Draper is an independent, nonprofit research and development company headquartered in Cambridge, MA. With over 2,000 employees, Draper addresses crucial national challenges, delivering practical solutions that span military defense, space exploration, and biomedical engineering. Recognized for its innovative environment, Draper offers robust work-life balance programs and values diversity and inclusion among its workforce.

The Data Engineer position at Draper within the Data Architecture and Development group involves architecting and building Data-as-a-Service solutions. This role focuses on data modeling, pipeline development, and modern database technologies. Candidates should possess effective communication skills and the ability to adapt and multi-task in a dynamic setting. If you're keen on contributing to cutting-edge solutions in a collaborative team, this role awaits your expertise.

This guide by Interview Query will navigate you through Draper’s interview process, offering key insights and tips to help you prepare effectively. Let’s dive in!

Submitting Your Application

The first step is to submit a compelling application that reflects your technical skills and interest in joining Draper as a Data Engineer. Whether you were contacted by a Draper 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 Draper 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 Draper Data Engineering 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 Draper 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 Draper’s data systems, ETL pipelines, and SQL queries.

In the case of data engineering roles, take-home assignments regarding data modeling, pipeline development, and data optimization processes may be incorporated. Apart from these, your proficiency against coding best practices, data manipulation, and visualization may also be assessed during the round.

Depending on the seniority of the position, complex problem-solving scenarios and case studies 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 Draper office. Your technical prowess, including programming and data engineering 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 Draper.

Quick Tips For Draper Data Engineer Interviews

• Familiarize with Draper’s Work Domains: Understand Draper’s involvement in defense, space exploration, biomedical engineering, etc. Tailor your answers to reflect how your skills could contribute to these areas.

• Brush Up on Technical Skills: Data engineering at Draper includes ETL workflows, database management, and data visualization. Practice these concepts through platforms like Interview Query to cement your understanding.

• Prepare for Behavioral Questions: Draper values effective communication and team collaboration. Be ready to discuss past team projects and how you handled complex technical challenges while maintaining clear communication.

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

• Identify all duplicate values in a list of integers. Given a list of integers, identify all the duplicate values in the list. Assume that the list can contain both positive and negative numbers, and the order of the list does not matter. A number is considered a duplicate if it appears more than once in the list. Return a list of the duplicate numbers.

• Select the five most expensive projects by budget to employee count ratio. Write a query to account for duplicate rows in the employee_projects table and select the top five most expensive projects by budget to employee count ratio.

• Create a subquery or common table expression to find the top 3 ads by popularity. Create a subquery or common table expression named top_ads containing the top 3 ads (by popularity) and return the number of rows that would result from various join operations with the ads table.

• Find employees who joined before their manager. Given two tables, employees and managers, find the names of all employees who joined before their manager.

• Write a function to rotate a matrix by 90 degrees clockwise. Given an array filled with random values, write a function rotate_matrix to rotate the array by 90 degrees in the clockwise direction.

• How do we select the best 10,000 customers for a pre-launch of a new show on Amazon Prime Video? You are working as a data scientist at Amazon Prime Video, and they want to test the launch of a new show on 10,000 customers first. How would you go about selecting the best 10,000 customers for the pre-launch?

• What would the process look like for pre-launching the TV show on Amazon Prime to measure its performance? Describe the steps and metrics you would use to pre-launch the TV show on Amazon Prime and measure its performance.

• How would you evaluate the results of an A/B test on an eCommerce checkout page for free shipping? You ran an A/B test on an eCommerce checkout page to see if surfacing free shipping increases conversions. The control group had no specification of free shipping, while the experiment group did. How would you evaluate the results and determine if the test was successful?

• How would you conduct an experiment to test displaying ETA as a range instead of a direct estimate at Uber? A PM at Uber is considering a new feature to display ETA as a range (e.g., 3-7 minutes) instead of a direct estimate (e.g., 5 minutes). How would you conduct this experiment and determine if the results are significant?

• How would you decide whether Google should build a game feature for Google Home? You are tasked with pitching a new feature for Google Home. A co-worker suggests building a game feature. How would you go about deciding whether Google should build it?

• How would you measure the effectiveness of giving extra pay to delivery drivers during peak hours at a food delivery company? You work at a food delivery company and need to measure the effectiveness of giving extra pay to delivery drivers during peak hours to meet consumer demand. How would you measure this?

• What is the difference between Logistic and Linear Regression? When would you use one instead of the other? Explain the key differences between Logistic and Linear Regression. Describe scenarios where each method is more appropriate to use in practice.

• 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 is the difference between Logistic and Linear Regression? When would you use one instead of the other in practice? Describe the key differences between Logistic and Linear Regression. Provide practical scenarios where each type of regression would be appropriately applied.

What is the average salary for a Data Engineer at Draper?

Q: What is Draper and what do they specialize in?

A: Draper is an independent, nonprofit research and development company based in Cambridge, MA. With over 2,000 employees, Draper tackles critical national challenges across a range of domains including military defense, space exploration, and biomedical engineering.

Q: What does the Data Engineer position at Draper involve?

A: The Data Engineer role at Draper involves developing unique and creative solutions to complex system-level problems. You'll work on data modeling, database technologies, data pipelines, and model-based engineering applications. The team focuses on building Data-as-a-Service solutions, ensuring data quality, protection, and availability.

Q: What qualifications do I need to apply for the Data Engineer position?

A: You need a B.S. degree or higher in fields like Computer Science, Data Science, or Engineering. Additionally, 2+ years of experience in data engineering principles, proficiency in programming languages like Python or Java, and a strong understanding of best practices in coding and data manipulation are required.

Q: What perks and benefits does Draper offer to its employees?

A: Draper supports work-life balance through flexible work arrangements, employee clubs, health and finance workshops, off-site social events, and discounts to local cultural activities. They promote continuous learning and professional growth among their employees.

Q: How does Draper support diversity and inclusion?

A: Draper is committed to creating a diverse environment and is an affirmative action and equal opportunity employer. They value diversity and its impact on high-performance culture, ensuring all qualified applicants receive consideration without discrimination.

If you want more insights about the company, check out our main Draper Interview Guide, where we have covered many interview questions that could be asked. We’ve also created interview guides for other roles, such as software engineer and data analyst, where you can learn more about Draper’s interview process for different positions.

At Interview Query, we empower you to unlock your interview prowess with a comprehensive toolkit, equipping you with the knowledge, confidence, and strategic guidance to conquer every Draper machine learning engineer interview question and challenge.

You can check out all our company interview guides for better preparation, and if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to reach out to us.

Good luck with your interview!