How would you handle a situation where a colleague was being very difficult to work with?

"In all honesty, any great work atmosphere that I've been a part of in the past has involved conflict between colleagues. In situations I have witnessed, conflict has stemmed from very open-minded people giving their two cents in particular situations and two people not seeing eye to eye. This happened recently to me in the planning phases of a new project. On of our UX Designers and I had a disagreement on the final layout of a new software roll out we were planning. It worked best for both of us to talk about our ideas and list the pro's and con's for our ideas. I kept an open mind to learn from her point of view and she did the same to me on my end. This led us to come up with a great compromise in the end."

In the team based atmosphere at Credit Karma, departments with different skills and backgrounds can often see things from different points of view and these situations can cause some internal conflict between coworkers. With this question, your interviewer is looking to hear how you handle situations where you are working with someone that can be seen as difficult. To give them the sense that you are able to work through conflict in a professional and sensible manner, try to talk through how you handled a conflict at work previously in the past and highlight the interpersonal skills that you used to help make it a positive situation.

"Last year, we had a new engineer join our team that was hired on from his internship with us. From his first day, he made it very evident that he would only handle certain tasks within our team and only work on certain projects. As his mentor to help get him up and running, I sat him down and discussed the expectations of each of our engineers as part of our larger team. I explained to him that our approach was not to pigeonhole ourselves into smaller tasks, but rather be well rounded engineers that could handle any project and be able to cover for each other if needed. He really appreciated this approach when I explained the benefits for his long term career goals with this approach. This example shows my approach to being very direct with people that I have a conflict with in the workplace and doing so in a very professional and educational manner."

A huge part of our business here at Credit Karma is designing software for iOS. In this role, how would you steer away from retain cycles when using closures in Swift programming language?

"Because ARC handles most of the memory knowledge in Swift, I know ARC is prone to memory leaking and this can cause major issues in apps over time. The fix that I've used in my career to avoid retain cycles is using weak references in my coding."

This question allows your interviewer to assess your technical knowledge and skills in designing apps for iOS products in a very simple way. To successfully answer it, make sure that you can speak knowledgeably about the swift programming language and using closures to capture and store references within the software. To piece together everything for your interviewer, give a clear understanding of why retain cycles must be avoided in your processing.

Talk about a time when things didn't go as planned on the job. What was the situation and what allowed your to persevere in that situation?

"A couple of years ago in my first role as a UI designer out of college, my team was tasked with coming up with a very short notice proposal for a potential high end customer. With a week turnaround time, I set right to spending my time gathering information on the company to build a mock design. When the proposal was submitted, I found out that the potential customer scoffed at my idea and the customer went with another organization's proposal for their use. The biggest piece of feedback that I got was that the UI design just wasn't conducive to the type of customers they were expecting. From that point forward, whether it has been with short notice or long-term products, I take the time to communicate with key decision makers from clients to gather information for making my design as user friendly as possible."

As a professional in the tech industry, you have likely had a project that failed, a promotion that passed you over or a meltdown occur at some point in time. Realizing that your interviewer fully understands and expects that failure happens, talk openly and honestly about a situation where you experienced failure or failed plans. Most importantly in your answer, focus on how you overcame the particular situation and discuss lessons that you learned moving forward that you can bring to this role at Credit Karma.

"Last year, I was working on a large scale project that put me face to face with a key customer. After traveling onsite with the customer to spend time with them, I exchanged contact information with two of the key decision makers. In the weeks following, I was sending them follow up emails with our business proposals and was getting frustrated at the lack of response from the clients. After my manager had questioned the viability of the potential customer, I picked up the phone and called them directly. It turns out that their responses back to me were being sent to a junk email folder that I neglected to consider. I apologized for the mistake, took action quickly and we came to a great agreement on future business together. After having a laugh about it with my boss, I now incorporate diligent communication follow ups both by phone and email with customers while also regularly checking all email inboxes."

Talk about your previous user interface design experience in detail. Why do you feel that this experience will translate well to this role with Credit Karma?

"Ten years into my career out of college, I consider myself very blessed to have such a well rounded background in user interface design. I have experience designing cutting edge mobile app designs, website design, video game design and software design. Here at Credit Karma, your education software would greatly benefit from my creative designs to be user friendly and appealing to educators, parents and students and I'd love to bring these skills to work for you."

While your interviewer can get a good sense of your experience from your resume, they are looking for you to talk in details about your experiences in UI design in your previous work. While explaining your previous experience, be sure to highlight the skills that you developed that will help you be successful in designing new products with Credit Karma. Prior to your interview, be sure you research and are family with the products that Credit Karma puts out.

