9 Spotify SQL Interview

Questions (Updated 2024)

At Spotify, SQL is used across the company for analyzing user listening behaviors for custom

playlist creation and managing databases to optimize server performance during peak streaming

hours. Unsurprisingly this is why Spotify asks SQL query questions during interviews for Data

Analytics, Data Science, and Data Engineering jobs.

In case you're preparing for a SQL Assessment, here’s 9 Spotify SQL interview questions to

practice, which are similar to recently asked questions at Spotify – can you solve them?

9 Spotify SQL Interview Questions

Sure, here is a SQL interview question potentially suitable for Spotify:

SQL Question 1: Identify Spotify's Most Frequent Listeners

Spotify wants to identify their 'whale users', these are users who listen to the most tracks every

month. They are potential customers to involve in user feedback sessions. Given the database

tables users and user_listen_history , write a SQL query to identify the top 5 users who have

listened to the most unique tracks in the last 30 days. Assume today's date is 2023-03-22 .

users Example Input:

user_id username sign_up_date email

1001 user1 10/02/2021 [email protected]

2002 user2 22/05/2022 [email protected]

 user_id username sign_up_date email

3003 user3 01/01/2022 [email protected]

4004 user4 15/07/2021 [email protected]

5005 user5 24/12/2021 [email protected]

user_listen_history Example Input:

listen_id user_id listen_date track_id

1 1001 02/03/2023 100

2 1001 02/03/2023 101

3 1001 03/03/2023 100

4 2002 03/03/2023 103

5 2002 03/03/2023 104

5 3003 03/03/2023 100

6 4004 03/03/2023 104

7 5005 03/03/2023 100

Answer:

SELECT u.user_id, u.username, COUNT(DISTINCT ulh.track_id) as total_unique_tracks_listened

FROM users u

INNER JOIN user_listen_history ulh ON u.user_id = ulh.user_id

WHERE ulh.listen_date BETWEEN '2023-02-22' AND '2023-03-22'

GROUP BY u.user_id, u.username

ORDER BY total_unique_tracks_listened DESC

LIMIT 5;

Here, we're joining the users table and user_listen_history table on user_id . The WHERE

clause is used to specify the date range for the last 30 days. We then group the results
by user_id and username to calculate the total number of unique tracks each user has listened to

within the specified time range. This total number is counted using COUNT(DISTINCT

ulh.track_id) . Results are ordered in descending order by total_unique_tracks_listened to

reveal the top 5 users who have listened to the most unique tracks in the last 30 days.

SQL Question 2: Analyze Artist Popularity Over Time

Question Description: Let's assume you are a Data Analyst at Spotify. You are given a data table

named artist_listens containing daily listening counts for different artists. The table has three

columns: artist_id , listen_date , and daily_listens .

You are required to write a SQL query to calculate the 7-day rolling average of daily listens for

each artist. The rolling average should be calculated for each day for each artist based on the

previous 7 days (including the current day).

artist_listens Example Input:

artist_id listen_date daily_listens

1 2022-06-01 15000

1 2022-06-02 21000

1 2022-06-03 17000

2 2022-06-01 25000

2 2022-06-02 27000

2 2022-06-03 29000

Notice that the listen_date column is date formatted.

Example Output:

artist_id listen_date rolling_avg_listens

1 2022-06-01 15000.00
 artist_id listen_date rolling_avg_listens

1 2022-06-02 18000.00

1 2022-06-03 17666.67

2 2022-06-01 25000.00

2 2022-06-02 26000.00

2 2022-06-03 27000.00

Please pay attention to the rounding in the result.

Answer:

SELECT
artist_id,
listen_date,
AVG(daily_listens) OVER (
PARTITION BY artist_id
ORDER BY listen_date
RANGE BETWEEN INTERVAL '6 days' PRECEDING AND CURRENT ROW
) AS rolling_avg_listens
FROM artist_listens
ORDER BY artist_id, listen_date;

Explanation:

This SQL query computes the rolling average by using a window function AVG with a window

frame defined as "the previous 6 days plus the current row".

The PARTITION BY clause ensures the rolling average is calculated separately for each artist.

The ORDER BY clause is used to order the rows in each partition by the listen_date .

The RANGE BETWEEN INTERVAL '6 days' PRECEDING AND CURRENT ROW clause defines the window

frame for the window function. It states that for a given row, consider all rows from 6 days before

to the current row.

