AvalonBay Communities, Inc. is one of the nation's leading Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs), dedicated to developing, redeveloping, acquiring, and managing quality apartment communities across high barrier-to-entry markets in the United States. With over 82,000 apartment homes and a workforce of approximately 3,000 associates, AvalonBay is committed to creating a better way to live through collaboration, innovation, and value-driven actions.

AvalonBay is currently building the industry's most advanced Data Analytics capability and is looking for a Data Engineer to join their team. The role involves developing Cloud Native Data Science and Business Intelligence solutions, including work on Snowflake, Talend, Power BI, and AWS technologies. Key responsibilities include collaborating with the Data Science team, implementing data governance, and working closely with senior management to deliver data-driven insights. Ideal candidates will have 5 years of relevant experience and proficiency in relational database management, SQL, and data warehousing methodologies.

Explore this exciting opportunity and prepare for your interview with the resources available on Interview Query.

Submitting Your Application

The first step is to submit a compelling application that reflects your technical skills and interest in joining AvalonBay Communities as a Data Engineer. Whether you were contacted by an AvalonBay recruiter or have taken the initiative yourself, carefully review the job description and tailor your CV according to the prerequisites.

Tailoring your CV may include identifying specific keywords that the hiring manager might use to filter resumes and crafting a targeted cover letter. Furthermore, don’t forget to highlight relevant skills and mention your work experiences.

Recruiter/Hiring Manager Call Screening

If your CV happens to be among the shortlisted few, a recruiter from the AvalonBay Talent Acquisition Team will make contact and verify key details like your experiences and skill level. Behavioral questions may also be a part of the screening process.

In some cases, the AvalonBay Data Engineer hiring manager stays present during the screening round to answer your queries about the role and the company itself. They may also indulge in surface-level technical and behavioral discussions.

The whole recruiter call should take about 30 minutes.

Technical Virtual Interview

Successfully navigating the recruiter round will present you with an invitation for the technical screening round. Technical screening for the AvalonBay Data Engineer role usually is conducted through virtual means, including video conference and screen sharing. Questions in this 1-hour long interview stage may revolve around AvalonBay’s data systems, ETL pipelines, SQL queries, and cloud technologies (e.g., AWS).

For Data Engineer roles, take-home assignments regarding building ETL processes, data warehousing, and data visualization are incorporated. Your proficiency in Python, cloud-based data technologies, and relational database management may also be assessed during the round.

Depending on the seniority of the position, case studies and similar real-scenario problems may also be assigned.

Onsite Interview Rounds

Followed by a second recruiter call outlining the next stage, you’ll be invited to attend the onsite interview loop. Multiple interview rounds, varying with the role, will be conducted during your day at the AvalonBay office. Your technical prowess, including programming and data modeling capabilities, will be evaluated against the finalized candidates throughout these interviews.

If you were assigned take-home exercises, a presentation round may also await you during the onsite interview for the Data Engineer role at AvalonBay.

Quick Tips For AvalonBay Data Engineer Interviews

• Should contain three tips for interviewing for this specific company based on interview experiences.

Example:

You should plan to brush up on any technical skills and try as many practice interview questions and mock interviews as possible. A few tips for acing your AvalonBay interview include:

• Know Your Data Tools: AvalonBay questions are standardized and rely heavily on your practical experience with data tools. Familiarize yourself with Snowflake, Talend, Power BI, and AWS technologies as they are crucial for the role.
• Be Data Driven: AvalonBay’s data engineering interviews assess how well you can develop and optimize data pipelines. Ensure you are proficient in ETL processes and data warehousing methodologies.
• Embody the Spirit: AvalonBay at its core has a collaborative, customer-focused culture that values innovation. Practice responding to behavioral questions with answers that touch on AvalonBay’s core values of integrity, caring, and continuous improvement.

Typically, interviews at Avalonbay Communities vary by role and team, but commonly Data Engineer interviews follow a fairly standardized process across these question topics.

• Write a SQL query to select the 2nd highest salary in the engineering department. Write a SQL query to select the 2nd highest salary in the engineering department. If more than one person shares the highest salary, the query should select the next highest salary.

• Create a function precision_recall to calculate precision and recall metrics from a 2-D matrix. Given a 2-D matrix P of predicted values and actual values, write a function precision_recall to calculate precision and recall metrics. Return the ordered pair (precision, recall).

• Write a SQL query to select the top 3 departments with at least ten employees and rank them by the percentage of employees making over 100K. Given employees and departments tables, select the top 3 departments with at least ten employees and rank them according to the percentage of their employees making over 100K in salary.

