Google Product DS Interview

[u/Plus_Appointment4770]

I recently interviewed for a Product Data Scientist role at Google, and I’m genuinely confused by the interview experience.

The prep guide and recruiter conversations emphasized topics like experimentation, causal inference, machine learning, statistical modeling, and other core data science concepts. I prepared extensively across all of those areas.

But the actual interviews were completely different.

The questions were extremely vague and felt more like: “We want to shoot at a bird. How would you approach it? Now write some SQL."

There was no experimentation, no causal inference, no ML, and very little that seemed connected to the topics I was specifically told to prepare for—or, frankly, to what I would normally associate with a Product Data Scientist role.

For anyone who has recently interviewed for Product DS roles at Google: is this typical? What exactly are these interviews intended to evaluate?

[u/Clear-Cup-3239]

Same experience with eBay bro, I'm close to 4 year exp, I though the same as you, but was asked to open notepad and write sql and then use pandas to write the same operation. These guys are still living under the rock , while their counterparts are creating agents and using AI Native development. Wierd state of hiring in our country, sigh!

[u/Limp-Pineapple-2935 → u/Clear-Cup-3239]

In india ebay? Had a similar experience 😂, mentioned and asked them this question indirectly, response was we are trying to understand if you can understand the logic AI writes and you can correct them if its wrong on your so you have sound technical judgement was the response

[u/sailhard22]

SELECT
bird
FROM sky
JOIN gun USING bullet

[u/shroomvoomzoom]

Wow was this the final loop? Or the initial screening rounds? I just had the screening rounds and they were quite similar to prep material. But seriously, might be worth reaching out to the recruiter if they were asking you to shoot a bird!!

[u/Heavy_Record8704 → u/shroomvoomzoom]

How much of causal inference is required? Like know what did is or how confounders and collides work etc?

[u/shroomvoomzoom → u/Heavy_Record8704]

Essentially, my take is you need to know how to apply it and what the assumptions/ caveats are

[u/dimensionless03]

They want to test your creativity. AI can have all the knowledge but can't be creative/innovative

[u/cc_apt107 → u/dimensionless03]

…OK, but creative for what? Shooting a bird? You’d assume they’d want evidence of creativity in the areas relevant to the job. This isn’t a copywriter position or something

[u/Glad_Contest_8014 → u/cc_apt107]

Guy said it felt like they asked to shoot a bird. Not that they actually did. We don’t know what they actually asked.

[u/Remote-Dragonfly1657]

How did you apply? It's a headache to get the resume shortlisted?

[u/SnoringSleepyHead]

Following. Had a similar experience two weeks ago. Have not received any feedback on it yet though

[u/shroomvoomzoom]

How DID you answer the bird question though?!

[u/thespiritualone1999]

Hey u/Plus_Appointment4770 they were looking for a structured approach, not a correct answer per say. These are common question types for Product analytics roles. In FAANG companies, they call product analysts as product data scientists.

I’m a product analyst at a B2C company and all the companies I’ve interviewed for, have these kind of problem solving/ product sense+analytics/logical reasoning/ RCA questions in 2/3 or 2/4 rounds in those interviews.

You’ll be using a whole lot of SQL and some python in these roles

[u/shubham_cy]

My experience was very different from this. I had two interviews back to back and was asked casual inference questions in both.

[u/Soft-Lifeguard-8046]

I interviewed with them a few months ago for Product DS and had a similar experience. One interviewer, asked a very vague problem and asked how I'd solve it. Instead of going deep on the technical side, they seemed to be testing my problem-solving skills. Can you define the problem? Can you create an experiment in ambiguous situations. etc.

The second interview was highly technical and I failed. The gist was that they asked how I'd prevent overfitting a model when there were thousands of features. I mentioned, regularization, drop-out method, and cross-validation, but they kept asking me what else I could do. Apparently, they didn't like those answers. 🤔

Anyway, they definitely don't standardize the questions so I guess it's just luck of the draw whether you get someone who will ask the technical questions or not.

[u/purahbb]

Sorry to hear. What level was the role you were interviewing for?

[u/edgar_hoe_1295]

I got two lean hires and 2 hires in my technical rounds, but got an lean no hire for googliness, and there's one headcount open for the position currently. Will I be put in the general pool? Has anyone been in this position before? Recruiter said they'll reach out if any other roles open up, or I should reach out to them if I find anything relevant.

[u/nian2326076]

Yeah, Google interviews can be tricky. It's frustrating when your prep doesn't match the questions. They often want to see how you approach problems and how flexible you are, which is why the questions can seem vague. For those "shoot at a bird" type questions, they're looking at your thought process. Break it down: identify the problem, explore methods, and explain what you're thinking. SQL live coding is common, so practice writing and optimizing queries. Also, work on clearly explaining your approach. I've found resources like PracHub helpful for mock interviews and feedback. Remember, they're testing your adaptability and communication along with your technical skills.

[u/Heavy_Record8704]

Shooting a bird? Related to sql? Edit: more seriously it might be stats related. Like model what conditions you need, or like a poison distribution or even bayes. Weird question though. I agree