Data Scientist & AI Engineer Interview Series with Paramartha Sengupta

The series is designed to assess technical depth, system architecture, and executive-level decision-making.

Phase 1: Foundational Technical & Strategy (Rounds 1–5)

• Round 1: Statistics & Advanced Experimentation – Focuses on complex experimental setups, variance reduction (CUPED/CUPAC), and advanced A/B testing designs (e.g., switchback, cluster randomization).
• Round 2: Systemic Product Sense & Metric Design – Evaluates the candidate's ability to map product ecosystems, design robust North Star metrics, and conduct root-cause analysis on conflicting or counter-intuitive data.
• Round 3: Machine Learning Breadth & Intuition – Tests deep theoretical knowledge of loss functions, bias-variance decomposition, optimization mathematics, and dimensionality reduction.
• Round 4: ML Depth & Production Lifecycle – A comprehensive operational simulation covering production ingestion, covariate shift mitigation, and optimizing models for specific latency SLAs.
• Round 5: Deep Learning Architecture – Examines transformer fundamentals, normalization techniques (LayerNorm/RMSNorm), and gradient optimization mechanics for massive models.

Phase 2: Engineering & Architecture (Rounds 6–8)

• Round 6: Distributed Coding & Algorithms – FAANG-style coding assessment focusing on SQL scaling, NumPy/Pandas vectorization, and core data structure/algorithm proficiency.
• Round 7: Enterprise ML System Design – A whiteboard-style session on designing high-throughput infrastructure, compute topologies, and efficiency strategies like caching, pruning, and quantization.
• Round 8: Generative AI & LLM Engineering – Focuses on state-of-the-art production LLM backends, including RAG infrastructure, parameter-efficient fine-tuning (PEFT/LoRA), and automated evaluation loops.

Phase 3: Integration & Executive Simulation (Rounds 9–10)

• Round 9: Full Stack Integration – Assesses the ability to connect front-end telemetry to real-time feature stores, automated training pipelines, and business P&L outcomes.
• Round 10: Executive Onsite Simulation – A high-pressure, comprehensive final loop testing architectural decision-making, cross-functional leadership, and conflict resolution under constrained conditions.