Finally, the AVG() function calculates the average of daily_listens over the defined window frame.
The ORDER BY artist_id, listen_date; at the end just keeps the result set ordered by artist and

date.

SQL Question 3: What distinguishes an inner join from a full

outer join?
A full outer join returns all rows from both tables, including any unmatched rows, whereas an inner

join only returns rows that match the join condition between the two tables.

For an example of each one, say you had sales data exported from Spotify's Salesforce CRM stored

in a datawarehouse which had two tables: sales and spotify_customers .

INNER JOIN : retrieves rows from both tables where there is a match in the shared key or keys.

SELECT *
FROM sales
INNER JOIN spotify_customers
ON sales.customer_id = spotify_customers.id

This query will return rows from the sales and spotify_customers tables that have matching

customer id values. Only rows with matching customer_id values will be included in the results.

FULL OUTER JOIN : retrieves all rows from both tables, regardless of whether there is a match in the

shared key or keys. If there is no match, NULL values will be returned for the columns of the non-

matching table.

Here is an example of a SQL full outer join using the sales and spotify_customers tables:

SELECT *
FROM sales
FULL OUTER JOIN spotify_customers
ON sales.customer_id = spotify_customers.id
SQL Question 4: Music Streaming Statistics
As a Data Analyst of Spotify, suppose your team is interested in understanding the listening habits

of the users. You're provided with the following tables:

1. users table contains information about users.

2. songs table contains information about songs.

3. artists table contains information about song artists.

4. streaming table logs every song listened to by each user.

The following relationships hold:

• Every song has one and only one artist, but an artist can have multiple songs.

• Every song can be listened to by multiple users, and every user can listen to multiple songs.

Your goal is to write a SQL query that returns each user's favourite artist, based on the number of

songs they've listened to by the artist.

users Example Input:

user_id username country

1 user101 USA

2 user202 UK

3 user303 Brazil

songs Example Input:

song_id song_name artist_id

101 song101 1001

102 song102 1002

103 song103 1001

artists Example Input:

artist_id artist_name

1001 artist1001

1002 artist1002

streaming Example Input:

user_id song_id stream_time

1 101 5:00

1 102 5:30

1 103 6:00

2 101 8:00

2 103 9:00

3 102 10:00

Answer:
SELECT u.username, a.artist_name FROM (

SELECT stream.user_id, songs.artist_id, count(*) as num_songs

FROM streaming AS stream

JOIN songs ON stream.song_id = songs.song_id

GROUP BY stream.user_id, songs.artist_id

ORDER BY num_songs DESC ) AS sub_query

JOIN users AS u ON u.user_id = sub_query.user_id

JOIN artists AS a ON a.artist_id = sub_query.artist_id

LIMIT 1;

The above query will find the count of songs each user has listened to by each artist, grouping by

both user_id and artist_id. This result is sorted in descending order of the count, and the top
record for each user represents their favorite artist. The outer query then joins this result back to

the artists and users tables to get the respective names.

SQL Question 5: What is denormalization?

Denormalization is a technique used to improve the read performance of a database, typically at

the expense of some write performance.

By adding redundant copies of data or grouping data together in a way that does not follow

normalization rules, denormalization improves the performance and scalability of a database by

eliminating costly join operations, which is important for OLAP use cases that are read-heavy and

have minimal updates/inserts.

SQL Question 6: Filter Spotify Users Based on Subscription and

Activity
As a data analyst at Spotify, you are tasked with extracting a list of active Premium subscribers who

have listened to at least 15 different artists in the current month. Active users are those who have

logged in within the last 30 days.

Assuming you have two tables:

users Example Input:

|**user_id**|**subscription_status**|**last_login**|

|:----|:----|:----|

|1|Premium|2022-08-20|

|2|Free|2022-08-01|

|3|Premium|2022-07-30|

|4|Premium|2022-08-21|
activity Example Input:

|**user_id**|**artist_name**|**month**|

|:----|:----|:----|

|1|Artist 1|August|

|1|Artist 2|August|

|1|Artist 3|August|

|2|Artist 4|August|

|1|Artist 5|August|

|1|Artist 6|August|

|1|Artist 7|August|

|1|Artist 8|August|

|1|Artist 9|August|

|1|Artist 10|August|

|1|Artist 11|August|

|1|Artist 12|August|

|1|Artist 13|August|

|1|Artist 14|August|

|1|Artist 15|August|

|3|Artist 1|July|

|4|Artist 2|August|

Answer:

SELECT u.user_id FROM users u

INNER JOIN (

SELECT user_id, COUNT(DISTINCT artist_name) as cnt

 FROM activity

WHERE month = 'August'

GROUP BY user_id

) a

ON u.user_id = a.user_id

WHERE u.subscription_status = 'Premium'

AND u.last_login >= current_date - interval '30 days'

AND a.cnt >= 15;

This query first groups the activity table by user_id and calculates the count of distinct artists

each user interacted with in August. It then joins this table with the users table on user_id . The

WHERE clause filters for Premium users who have logged in within the last 30 days and have

interacted with at least 15 different artists.

