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Problem Solving in Ambiguous Situations Questions

Evaluates structured approaches to diagnosing and resolving complex or ill defined problems when data is limited or constraints conflict. Key skills include decomposing complexity, root cause analysis, hypothesis formation and testing, rapid prototyping and experimentation, iterative delivery, prioritizing under constraints, managing stakeholder dynamics, and documenting lessons learned. Interviewers look for examples that show bias to action when appropriate, risk aware iteration, escalation discipline, measurement of outcomes, and the ability to coordinate cross functional work to close gaps in ambiguous contexts. Senior assessments emphasize strategic trade offs, scenario planning, and the ability to orchestrate multi team solutions.

MediumTechnical
0 practiced
An ETL job's runtime increased by 3x after a recent schema change. Provide a step-by-step plan to isolate root cause, immediate rollback or mitigation options, safe remediation steps, monitoring to add going forward, and how you would communicate status and risk to impacted stakeholders and executives.
EasyTechnical
0 practiced
You receive a request from Marketing for a dashboard explaining a 15% drop in MQLs, but Marketing cannot define the metric or timeframe. Describe your approach: how you'd clarify requirements, decompose the problem into measurable metrics, propose a one-hour rapid prototype, decide what data sources to trust, and get stakeholder alignment under a tight timeline.
EasyTechnical
0 practiced
You're asked to run a focused 30-minute cross-functional meeting to diagnose missing data in a dashboard. Outline the meeting agenda, participant roles (data engineer, product manager, QA), the top 6 questions to ask, immediate actions to take during the meeting, and how you'd capture and assign action items and timelines.
MediumSystem Design
0 practiced
Design a lightweight incident-management process for BI production issues: define roles (owner, responder, communicator), SLA targets for detection and resolution, triage steps, escalation thresholds, and post-incident documentation standards. Include a sample RACI matrix and an example of a severity classification.
MediumTechnical
0 practiced
You're facilitating a prioritization meeting where product, finance, and sales disagree about dashboard priorities. Draft the meeting agenda, the decision criteria you would propose (impact, ROI, regulatory risk, adoption), propose a scoring rubric, show how you'd arbitrate disagreements, and explain how you'd document and enforce decisions between cycles.

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