"While my experience in user interface design has really focused on web design over the past five years, I think my current skill set will benefit the team here at Credit Karma greatly. In my web design, I prepare mockups and wireframes for customers and have experience utilizing a lot of different resources in doing these. In the software world, I would love to use these same principles. As well, my web experience has really driven me to be user focused. In this role, a more user focused drive is required out of your user interface design and I would be able to bring that to the team here."

Do you have any unique skills or past work experiences that we can't see on your resume that would benefit the team here at Credit Karma?

"In my current role as a data engineer, I have gotten the opportunity over the last five years to work with clients in many industries. One of the industries that I've worked most closely with has been the private insurance industry. This experience and my gaining of insider knowledge in the insurance industry would benefit me greatly if brought aboard the team here at Credit Karma."

This question is providing you the opportunity to potentially set yourself apart from your competition for this position. To do just that, it will be important for you to make sure that the unique skill or experience that you discuss matches with a critical need for Credit Karma and the position that you are interviewing for. Whether you talk about a unique skill or experience, your research on this job will prove vital in your ability to make sure that it impresses your interviewer.

What is one unique personality trait you possess that would help you be successful in this role with Credit Karma?

"From what my parents have told me about me as a young child, passion has been a personality trait that has driven me my whole life. When I tackle something in life, I need to be passionate about it for it to be a success. From my time as a young child up to today, I have been passionate about physical fitness and this has driven me to participate in running and biking races across the country. This same passion in the pursuit of excellence has translated into my career as a software engineer. From tinkering with computer hardware at a young age and learning the internal components of a system to learning how to create and design software, you'll quickly find that my passion to engineer the most unique software here at Credit Karma will be extremely beneficial to your team."

This question is allowing you to have the floor during your interview to wow your interviewer with something they might not know about you yet from your resume or time so far during the interview. Think about a strong, unique trait that you have that has led to prior success in your field and explain in detail how this will help further you in your career with Credit Karma. If possible, be very unique in your answer to draw a direct line between your personality and success in this role.

"I would have to say that my humility has been instrumental in getting me to where I am at today in my career. Having worked with one of the largest software companies in the world, egos were certainly high with a lot of my teammates and I have always used my humility to let my work do my talking for me while remaining a friendly and curious colleague to all."

As a machine learning engineer, how do you avoid the curse of dimensionality in your designs?

"A common example that I use with people to explain complications in dimensionality is dropping a pin on a 10 foot straight line. This would be relatively simple to find. Next, if you dropped the pin in a 10 foot by 10 foot square, the task of finding the pin becomes more difficult. Adding a third dimension to make a 10 foot cubed area makes it all the more difficult to find the pin if placed within it. In bringing this back to machine learning, my job is to somehow make the three dimensional field that the machine will pull from easier to pull from. Last year, I was part of a team that developed a system for pulling public health data. We were able to set many variance thresholds that removed values that didn't change much from observation to observation. After careful testing, the system was able to pull information quickly and accurately based on these thresholds."

To effectively answer this question, it is important to first understand what dimensionality means in reference to machine learning and how it can curse a project. As the number of features increases in comparison to the number of observations within a data set, some algorithms struggle in pulling correct data. Your job on this question is to talk about ways that you can avoid the curse in your designs. Some possible things that you may mention and describe are feature selection, correlation thresholds and variance thresholds.

"As you can see from my resume, I've spent the last six years working in the electronics industry. Most of my machine learning work has focused audio data. To avoid the curse of dimensionality within the systems I've designed, autoencoders have been tremendous in pulling information. While a great amount of time and effort was needed to effectively train the systems, the work was well worth it in the end."

What do you consider to be a good litmus test for when you would automate a test process for a new system versus testing manually?

"Having been in automation in both manufacturing for many years and now software for the last three years, a common misconception among people is that automation can help improve any situation and that couldn't be further from the truth. The amount of time, effort and resources that goes into an automation process makes it ideal for repetitive tasks and tests that have multiple data sets. If a testing process calls for unique and one time process, it would make the most sense to run that process manually."

As your role with Credit Karma will look to help further their automate testing processes for new systems, you will need to have a good sense for when automation makes sense and when it does not. Reiterate your sense for this to your interviewer by sticking to the high level response that repetitive tasks, as are common with large software companies, are prime candidates for automation whereas one time test cases are not.

"I"n my current position, most of the automation testing that I design is in program sanity testing. These automated tests work great because they run on similar systems following changes in code to ensure that no bugs remain in the system. If our group of engineers are working on unique, one off type projects, my automation processes are not utilized."

