them will have extensive experience in 
the field.  

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While the space is attracting many talented people, remember that it has a 
slew of different related industries, teams, and roles. If you think outside of 
the box and apply a few battle-tested tactics, you’ll be able to get an 
interview and take it all the way to an offer you love.  

Split the process into its composite steps, and remember what it takes to 
succeed. Don’t hunt for jobs like everybody else by limiting your search to 
the standard job boards and sending out typical cover letters. Reach out to 
people within organizations you admire for informational interviews. Do 
something different from the hundreds of other candidates. Stand out as a 
great technical thinker and, above all else, a proficient communicator (not to 
mention… a great person).  

Use this and other guides to thoroughly understand the technical and 
non​technical parts of the interview. Once you’ve mastered the thinking 
behind the questions and what hiring managers are looking for, you’ll have a 
good sense of how to excel throughout the process.  

 
Final Checklist 
Here's a final cheat sheet for you as you prepare for your interview. 
Remember the following: 

1) Understand the roles that your skills fit 

2) Map out the industries and types of companies you want to work for 
3) Prepare your LinkedIn, CV, and email templates 
4) Research each company and role you want to aim for thoroughly 
5) Reach out proactively to individuals for informational interviews 
6) Build strong networks and referrals 
7) Tackle the interview 

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8) Follow up respectfully 
9) Negotiate and accept 

Special Thanks 
Thanks to the Springboard team and authors of “​The Ultimate Guide to Data 
Science Interviews​,” which provided great structure and content for this 
guide: 

T.J. DeGroat  

Roger Huang 

Sri Kanajan 

Special thanks to two of my best friends and machine learning geniuses for 
reading this and providing edits, suggestions, and laughs: 

Patrick Lung 

Logan Graham 

 
About the Author 
Jaxson Khan​ is CEO at Khan & Associates, a global advisory firm that helps 
innovative companies and organizations with strategy, communications, and 
growth. He previously served as head of marketing at Nudge.ai, the 
Canadian AI Company of the Year in 2018. Jaxson is a host of the ​Ask AI 
podcast​, a mentor with Techstars, an instructor at Product Faculty, an 
advisor to Century Initiative, and a member of the World Economic Forum 

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