Generate Synthetic Clickstream Data with Python Function
Company: Amazon
Role: Data Scientist
Category: Coding & Algorithms
Difficulty: Medium
Interview Round: Technical Screen
##### Scenario
The analytics team needs to generate synthetic click-stream records to test a new reporting pipeline before real traffic arrives.
##### Question
Write a Python function simulate_clickstream(num_users: int, days: int) that returns a Pandas DataFrame of simulated events with columns [user_id, event_ts, page, clicked]. Events should be timestamped within the past <days> days, each user should visit 1–10 random pages per day, and click probability is 0.15.
##### Hints
Use numpy.random for page counts and probabilities; build a list of dicts, then convert to DataFrame.
Quick Answer: This question evaluates a candidate's ability to implement synthetic data generation and probabilistic event simulation in Python using libraries like pandas and numpy, emphasizing timestamp handling, random sampling, and feature engineering for clickstream records.