What data cleaning methods are you familiar with and comfortable using if hired for this role at Credit Karma?

"In my current work, I use a very methodical fashion in cleaning data for finished systems. My first step is to remove duplicate and irrelevant observations within the data. Then I scan the data to remove extra spaces, convert numbers stored as text into numbers and remove duplicate data. These steps help ensure clean and accurate data and I never overlook them. If hired for this position, what methods does the current data analyst team her at Credit Karma utilize?"

To improve data quality and increase overall productivity of a system, Credit Karma relies on their data analysts to use data cleansing methods to ensure quality data exists in their software. Be open and honest with the ways that you've helped ensure quality and accurate data in the systems that you've worked with while also showing that you have an open mind to learning and utilizing more methods if hired for this position.

"I am familiar with many methods used in the cleansing of data. The initial monitoring of errors within a system is very important to identifying where errors occur and give insight into how to fix corrupt data. I have utilized the tools within Domo software to validate data accuracy and scrub for duplicate data in my processes as well. Being very proficient in data analysis, I'm very open to learning new methods as well if hired for this position."

In SQL, how do you explain the differences between clustered and non-clustered indexes? Can you name a time that you used each?

"In the simplest of terms, a clustered index order records in a table the way that they are physically stored. There can only be one clustered index per table. Non-clustered indexes do not store data to match the physical order that it is stored. Rather, it can hold up to 249 indexes per table. Both types come with their own benefits over the other. In my experience, clustered indexes are suited best for programs that use primary key as an identity integer column. On the other hand, non-clustered make the most sense for programs that need JOIN and WHERE clauses within them."

Credit Karma uses indexes to improve query performances within their software and for this question, your interviewer is looking to hear that you have a basic understanding of both clustered and non-clustered indexes. Explain the differences between the two types of indexes and be sure you can either speak to relevant times that you've used each or when would be the appropriate application to use each.

"In my experience, clustered indexes are faster to read but very slow when it comes to update data within. Non-clustered indexes are just the opposite in that they are slower to read but much fast to insert new data into them. In my current role, I mostly use clustered indexes when large numbers of rows need to be retreived and when insert operations are important. Most other times, I will use non-clustered as the standard."

What unique values can you bring to Credit Karma in your user experience design skills?

"I have really taken pride in my ability to add value to the business needs of the customers that I work with. During any design project, I take the time to work with end users to find their wants and needs out of the program. Then, as I create the UX design, I keep their needs at the forefront and do anything possible to exceed their expectations."

While your interviewer has shown confidence in your technical abilities to succeed at Credit Karma as a UX designer, this question is helping them gain insight into your ability to see the big picture in the work that you do. As you think about the unique personal values that you would bring to the role, try and paint a picture of your work tying to the end user and how you can help make it more productive, enjoyable and satisfying for them.

"As you can see from my resume, I have formal training and experience in user experience research and I know that this would benefit the work that I would be doing here at Credit Karma if hired for this position. I pursued this additional training in my career because of my passion for the customer journey in the programs that I design."

At Credit Karma we value organization. Tell us about a time when you were particularly effective on prioritizing tasks and completing a project on schedule.

"Last week I was asked to lead our team while our manager was away. I created a checklist of things that needed to be completed to reach our deadlines. I gathered the team to discuss our goals and asked for input and ideas to get us there. It was a great experience for me because not only was I able to exercise my leadership capabilities; I was also able to learn more about prioritizing, from my team."

An interviewer needs to hear that you have a plan in place to keep yourself organized. Start off by mentioning that you are typically an organized person. From here, dive into a recent time-consuming project that you were involved with. You might say, 'I recently was involved with a project that required 30 hours of my time in a two week period while I was also in the middle of several other projects.' Tell the interviewer that you started off by ensuring you had your schedule mapped out before you dove into your workload. Discuss if you made a to-do list, updated your calendar, or created a color-coded agenda. Share whatever organization method worked for you! Next, tell the interviewer how you prioritized the work. You may share that each day you sat down to determine the urgent needs for that day and marked them with a letter A. Perhaps you identified anything that would be nice to get done that day with a letter B. And, maybe you just left everything else that could wait for another day unmarked. Tell the interviewer how you diligently stuck with this plan for the duration of the project and how it allowed you to complete the project on time without any stress successfully.

Here at Credit Karma, we ask our test engineers to follow specific QA protocols. What role do you feel QA plays in software development and testing?