SQL Question 7: What distinguishes a left join from a right join?

"In SQL, a join generally retrieves rows from multiple tables and combines them into a single result

set. For an example of the difference between a left vs. right join, suppose you had a table of

Spotify orders and Spotify customers.

A LEFT JOIN retrieves all rows from the left table (in this case, the Orders table) and any matching

rows from the right table (the Customers table). If there is no match in the right table, NULL values

will be returned for the right table's columns.

A RIGHT JOIN combines all rows from the right table (in this case, the Customers table) and any

matching rows from the left table (the Orders table). If there is no match in the left table, NULL

values will be displayed for the left table's columns.

SQL Question 8: Calculate the average listening duration for
each music genre on Spotify
Suppose that Spotify would like to understand better the average listening duration for each genre

of music on their platform. As a data scientist, your task is to write a SQL query that calculates the

average listening duration per genre for every month.

Assume you have access to a user_activity table and a songs table with the following schema:

user_activity Example Input:

activity_id user_id song_id timestamp listening_duration_sec

1 101 5001 2022-03-01 09:00:00 210

2 102 6985 2022-03-01 11:30:00 120

3 103 5001 2022-03-01 15:45:00 300

4 101 6985 2022-04-01 08:45:00 180

5 102 5001 2022-04-01 10:00:00 240

songs Example Input:

song_id genre

5001 Rock

6985 Pop

Your aim is to produce a table like:

Example Output:

mth genre avg_listening_duration_sec

3 Rock 255

3 Pop 120

4 Rock 240
 mth genre avg_listening_duration_sec

4 Pop 180

Answer:

In order to get to the answer, we need to join the two tables on song_id and then use the GROUP

BY clause. The AVG() function can be used with GROUP BY to find the average listening duration

for each music genre.

SELECT EXTRACT(MONTH FROM ua.timestamp) AS mth,

s.genre,
AVG(ua.listening_duration_sec)
FROM user_activity ua
JOIN songs s ON ua.song_id = s.song_id
GROUP BY mth, s.genre;

This SQL query does the following:

• Joins the user_activity table (as ua) and the songs table (as s) on the song_id field.

• Uses the EXTRACT function to get the month from the timestamp in user_activity.

• Groups by month and genre.

• Uses AVG to calculate the average listening_duration_sec for each genre in each month. The

result will be average listening duration per genre for every month.

To solve another question about calculating rates, solve this SQL interview question from

TikTok within DataLemur's interactive coding environment:

SQL Question 9: Find Users Who've Listened to All Albums of a

Specific Artist
As an analyst at Spotify, you're tasked to identify all users who have listened to all albums of the

artist "Adele". Assume you have access to a users table that keeps track of user information and
an album_listens table that keeps track of all instances where a user listened to an album. Here

are the table structures:

users table

user_id user_name

1 John

2 Jane

3 Alice

album_listens table

listen_id user_id artist_name album_name

101 1 Adele 19

102 1 Adele 21

103 1 Adele 25

104 2 Adele 21

105 3 Adele 21

106 3 Adele 25

Using SQL, write a query to find all users who have listened to all Adele's albums (19, 21, 25).

Answer:
SELECT u.user_id, u.user_name
FROM users u
WHERE NOT EXISTS (SELECT 1
FROM (SELECT DISTINCT album_name
FROM album_listens
WHERE artist_name = 'Adele') a
WHERE NOT EXISTS (SELECT 1
FROM album_listens al
WHERE al.user_id = u.user_id
AND al.album_name = a.album_name
AND al.artist_name = 'Adele'))
This query works by first identifying all distinct Adele's albums and then checking whether there

are any of these albums that a certain user has not listened to. If a user has listened to all Adele's

albums, they will not have any of Adele's albums that they have not listened to. Such users are

selected by the query.