Case Study Prompts

Use these prompts to simulate senior analytics interviews.

Rules:

• state assumptions explicitly
• define success metrics
• include one risk and mitigation per design choice

1. Your dashboard KPIs disagree with finance totals. How do you isolate root cause?
2. You must migrate SQL Server KPI logic to BigQuery in 8 weeks. What is your plan?
3. Retention dropped 15% month-over-month. What data checks and analyses do you run first?
4. A star schema query is too slow at peak traffic. What changes do you try in order?

Use this starter query to triage KPI disagreement between dashboard and finance.

The goal is to separate gross revenue, returns, and net revenue at monthly grain.

• correctness of reasoning (35%)
• clarity of assumptions (25%)
• prioritization under constraints (20%)
• risk awareness and rollback planning (20%)

For each prompt, structure your answer as:

1. Problem framing and assumptions
2. Immediate validation checks
3. Proposed SQL/modeling approach
4. Tradeoffs and risks
5. Rollback or mitigation plan