"As a test engineer, I take great pride in my role of ensuring that systems go out to consumers as error free as possible. In my current role, I take the time to learn all of the system specifications that are laid out by our design engineers and customize my testing to follow those specifications."

As an experience software testing engineer, quality assurance should be ingrained in your brain and your interviewer is looking to get a sense of your personal feelings towards it in your work with this question. In your answer, be sure to highlight QA's importance in reducing errors, maintaining specifications, testing failure parameters and preventing defects from occurring. In the end, make sure that quality is your mantra in the eyes of your interviewer by giving an example or two of how you put QA in the forefront of your work.

"In my work throughout my career, quality assurance in my testing was an every minute of every day job on my part. While creating effective testing processes on new software is extremely important in following QA protocols, the recording of defects, issuing of reports and assisting the designers on fixing issues are equally important parts of the process that I'd love to let shine here at Credit Karma."

At Credit Karma we take pride in our ability to stay one step ahead of our competitors. How will you contribute to this trend?

"I believe the best way to stay ahead of your competitors is to pay a big amount of attention to the fine details. When you put out a great product, others will try to mimic your work, but they will cut corners because they will feel rushed to get it out on the marketplace first. I will contribute to the success of Credit Karma by committing my most attentive work to you every day."

It is critical that you research Credit Karma and their most vigorous competitors, before your interview. What does Credit Karma do best, and who is trying to do it better? Speak openly with the interviewer about your ability to work competitively and how you plan to contribute to their continued success.

"I think that the best way to stay ahead of competitors is to keep your projects as simple as possible while remaining innovative. People want simple, easy products, which they can understand. What I've seen from my competitors lately is that they overcomplicate their products. I offer clean and consistent work that your buyers would relate to."

Give an example of a time that you used a universal design practice in your work as a UI or UX designer. Why was it important to do this?

"From a very high level, the business success of a program really relies on being universally designed. If we pigeon hole ourselves, a product will only reach a very limited group of end users. But taking that a step further, universal design is the morally right thing to do to help reach people that may not have access to the average program design. Last year, I was part of a project that utilized a voice user interface for users that were deaf or hard of hearing. This simple yet effective design was a huge win for our current customers and in helping drive new business with our groundbreaking software."

In the technology, software and mobile app fields today, accessibility is a huge topic. As a designer with Credit Karma, you will be expected to help create products that are as accessible as possible to as many end users as possible. In this two part question, talk about why you feel that universal design is important in the work that you will be doing with Credit Karma and then really sell your ability to do this by giving an example of a time you used a universal design in your previous work.

"Early in my career, the best piece of advice that I receive was from an experience designer and she said that when UX doesn't consider all potential users, we are no longer working on the user experience. We live in a very diverse world and the programs that I've designed for in the past have certainly had the goal to reach a wide audience. With your financial products here at Credit Karma, this same philosophy applies. Last year, based on some feedback from current customers, we switched our design to include a strong color contract to make the system much more user friendly to color blind users. This was both a simple and very effective change to enhance the look of the program."

What do you think you will like about this role with Credit Karma?

"I look forward to helping companies by analyzing data that will help them make solid decisions surrounding their digital future."

The interviewer wants to hear what you are looking forward to learning and experiencing in this new position. Talk about what excites you! Share how this position will challenge you and help you grow. New opportunities are a chance for you to demonstrate your skills.

"I am looking forward to getting more experience in UI, and feel that Credit Karma is the best place for me. You have a great reputation for creating beautiful and easy to use products."

If you can, please provide your thoughts on the function of managed object context in developing iOS apps and software.

"In my current work, I work with both main queue and private queue manged object contexts. It is important that I avoid non user related data processing on the main queue of an app that I am developing. In times where this has happened in the past, the user interface becomes unresponsive and crashes. As well, I work to avoid instances passing between the main and private queues to avoid corruption of data within the app."

While the core data framework and the managed object context may seem pretty easy to comprehend and simple from a first look, a deeper look into managed object context shows that it can be misused to the point where obscure bugs can enter the system. Give your interviewer your own personal insight into the purpose of managed object context and how it works behind the scenes to help an app properly run.

"Knowing that a managed object context's job is to manage a number of records within an app, my job is to successfully manage each object within the app and assign it to a correlating context within the app. I have to consider the persistent store coordinator and code the app to fetch requests from the correct one."

What do you feel is one of the top issues that is faced by data engineers today?

"Over the past couple of years, I've come to realize that one of the largest issues we face as data engineers is the large amounts of data that are needed to store and then draw information from. Here at Credit Karma, I can only imagine how big of an issue that is in the healthcare industry. I have a lot of experience with cloud based data storage and also server based storage."

