Book Image

Cracking the Data Science Interview

By : Leondra R. Gonzalez, Aaren Stubberfield
Book Image

Cracking the Data Science Interview

By: Leondra R. Gonzalez, Aaren Stubberfield

Overview of this book

The data science job market is saturated with professionals of all backgrounds, including academics, researchers, bootcampers, and Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) graduates. This poses a challenge for companies seeking the best person to fill their roles. At the heart of this selection process is the data science interview, a crucial juncture that determines the best fit for both the candidate and the company. Cracking the Data Science Interview provides expert guidance on approaching the interview process with full preparation and confidence. Starting with an introduction to the modern data science landscape, you’ll find tips on job hunting, resume writing, and creating a top-notch portfolio. You’ll then advance to topics such as Python, SQL databases, Git, and productivity with shell scripting and Bash. Building on this foundation, you'll delve into the fundamentals of statistics, laying the groundwork for pre-modeling concepts, machine learning, deep learning, and generative AI. The book concludes by offering insights into how best to prepare for the intensive data science interview. By the end of this interview guide, you’ll have gained the confidence, business acumen, and technical skills required to distinguish yourself within this competitive landscape and land your next data science job.
Table of Contents (21 chapters)
Free Chapter
1
Part 1: Breaking into the Data Science Field
4
Part 2: Manipulating and Managing Data
10
Part 3: Exploring Artificial Intelligence
16
Part 4: Getting the Job

Reducing the dimensionality

In this section, we will explore the concept of dimensionality reduction, a critical technique in machine learning and data analysis that aims to reduce the number of features or variables in a dataset while preserving essential information. High-dimensional datasets often suffer from the “curse of dimensionality,” leading to increased computational complexity and potential overfitting. Dimensionality reduction methods help to transform data into a lower-dimensional space, enabling easier visualization, improved model performance, and enhanced interpretability.

Here, we will delve into various dimensionality reduction techniques, and their applications, and provide code examples in Python to implement them effectively.

Principal component analysis

Principal Component Analysis (PCA) is a widely used linear dimensionality reduction technique that projects data onto orthogonal axes to capture the maximum variance in the first principal...