SQL Interview Questions

Q: What are the most common SQL interview questions?

The most common SQL interview questions test JOINs (INNER, LEFT, RIGHT), window functions (ROW_NUMBER, RANK, LAG/LEAD), aggregations (GROUP BY, HAVING), CTEs and subqueries, and CASE WHEN statements. Companies like Meta, Google, and Amazon frequently ask about deduplication, top-N per group, and funnel analysis patterns.

Q: How should I prepare for SQL interviews at FAANG companies?

Focus on mastering window functions, complex JOINs, and CTEs. Practice 50-100 Medium difficulty problems, timing yourself to solve each in 15-20 minutes. Learn company-specific patterns: Meta emphasizes metrics and user behavior analysis, Amazon tests data aggregation and reporting, Google focuses on analytical thinking with SQL. Practice explaining your thought process out loud.

Q: What difficulty level should I practice for SQL interviews?

Start with Easy problems to build confidence and master fundamentals. Focus 70% of your time on Medium difficulty, which represents most real interview questions. Practice Hard problems if interviewing for senior roles (L5+) or companies known for difficult technical screens like Meta or Google. Aim to solve Medium problems in 15-20 minutes.

Q: Are SQL interviews the same for Data Scientists and Data Analysts?

Both roles are tested on SQL fundamentals, but with different emphasis. Data Scientists face more complex analytical queries involving statistical calculations, user cohorts, and A/B testing analysis. Data Analysts are tested more on reporting queries, business metrics, and dashboard-ready outputs. Data Scientists typically get 1-2 harder SQL problems, while Analysts may get 2-3 medium problems in the same time.

Q: Can I use online resources during SQL interviews?

Most companies (Meta, Google, Amazon, Netflix) do NOT allow internet access during SQL interviews. You're expected to write queries in shared editors like CoderPad without running them. Exceptions include Robinhood and DoorDash which allow searching, but relying on search wastes valuable time. Practice writing syntactically correct SQL without auto-complete or execution.

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SQL Interview Questions

SQL Interview Questions

All SQL Questions

Analyze Mission Outcomes and Allocate Response Units

Analyze Returning Borrowers Across Two Days of Logs

Measure Customers Ordering from Bottom-Quartile Restaurants

Find Each User's Earliest Seven-Day Activity Streak

Calculate the Monthly Share of High-Frequency Customers

Implement and Evaluate Pin Similarity in Python

Find Monthly Top Customers Excluding High-Frequency Users

Describe How You Use SQL in Data Science Work

Calculate Monthly Restaurant Sales Growth

Analyze a Regression Dataset and Build a Safe File-Processing Utility

Describe Your Analysis and Visualization Toolkit

Analyze User Ride Activity with SQL

Find A Low-Quality Annotator From Label Data

Compare Survey Satisfaction for New and Established Users

Answer SQL And Data Warehouse Fundamentals For A Data Engineering Interview

Compute Company Suggestion Funnels

Implement a Safe Average Function in Python

Debug ML pipeline and build text parser

Monthly Cohort Retention

Analyze member video posting behavior by country

Transform and aggregate messy event data

Top 5 Most Efficient Vehicle Models

Debug and harden trial-assignment Python code

Write SQL window functions for D7 retention

Calculate Daily Survey Response Rates by Country

Query US-based users and most active forums

Build a Gap-Free Monthly Booking Summary

Analyze Pirated Theme Usage

Train and analyze a classifier

Implement vectorized NumPy ops and explain broadcasting

Calculate CTR and ad revenue

Compute Heavy-Caller Percentages

Analyze Thirty-Day Ad Performance with SQL

Implement a robust Python generator

Debug row loss after SQL joins

Compute a Seven-Day Rolling Average

Solve SQL and Python OA tasks

Implement paginated API ingestion

Compute a Rolling Seven-Day Revenue Sum with Missing Dates

Compute signup rate and retention from raw logs

Compute Fitness App DAU

Query Top Played Tracks Globally And By Country

Write SQL for repeat churn

Implement robust word counts and min/max

Clean scores and return top 5 students

Handle repeated churn in SQL

Campaign Efficiency Metrics and Below-Average CTR

Find the Highest-Paid Employee in Each Department

Query departments and top earners

Measure Daily Late-Order Rates by Delivery Zone

How to Prepare for SQL Interviews

Master the Core Concepts

Common Patterns You'll See

Practice with Real Company Questions