Being in the midst of the greatest technological revolution in the history of man, data engineers face many difficult issues in the work that they perform on a daily basis. While there are many directions that you can go with this question, be sure to focus your answer on something that you can speak passionately about. If you can research a common issue in the industry that Credit Karma works in, you may likely score some bonus points with your interviewer.

"In my recent experiences, continuous, real-time integration is an issue that we will face each and every day moving forward. The need for fast paced information is certainly to blame for this. To stay on top of the continuous integration landscape, I am happy to hear that new and improved systems are being created to stay more real-time and up to the minute. Here at Credit Karma and working in the financial industry, how have you seen this need for real-time data impact your products?"

What skills do you use to cope with the day to day stress and pressure on the job?

"Where many others get overtaken by stress to the point that they can't function in this field, high pressure situations sharpen my focus and that helps me work through them with ease. Last year, I was assigned a high priority, short notice project for a high profile customer. My manager gave it to me because of my proven success in those situations. From the start, I created a timeline for completion and mapped out a plan to make it happen. While staying in communication with my leaders and the client, I was able to create a great system update in just a few short weeks."

In modern technology industries, consumer demand has led to high volume of work and high pressure situations to work on tight deadlines. To prove that you are able to handle high stress, high pressure situations on the job, your interviewer is looking to hear first hand how you handle this type of environment in your own words. As you answer the question, try to turn potential perceived stress into a positive by highlighting your personal skills that enable you to perform well in those situations. If possible, try to use specific examples in your answer.

"I am confident in high stress work situations because of my ability to adapt, communicate and be organized in my work. These skills came in very useful a few weeks ago when our support staff were experiencing an extremely high volume of help desk calls. My adaptability helped me go with the flow and handle items on at a time. My communication skills enabled me to quickly and efficiently call on needed support. My organization skills helped me be prepared for anything on that day and enabled me to work through tickets in a quick and efficient manner."

In your experience in software testing, would you consider yourself proficient in both testing and debugging processes?

"Yes, I definitely would consider myself proficient in both testing and debugging software. My current role that I've held for four years since graduating from college has exposed me to both processes. In testing, I use known conditions and predefined methods to test for expected outcomes to find errors within the system. I utilize testing prior to new software rollouts. The debugging process happens to already released software that has had issues and comes with unknown conditions and unpredictable outcomes. In this process, my goal is to find the cause of the error to fix it efficiently and effectively to roll an updated program back out to end users."

As a reputable provider of software, Credit Karma relies on their software testing engineers to both test and debug their products when necessary. Make your interviewer aware that you are knowledgeable on both processes by briefly explaining each process as you've worked on them in the past. Then, talk about your openness to working both testing and debugging processes if hired for this position.

"While a majority of my career has been focused on software testing, I am very familiar with debugging processes as well. If hired for this position, I would take the time to focus on debugging processes to bring myself up to speed while being able to hit the ground running on testing processes."

How do you ensure that you have a healthy work-life balance in your career?

"As I am passionate about my career as a UX designer, I am also passionate about my family. Any moments outside of work are spent coaching my kids traveling baseball teams in the summer months and then spending as many weekends as possible on the ski slopes. These activities help keep me active, physically fit and keep my mind centered on what it truly important in my life when work weeks get stressful."

In the fast paced world in software and technology development, heavy work loads and potential on-call duties have created a lot of burnout in professionals. Your interviewer is looking to hear that you are cognizant of the risks of burnout and that you do what is necessary to maintain your own personal health and well being and that of your family as well. While you can use this time to talk about personal interests or hobbies outside of work, try to focus on how these items help keep you refreshed for the work that you'll be doing for Credit Karma.

"Having watched many of my senior colleagues over time suffer from work burnout that has caused marital issues and health issues, I make it a priority to maintain a healthy balance between my work and my home life. My free time is spent in the outdoors with my wife, whether that be on the lakes and rivers fishing or biking around town. I consider myself fortunate to be considered for a position here at Credit Karma because I know that you put a focus on your employees maintaining this healthy balance because the organization realizes how important this is to be productive."

If hired here at Credit Karma to develop iOS and Android software, when would you use a fragment rather than an activity?

"As a best practice in my development of Android apps in the past, activities are really the complete screen that a user experiences as part of the app. Fragments are really small sub activities that take place within the activity. Because fragments within an app have their own life cycle and receive their own input events within the app, there are specific times where fragments make the most sense to use in development. In my experience, I always use fragments when the app is working with UI components that are going to be uses across multiple activities within the app. As well, fragments have also served very well when using swipe views within the app."

