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Advanced Querying with Structured Query Language Questions

Covers authoring correct, maintainable, and high quality Structured Query Language statements for analytical and transactional problems. Candidates should demonstrate writing Select Insert Update and Delete statements and using filtering grouping ordering and aggregation correctly. Emphasis is on complex query constructs and patterns such as multi table joins and join condition logic self joins for hierarchical data nested and correlated subqueries common table expressions including recursive common table expressions window functions such as row number rank dense rank lag and lead set operations like union and union all and techniques for calculating running totals moving averages cohort metrics and consecutive event detection. Candidates should be able to break down and refactor complex requirements into composable queries for readability and maintainability while reasoning about performance implications on large data sets. Senior expectations may include mentoring on best practices for query composition and understanding how schema and configuration choices influence query performance.

HardTechnical
17 practiced
Given a products bill-of-materials represented by components(parent_id INT, child_id INT, qty INT) and costs table component_costs(component_id INT, unit_cost NUMERIC), write SQL using recursive CTEs to compute the total cost of each top-level product by aggregating child component costs multiplied by quantity along the tree. Discuss cycle detection and performance for deep trees.
EasyTechnical
36 practiced
Describe how to use EXPLAIN and EXPLAIN ANALYZE to investigate a slow SQL query. Which fields in the plan do you inspect (for example cost, actual time, rows, loops) and what do they indicate? Outline a short checklist of steps to find a missing index or bad join order.
MediumTechnical
23 practiced
Using events(user_id INT, event_name TEXT, event_ts TIMESTAMP), write SQL to compute weekly retention for cohorts defined by the user's first event week. Output should include cohort_week, week_offset (0,1,2...), users_retained, cohort_size, and retention_rate. Use CTEs and window functions for clarity and explain assumptions about week boundaries.
HardTechnical
23 practiced
Design SQL merge logic to apply CDC records from multiple heterogeneous sources into a canonical customers table. Sources may have different keys, out-of-order events, and conflicting updates. Provide example MERGE (or multi-step) SQL that ensures idempotency (replay-safe), deterministic conflict resolution (timestamp or source priority), and handles deletes. Explain how you record source metadata for reconciliation.
HardTechnical
25 practiced
Provide a composable SQL approach to compute cohort metrics where cohort membership requires two events (signup and onboarding_completed) that may occur in different sessions. The output should include activation_date, cohort_week, and conversions at 1, 7, and 30 days. Show staged CTEs for activation, event aggregation, and final cohort metrics. Discuss performance considerations and caching intermediate results.

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