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Diagnose Causes and Test Hypotheses for Metric Drop

Last updated: Mar 29, 2026

Quick Overview

This question evaluates diagnostic analytics, causal reasoning, instrumentation and data-quality troubleshooting skills along with practical experiment design and statistical power considerations for a Data Scientist role in the Analytics & Experimentation domain.

  • medium
  • Amazon
  • Analytics & Experimentation
  • Data Scientist

Diagnose Causes and Test Hypotheses for Metric Drop

Company: Amazon

Role: Data Scientist

Category: Analytics & Experimentation

Difficulty: medium

Interview Round: Technical Screen

##### Scenario The product’s key metric suddenly drops. Stakeholders want a structured diagnosis and experiment plan. ##### Question List plausible causes for the performance drop, describe analyses you would run to validate each cause, and design an A/B test to confirm the main hypothesis. Which primary and guardrail metrics would you track and why? ##### Hints Think segmentation, funnel breakouts, external factors, and metric hierarchy (north-star vs. health).

Quick Answer: This question evaluates diagnostic analytics, causal reasoning, instrumentation and data-quality troubleshooting skills along with practical experiment design and statistical power considerations for a Data Scientist role in the Analytics & Experimentation domain.

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Amazon logo
Amazon
Jul 12, 2025, 6:59 PM
Data Scientist
Technical Screen
Analytics & Experimentation
36
0

Scenario

A large consumer web/mobile product sees its key business metric drop materially and suddenly.

Assume: The sitewide purchase conversion rate fell by 12% relative (e.g., 10.0% → 8.8%) starting Tuesday 10:00 AM and persisting for several days.

Task

  1. List plausible causes for the performance drop.
  2. For each cause, describe specific analyses you would run to validate or falsify it (be concrete about cuts, comparisons, and supporting logs/metadata).
  3. Choose your main hypothesis and design an A/B test to confirm it, including:
    • Hypothesis and treatment/control design
    • Randomization unit and exposure
    • Sample size, duration, and analysis plan
  4. Specify primary and guardrail metrics you would track and why.

Hints

  • Use segmentation (e.g., device, geo, channel, app version), funnel breakouts, external factors, and a metric hierarchy (north-star vs. input vs. health).
  • Consider data quality and release/flag timelines alongside user behavior.

Solution

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