In the development of apps for both iOS and Android, using code to create an activity versus a fragment is a highly debated topic to this day. For this question, your interviewer is looking to hear that you understand what the differences between the two are and when you feel that using a fragment is the proper direction to go. Make sure to speak to the high level overview of what an activity does to an app versus fragments.

"In the past year, I honestly don't recall designing a new app that ran solely on an activity alone. The fragments are almost necessary today to bring life to an app. I use retained fragments to persist across activity restarts within the app and this helps make a user friendly experience for our end users."

If hired here at Credit Karma, what do you feel would be the biggest hurdle for you to overcome from the start?

"As you can see from my resume, I don't have any direct working experience with the financial industry and I would see that as my largest learning opportunity if offered this position. Like I did with my current job in the healthcare industry, I would take the time to learn the basics of the industry that would help me design the most intuitive user interfaces in the products here at Credit Karma."

The key to answering this question with confidence starts with understanding that you are interviewing with Credit Karma because your interviewer feels that you are a strong candidate for this position. What your interviewer is focusing on with this question is how they could be of most help to you if hired for the job. So, take the time prior to your interview to think about an aspect of the position that would be the most difficult for you to overcome to be up and running at full speed and then take time to explain how you would plan to overcome that hurdle if hired. This structured answer will tell your interviewer that you have put thought to your potential shortcoming with a plan of action.

"Being a team player by nature, I've always considered my first challenge at any new company to be the task of getting to know my colleagues, their work preferences and their work styles. In the same breath, I want them to know who I am and how I best work as part of a team with them. To accomplish this, I would take the initiative to set one on one meetings with individuals that I didn't get to touch base with during my orientation process to get to know them better."

How do you feel artificial intelligence could further our business here at Credit Karma?

"Where I see artificial intelligence greatly impacting social media more in the future is through marketing and support from advertisers. In my current role, I've designed AI to spot popular search trends on our platform and this has enabled our sponsors to create creative and focused marketing campaigns to our users. If hired here at Credit Karma, I would love to continue this focus on AI seeking out popular trends with users."

As an AI engineering expert, you know that AI is now being utilized across many businesses and industries with great success. For this question, your interviewer is expecting that you have done your homework on Credit Karma and hopefully can be an outside the box thinker in coming up with new and creative solutions for their customers. Be sure that you do your research on the software systems that Credit Karma produces and think of creative ways that you can help benefit them.

"As you can see from my resume, I have vast amounts of experience in the financial and banking industries and I think this experience would transition nicely to a role here at Credit Karma. As you are probably seeing with your software here for the industry, the need to reach customers that are banking electronically is a very high need. The days of stopping by the corner bank are now a thing of the past. If hired for this role, I would love to help design chat bots and robotic help for customers. I have a vast amount of experience in designing and training chat bots in the industry and would love the bring that experience here."

In your current work, what are the important steps you take in the data validation process?

"As I embark on a data validation process in my current role, my first step is to roadmap a detailed plan to keep on task. I utilize benchmarks and the expectations of key stakeholders as my guide. Once underway, I validate the database and the data formatting to ensure that data is properly screened for its overall health. Then, by finishing with sampling, tests are performed to hopefully show that the data is useful within the system."

Depending on your training and your past roles prior to interviewing at Credit Karma, you may be familiar with one or two of the many trains of though regarding the steps of a data validation. Whatever formal process you are familiar with, be sure to check the boxes of discussing data screening and data verification as part of your process. Your interviewer will be looking to hear that you check those boxes as they are imperative in the software field.

"The most important steps in a data validation process are determining the data to sample, scouring the existing database and validating the final data format. My first step is to use my best judgment to determine if I will validate a sample or the entire data set. This determination is based on overall size of the set and the timeframe that I have to work on the project. Then, I take the time to screen data in the existing database to calculate the number of unique ID's and records to come into the system. Last, I have to verify that the source data matches the schema within the targe"

How do you stay organized and on track when working on multiple projects or duties at the same time?

"With any project that I am working on, I make sure to set benchmarks to meet deadlines ahead of time and set early personal deadlines to allow for some wiggle room. To do this, I am a proponent of using the Microsoft Outlook calendar and tasks functions to help keep me organized. I find that this method helps me stay on track with multiple projects while also leaving me wiggle room each day to fight the high needs fires that do come up in this job."

