Estimate Redesign Impact Using Propensity Score Matching

Quick Overview

Estimate Redesign Impact Using Propensity Score Matching evaluates metric design, causal reasoning, experiment setup, diagnostics, SQL/statistical checks, and recommendations in a realistic interview setting. A strong answer states assumptions, handles edge cases, explains trade-offs, and shows how to validate the result clearly.

Estimate Redesign Impact Using Propensity Score Matching

Company: LinkedIn

Role: Data Scientist

Category: Analytics & Experimentation

Difficulty: medium

Interview Round: Onsite

##### Scenario A mobile app is redesigned, but the new version is only adopted by users who choose to upgrade; the team needs to measure performance impact. ##### Question Without a forced A/B test, how would you estimate the causal impact of the redesign? How would you define comparable treatment and control groups of ‘new-version’ and ‘old-version’ users? Which user features beyond engagement/behavior would you include to ensure similarity? What statistical or causal-inference methods would you apply, and how would you validate assumptions? ##### Hints Discuss propensity scores, matching, weighting, diff-in-diff, covariate balance checks, sensitivity analyses.

Quick Answer: Estimate Redesign Impact Using Propensity Score Matching evaluates metric design, causal reasoning, experiment setup, diagnostics, SQL/statistical checks, and recommendations in a realistic interview setting. A strong answer states assumptions, handles edge cases, explains trade-offs, and shows how to validate the result clearly.

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Aug 4, 2025, 10:55 AM
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Estimate Redesign Impact Using Propensity Score Matching

Scenario

A mobile app has been redesigned. Adoption is voluntary: users choose to upgrade to the new version over time. The team needs to estimate the redesign's causal impact on key outcomes (e.g., engagement, retention, revenue) without a forced A/B test.

Task

Design an observational causal-inference approach to estimate the impact of the redesign. Address the following:

  1. Defining Groups
  • How will you define comparable treatment (new-version) and control (old-version) users and the time windows for analysis?
  1. Covariates
  • Which user features beyond engagement/behavior will you include to improve similarity between groups?
  1. Methods
  • Which statistical/causal methods will you apply (e.g., propensity scores, matching/weighting, difference-in-differences, event studies), and why?
  1. Assumption Checks and Validation
  • How will you check covariate balance, validate identifying assumptions (e.g., parallel trends), and run sensitivity analyses for unobserved confounding?
  1. Robustness
  • How will you handle issues like staggered adoption, attrition/churn, potential interference/spillovers, metric instrumentation changes, and heterogeneous effects?

Clarifying Questions to Ask Guidance

  • Clarify the business objective, unit of analysis, time window, exposure definition, and primary metric.
  • State assumptions about instrumentation, randomization, sample size, and data quality.
  • Separate descriptive analysis from causal claims.

What a Strong Answer Covers Guidance

  • A metric framework with primary, guardrail, and diagnostic metrics.
  • A credible analysis or experiment design with clear assumptions and bias checks.
  • SQL/statistical logic for segmentation, variance, confidence, and data validation where relevant.
  • An actionable recommendation that explains trade-offs and next steps.

Follow-up Questions Guidance

  • What sanity checks would you run before trusting the result?
  • How would you handle novelty effects, seasonality, or selection bias?
  • What decision would you make if metrics disagree?
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