Communicating Technical Skills and Expertise Questions
Focuses on how candidates describe their technical abilities, tools, and depth of expertise. Includes articulating which programming languages, frameworks, data tools or methodologies are known, describing the level of hands on experience, avoiding overstating competence, and describing contexts where the skills were applied. Interviewers use this to verify fit for role responsibilities and to probe for depth versus breadth.
MediumTechnical
0 practiced
You are mentoring a junior BI analyst who struggles with writing efficient SQL and building maintainable dashboards. Describe a 90-day upskilling plan that includes specific hands-on exercises, readings or courses, checkpoints, and measurable goals. Explain how you would measure progress and communicate that progress to their manager and peers in a way that demonstrates both technical improvement and professional development.
HardTechnical
0 practiced
Give a detailed example where you used EXPLAIN ANALYZE (or equivalent) to diagnose and fix a slow query in production. Include the initial and final query plans with the most relevant lines, the root cause you identified, the exact changes you implemented (index creation, rewriting joins, partitioning), and how you communicated the technical details to engineers and the business impact to product owners.
EasyBehavioral
0 practiced
Your resume lists 'advanced SQL, Power BI, Tableau, and Python.' In a 2-minute verbal summary to a hiring manager, describe the depth of your experience for each tool. Include years of hands-on usage, types of projects (dashboarding, ETL, modeling, automation), whether your work was production or exploratory, and one concrete example that demonstrates proficiency. Avoid generic phrases like 'familiar with' and emphasize how you would tailor the summary for a technical versus non-technical audience.
EasyTechnical
0 practiced
Explain what a LEFT JOIN does in SQL to a non-technical stakeholder. Use the concrete example of two small tables: Customers(customer_id, name) and Orders(order_id, customer_id). Describe in plain language what a LEFT JOIN returns, show a short example result, and give an everyday analogy you would use so the business audience understands why a LEFT JOIN may be used.
HardTechnical
0 practiced
You're asked to present a 12-month technical roadmap for the BI team that balances maintaining existing reporting, improving data quality, and adopting new tooling such as dbt and better observability. Draft the high-level roadmap with quarters, list major milestones, provide rough resource estimates, and explain how you'd present the technical trade-offs and staffing needs to both the Head of Analytics and the CFO.
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