In this role with Credit Karma, you will likely be expected to manage multiple projects at the same time. Your ability to plan, manage deadlines and handle high needs items that come up on a regular basis will be essential to your success in this role and your interviewer is looking to hear how you plan for success. Whether you utilize an electronic tool or a written list, there are no right or wrong answers as long as you can prove in your answer that this method works out great for you.

"For me to stay on track, I make sure to take ten minutes at the end of each day to recap what was accomplished, what new came up on my task list and re-prioritizing my work for the next day. Then, upon arriving the next day and working through emails from the previous evening, I can adjust my task list for the day if needed. I tend to set aside two hours per day to work on long-term project needs while focusing a majority of my time on the short-term needs."

What is one thing that really tests your patience when dealing with your coworkers?

"As a person that values diversity and differences of opinion in the workplace, there aren't many things that grind my personal gears when it comes to my colleagues. The only real true test of my patience is a coworker that doesn't pull their weight in a team effort. When I've been in this situation in the past, I first seek to learn if the issue is a lack of training or knowledge. If it is, I take the necessary steps to help my colleague get on track. But if I find that it is due to a lack of effort, I talk to the person immediately in a professional manner. The sum is only as good as the effort of all of its parts and a team efforts requires everyone's maximum effort."

While on the surface this question may seem like your interviewer is trying to get you to talk negatively about a situation, it is really more of a test to see what can potentially drive you crazy on the job in a team atmosphere and how you handle those situations. In your answer, be honest about your pet peeves when it comes to coworkers and do so in a positive light. Then, expand on your answer by talking about how you handle those situations."As a person that values diversity and differences of opinion in the workplace, there aren't many things that grind my personal gears when it comes to my colleagues. The only real true test of my patience is a coworker that doesn't pull their weight in a team effort. When I've been in this situation in the past, I first seek to learn if the issue is a lack of training or knowledge. If it is, I take the necessary steps to help my colleague get on track. But if I find that it is due to a lack of effort, I talk to the person immediately in a professional manner. The sum is only as good as the effort of all of its parts and a team efforts requires everyone's maximum effort."

"Having been raised in a rural farm setting, I have always been a stickler for being on time and holding meetings to set lengths of time. While watching people show up late for meetings has bothered me internally because of how I am wired, I don't let it bother me on the exterior. We are all very busy in our lines of work and showing up a few minutes late is only normal from time to time."

If you were confronted with a time where you wouldn't be able to meet a deadline here at Credit Karma, what steps would you take when you made that realization?

"In my current position, I am very used to handling multiple tasks and projects on a day to day basis. Last year, my team was tasked with what started as a low priority project. After assembling a team to initially discuss the details and set a deadline for completion with our management, the project unfortunately fell off the radar of everyone on the team with many more high priority projects coming up each week. As the initial project's deadline was within a week of being due, our CEO reached out to me for a progress report. I immediately took full responsibility for letting this fall off the radar and I ensured our CEO that we would have an updated timeline set by the end of the week. In doing this and completing the project to his satisfaction, this was really the tipping point in our department moving forward utilizing a detailed project management tracking system. To this day, I can't say enough about how appreciative I am about utilizing this awesome system. Moving forward, you can rest assured knowing that I take full accountability for my actions and do what is necessary to communicate new expectations and meet them fully."

At some point in any person's career, the inevitable happens and an important deadline needs to be missed. With your interviewer fully understanding this fact, they are solely interested in how you react to this situation and what you do to make the situation right. In your answer, focus on the refocused planning and communication needed while also avoiding blaming others for the situation. Your interviewer holds accountability as a desirable virtue, so be sure to take accountability for actions in your response.

"Having been in this situation before, I would first sit down to gather all the facts possible in the situation. What was the deadline, why wasn't it met and what can be done are all important questions moving forward. From there, communicating to all key parties is extremely important and doing so in a timely manner is critical. In this communication, taking accountability and setting new expectations for delivery in a concise and tactful manner will most often put stakeholders at ease and allow for successful completion."