• Develop a function traverse_count to determine the number of paths in an (n \times n) grid. Given an integer (n), write a function traverse_count to determine the number of paths from the top left corner of an (n \times n) grid to the bottom right. You may only move right or down.

• Create a function is_subsequence to check if one string is a subsequence of another. Given two strings, string1 and string2, write a function is_subsequence to find out if string1 is a subsequence of string2. A subsequence can be derived by deleting some elements without changing the order of the remaining elements.

• What considerations should be made when testing hundreds of hypotheses with many t-tests? When testing hundreds of hypotheses using multiple t-tests, consider the risk of Type I errors (false positives) due to multiple comparisons. Implement corrections like the Bonferroni correction or False Discovery Rate (FDR) to control for these errors.

• How does random forest generate the forest and why use it over logistic regression? Explain how random forest generates multiple decision trees and why it might be preferred over logistic regression for certain tasks.

• How do we handle missing square footage data in housing price prediction? You have 100K sold listings with 20% missing square footage data. Describe methods to handle this missing data to construct a predictive model for housing prices in Seattle.

• How would you combat overfitting in tree-based classification models? When training a classification model, particularly tree-based models, explain strategies to prevent overfitting.

• Does increasing the number of trees in a random forest always improve accuracy? Discuss whether sequentially increasing the number of trees in a random forest model will continuously improve its accuracy.

• How to implement k-means clustering in Python from scratch? Given a two-dimensional NumPy array data_points, number of clusters k, and initial centroids initial_centroids, write a Python function to perform k-means clustering and return the cluster assignment for each data point.

• How would you explain what a p-value is to someone who is not technical? Explain the concept of a p-value in simple terms to someone without a technical background. Use analogies or everyday examples to make it understandable.

• What should you do if home prices are skewed to the right in a prediction model? If building a model to predict real estate home prices and the distribution is skewed to the right, should you take any action? If so, what steps should you take? Additionally, address what to do if the target distribution is heavily left-skewed.

What is the average salary for a Data Engineer at Avalonbay Communities?

Q: What makes AvalonBay Communities a unique place to work?
AvalonBay Communities, Inc. is one of the leading Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) in the nation, developing, acquiring, and managing quality apartment communities in high-entry barrier markets across the United States. With around 82,000 apartment homes and approximately 3,000 associates, we emphasize collaboration, innovation, and a strong commitment to creating a better way to live.

Q: What does the Data Engineer position at AvalonBay entail?
The Data Engineer position involves developing Business Intelligence solutions using technologies like Snowflake, Talend, Power BI, and AWS (S3 and Lambda). Responsibilities include designing and implementing digital data analytics, ETL processes, data persistence solutions, and working closely with the Data Science team to implement machine learning models. The role also includes collaborating with senior management to develop data-driven insights and ensuring data governance and quality assurance best practices.

Q: What qualifications are required for the Data Engineer position at AvalonBay?
Candidates should possess a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or a related technical field, along with 5 years of experience in relational database management and SQL. A strong understanding of data warehousing methodologies, data modeling concepts, and experience with Snowflake, Snowpipe, and ETL tools like Talend is preferred. Proficiency in AWS technologies, Python, and data visualization tools such as QuickSight and Power BI is also desired.

Q: What benefits can employees expect at AvalonBay Communities?
AvalonBay offers comprehensive benefits, including health, dental, and vision insurance, a 401(k) plan with company match, paid vacation and holidays, tuition reimbursement, and an employee stock purchase plan. Associates can also benefit from a 20% discount on apartment homes, growth opportunities based on achievement, recognition programs, and a culture built on integrity, caring, and continuous improvement.

Q: How does AvalonBay ensure an inclusive and diverse work environment?
AvalonBay is committed to creating an inclusive and diverse workplace free from discrimination and harassment. The company recruits, develops, and retains associates with varied backgrounds and perspectives, encouraging all voices to be heard and appreciated. As an equal opportunity employer, AvalonBay makes employment decisions without regard to race, ethnicity, color, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, and other protected statuses.

At AvalonBay, we are forging ahead in the realm of Data Analytics, striving to develop the industry's most advanced capabilities. As one of the foremost REITs in the United States, our commitment to innovation, collaboration, and continuous improvement is unwavering. By joining us, you’ll have the unique opportunity to shape cloud-native Data Science and Business Intelligence solutions that drive our mission of creating better living environments. If you want more insights about the company, check out our main AvalonBay Communities Interview Guide, where we have covered many interview questions that could be asked. At Interview Query, we empower you with a comprehensive toolkit to conquer every AvalonBay Data Engineer interview question and challenge. You can check out all our company interview guides for better preparation. Good luck with your interview!