Design a Maps Address Search Bar
Company: Uber
Role: Data Scientist
Category: Analytics & Experimentation
Interview Round: Onsite
Design the search experience for a map application's address bar, similar to the search box in Google Maps.
The system should handle multiple user intents and input types, including:
- Exact street addresses.
- Place or business names.
- Fuzzy matches and partial queries.
- Typographical errors.
- Location-aware results based on the user's current location or map viewport.
- Ranking by relevance, distance, and popularity.
Describe the end-to-end product and data science design. Include candidate generation, ranking, metrics, experimentation, bias and failure modes, and how you would evaluate whether the search bar improves the user experience.
Quick Answer: This question evaluates proficiency in data science and product design for search systems, including query interpretation, candidate generation, relevance and distance-based ranking, typo tolerance, geospatial reasoning, metrics, experimentation, and bias and failure-mode analysis.