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Interpreting confidence intervals to choose a treatment

Last updated: Mar 29, 2026

Quick Overview

This question evaluates a data scientist's ability to interpret confidence intervals, assess statistical significance and uncertainty, and incorporate business risk tolerance into experiment-based decisions.

  • medium
  • Meta
  • Analytics & Experimentation
  • Data Scientist

Interpreting confidence intervals to choose a treatment

Company: Meta

Role: Data Scientist

Category: Analytics & Experimentation

Difficulty: medium

Interview Round: Onsite

Scenario: Three feed‑ranking tweaks have negative engagement effects with known 95 % CIs. Interpret intervals, assess risk, and pick a launch candidate. ​ Question: Treatments yield CIs: -5(-7.5,-2. 5), -15(-17,- 13), -12(-28,- 4). Interpret and choose which to launch. (Hint: statistical significance, business threshold)

Quick Answer: This question evaluates a data scientist's ability to interpret confidence intervals, assess statistical significance and uncertainty, and incorporate business risk tolerance into experiment-based decisions.

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Meta
Jul 12, 2025, 6:59 PM
Data Scientist
Onsite
Analytics & Experimentation
11
0

Feed-Ranking Tweaks: Interpret 95% CIs and Choose a Launch Candidate

Context

You ran online experiments for three feed-ranking tweaks. The primary metric is percent change in engagement vs. control (negative = worse). For each treatment, you have a 95% confidence interval (CI) for the treatment effect. Leadership wants a recommendation that weighs statistical significance and business risk tolerance ("business threshold" for acceptable short-term loss).

Assumption: Effects are percentage-point changes in engagement; 95% CIs are already adjusted for multiplicity/peeking where relevant.

Data

  • Treatment A: −5% (95% CI: [−7.5%, −2.5%])
  • Treatment B: −15% (95% CI: [−17%, −13%])
  • Treatment C: −12% (95% CI: [−28%, −4%])

Task

  1. Interpret each CI (significance, magnitude, uncertainty).
  2. Assess risk vs. an acceptable business threshold for short-term engagement loss.
  3. Choose which (if any) to launch and justify the decision.

Solution

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