Chime Data Scientist Interview Experience — A Schema-less SQL Retention Question in the HM Screen

Chime·Data Scientist·Nov 2025
Technical ScreenHR ScreenRejectedeasy

The first round was just a recruiter screen — they asked roughly about what I'd worked on before.

The second round was the HM screen. They changed the process this year: the first round is now a one-hour session split into two parts, 30 minutes chatting about my background and 30 minutes writing SQL.

Their SQL question was a format I hadn't run into before — they only gave two tables: users and transactions. The prompt didn't even include the schema, so I had to SELECT * myself just to see it, which meant I kept going back and forth checking the schema and it was pretty uncomfortable.

The question was very open-ended: basically "what's the early signal to predict user retention." You had to look at the information the tables gave you, define your own metrics, and then write the query. I spent some time figuring out which metrics to use, which meant I didn't have enough time left to finish writing. The HM also didn't communicate with me at all during the interview, so the whole thing felt pretty uncomfortable. By the time I finished I already felt like I'd definitely failed, and sure enough, a rejection letter came a few days later.

They don't do a take-home anymore. If you pass this round, the next step should be the VO. Good luck everyone.

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Curated and edited by PracHub

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Interview at a glance

Company
Chime
Role
Data Scientist
Rounds
HR Screen → Technical Screen
Outcome
Rejected
Difficulty
easy
Interview date
Nov 2025
Questions from this interview
1 question

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