Credit Karma Interview Questions

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1. How would you handle a situation where a colleague was being very difficult to work with?
2. A huge part of our business here at Credit Karma is designing software for iOS. In this role, how would you steer away from retain cycles when using closures in Swift programming language?
3. Talk about a time when things didn't go as planned on the job. What was the situation and what allowed your to persevere in that situation?
4. Talk about your previous user interface design experience in detail. Why do you feel that this experience will translate well to this role with Credit Karma?
5. Do you have any unique skills or past work experiences that we can't see on your resume that would benefit the team here at Credit Karma?
6. What is one unique personality trait you possess that would help you be successful in this role with Credit Karma?
7. As a machine learning engineer, how do you avoid the curse of dimensionality in your designs?
8. What do you consider to be a good litmus test for when you would automate a test process for a new system versus testing manually?
9. What data cleaning methods are you familiar with and comfortable using if hired for this role at Credit Karma?
10. In SQL, how do you explain the differences between clustered and non-clustered indexes? Can you name a time that you used each?
11. What unique values can you bring to Credit Karma in your user experience design skills?
12. At Credit Karma we value organization. Tell us about a time when you were particularly effective on prioritizing tasks and completing a project on schedule.
13. Here at Credit Karma, we ask our test engineers to follow specific QA protocols. What role do you feel QA plays in software development and testing?
14. At Credit Karma we take pride in our ability to stay one step ahead of our competitors. How will you contribute to this trend?
15. Give an example of a time that you used a universal design practice in your work as a UI or UX designer. Why was it important to do this?
16. What do you think you will like about this role with Credit Karma?
17. If you can, please provide your thoughts on the function of managed object context in developing iOS apps and software.
18. What do you feel is one of the top issues that is faced by data engineers today?
19. What skills do you use to cope with the day to day stress and pressure on the job?
20. In your experience in software testing, would you consider yourself proficient in both testing and debugging processes?
21. How do you ensure that you have a healthy work-life balance in your career?
22. If hired here at Credit Karma to develop iOS and Android software, when would you use a fragment rather than an activity?
23. If hired here at Credit Karma, what do you feel would be the biggest hurdle for you to overcome from the start?
24. How do you feel artificial intelligence could further our business here at Credit Karma?
25. In your current work, what are the important steps you take in the data validation process?
26. How do you stay organized and on track when working on multiple projects or duties at the same time?
27. What is one thing that really tests your patience when dealing with your coworkers?
28. If you were confronted with a time where you wouldn't be able to meet a deadline here at Credit Karma, what steps would you take when you made that realization?

Credit Karma Interview Questions

1. How would you handle a situation where a colleague was being very difficult to work with?

2. A huge part of our business here at Credit Karma is designing software for iOS. In this role, how would you steer away from retain cycles when using closures in Swift programming language?

3. Talk about a time when things didn't go as planned on the job. What was the situation and what allowed your to persevere in that situation?

4. Talk about your previous user interface design experience in detail. Why do you feel that this experience will translate well to this role with Credit Karma?

5. Do you have any unique skills or past work experiences that we can't see on your resume that would benefit the team here at Credit Karma?

6. What is one unique personality trait you possess that would help you be successful in this role with Credit Karma?

7. As a machine learning engineer, how do you avoid the curse of dimensionality in your designs?

8. What do you consider to be a good litmus test for when you would automate a test process for a new system versus testing manually?

9. What data cleaning methods are you familiar with and comfortable using if hired for this role at Credit Karma?

10. In SQL, how do you explain the differences between clustered and non-clustered indexes? Can you name a time that you used each?

11. What unique values can you bring to Credit Karma in your user experience design skills?

12. At Credit Karma we value organization. Tell us about a time when you were particularly effective on prioritizing tasks and completing a project on schedule.

13. Here at Credit Karma, we ask our test engineers to follow specific QA protocols. What role do you feel QA plays in software development and testing?

14. At Credit Karma we take pride in our ability to stay one step ahead of our competitors. How will you contribute to this trend?

15. Give an example of a time that you used a universal design practice in your work as a UI or UX designer. Why was it important to do this?

16. What do you think you will like about this role with Credit Karma?

17. If you can, please provide your thoughts on the function of managed object context in developing iOS apps and software.

18. What do you feel is one of the top issues that is faced by data engineers today?

19. What skills do you use to cope with the day to day stress and pressure on the job?

20. In your experience in software testing, would you consider yourself proficient in both testing and debugging processes?

21. How do you ensure that you have a healthy work-life balance in your career?

22. If hired here at Credit Karma to develop iOS and Android software, when would you use a fragment rather than an activity?

23. If hired here at Credit Karma, what do you feel would be the biggest hurdle for you to overcome from the start?

24. How do you feel artificial intelligence could further our business here at Credit Karma?

25. In your current work, what are the important steps you take in the data validation process?

26. How do you stay organized and on track when working on multiple projects or duties at the same time?

27. What is one thing that really tests your patience when dealing with your coworkers?

28. If you were confronted with a time where you wouldn't be able to meet a deadline here at Credit Karma, what steps would you take when you made that realization?