I applied through university. The process took 6 weeks. I interviewed at Zillow (Seattle, WA) in Jun 2016
Interview
Applied through UW jobs platform for students and alumni. It worked much better than applying on line. After first call, got a data science challenge, as other reports here have mentioned. Spent about 30 hours on it - it is rather extensive assignment. Enjoyed working on it. I am really grateful that people with no experience are given the chance. Next round was technical phone call with a coding challenge. Not too hard if you like coding. Next step after that was on site interview with 4 people from the team. Three of were technical with Data Scientist, Software Engineer and Principal Data Scientist, and the fourth one was a discussion of future projects with Senior Director, Data Science and Engineering. All great people, and the white board questions were straightforward. In a couple of days got another phone call from Jenafer at HR, who was very helpful. She called me before each round of the interviews to explain what the format would be and make me feel comfortable with the process. The last one was another on site, this time with the Chief Analytical Officer. White board again, and we talked about DS projects I had worked on in the past. Really a test on your communication and presentation skills on the fly.
The whole process from application to the last interview took about a month and a half.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Compute median absolute error and percent of estimates within 5%, 10% and 20% of the sales price.
I applied online. The process took 3 weeks. I interviewed at Zillow in Mar 2023
Interview
Half-hour call with recruiter went great. 2nd round is a technical screening, 3rd/final round was panel interviews. Interviewed March 2023. Was told job had been open since November 2022.
45-min technical screening was one large, multi-part SQL exercise (testing different joins, knowledge of several different window functions, use of CASE/WHEN, etc) and one Python exercise (with some assumed knowledge of the mathematics behind a specific classification algorithm), with a conceptual follow-up question to the Python exercise. It was a more difficult screening than you typically see at this stage of the process.
I did well on the technical exercise - answered everything correctly - but was not advanced beyond this round. No feedback on why, I can only assume the screener (who was not on the team I was interviewing for) did not like the way I solved the exercise (I.e. while correct, not answered in the most optimal way?).
It appears the job went unfilled yet again as I saw the same role re-posted this morning. Seems to be a disconnect in what the team is looking for, what is being communicated to the recruiter, and what screeners are being asked to look for. Feels like they’re looking for a unicorn that has a multiple very advanced skill set that, frankly, is going to be worth a much higher salary than is being offered.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
SQL/Python exercises, and data-preprocessing question
Got ghosted in the introductory interview. I understand they don't owe the candidates anything but it doesnt cost much more than sending a templated rejection email to get some closure.
1st round HR/talent
2nd round sql/case
3rd and final round never happened. Obviously there were layoffs but the last time the recruiter and I were in touch (mid November) they said they would follow up with me on whether or not the role would still be available and they also mentioned it likely would still be.
I emailed the recruiter recently and got an automatic reply that the email address was "no longer being monitored." I would have appreciated at least a heads up that they were leaving or that the role was closed as I put a lot of time into the interview process.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
sql, case study, what would you do if x metric dropped
