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

Tuning with hyperparameters

Hyperparameter tuning is the process of systematically searching for and selecting the optimal values for the hyperparameters of a machine learning model. Unlike model parameters, which are learned from data during training, hyperparameters are determined by the practitioner and define characteristics such as the complexity of the model, the learning rate, regularization strength, and more. The goal of hyperparameter tuning is to identify the hyperparameter values that lead to the best possible model performance on unseen data.

Hyperparameter tuning involves experimenting with different values for each hyperparameter and evaluating the model’s performance using appropriate evaluation metrics, often on a validation set. This process can be guided by different strategies, such as grid search, random search, or more advanced techniques such as Bayesian optimization.

Grid search

Grid search is a systematic approach to hyperparameter tuning. It...