Compute most popular location with weights

Quick Overview

This question evaluates a candidate's ability to perform weighted aggregation, data cleaning, tie-breaking logic, and handling of malformed or missing text fields using SQL and/or Python.

Compute most popular location with weights

Company: Microsoft

Role: Software Engineer

Category: Data Manipulation (SQL/Python)

Difficulty: medium

Interview Round: Technical Screen

You are given a dataset of voting records for concert locations. Each record includes voter_id, location_text, and an optional numeric weight (default 1). Write SQL and/or Python to compute the most popular location by total vote weight. Explain how you handle ties, missing or malformed location_text, and verify correctness with a small example. Analyze the time and space complexity of your solution.

Quick Answer: This question evaluates a candidate's ability to perform weighted aggregation, data cleaning, tie-breaking logic, and handling of malformed or missing text fields using SQL and/or Python.

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Sep 6, 2025, 12:00 AM
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You are given a dataset of voting records for concert locations. Each record includes voter_id, location_text, and an optional numeric weight (default 1). Write SQL and/or Python to compute the most popular location by total vote weight. Explain how you handle ties, missing or malformed location_text, and verify correctness with a small example. Analyze the time and space complexity of your solution.

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