Calculate expected value for user retention
Last updated: October 29, 2025
Quick Overview
Given the following scenario about user conversion, calculate the the p-value.
Doordash
October 29, 2025258
5
4,673 solved
Given the following scenario about user conversion, calculate the the p-value.
Analytics questions at Doordash evaluate your ability to define metrics, design experiments, and derive actionable insights from data. This Phone Screen question tests your end-to-end analytical thinking.
What the Interviewer Expects
- Design complex experimentation strategies for tricky scenarios
- Handle multi-armed bandits, switchback experiments, and quasi-experiments
- Address long-term effects vs short-term metrics
- Propose causal inference methods when randomization is not possible
- Build a measurement framework that connects metrics to business value
- Discuss organizational experimentation culture and maturity
Key Topics to Cover
How to Approach This
- Define success metrics carefully. A good metric is measurable, actionable, and aligned with business goals.
- Run experiments long enough to account for novelty effects and weekly seasonality.
- Use funnel analysis to identify where users drop off for maximum optimization impact.
- Segment results by key dimensions (platform, country, user cohort) to catch hidden patterns.
- Consider network effects and interference between treatment and control groups.
Possible Follow-up Questions
- What if the experiment shows a positive short-term effect but you suspect a negative long-term impact?
- How would you handle seasonality in your experiment?
- How would you handle interference between treatment and control?
- What would you do if a stakeholder wants to end the experiment early because initial results look good?
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Browse Analytics QuestionsSample Answer
Problem Setup
To calculate the expected value for user retention at DoorDash, we need to define our analytical question: What is the expected value of retaining a user compared to losing them?
The data requir...
Methodology
To compute the expected value, we'll use a funnel analysis approach, which involves calculating the p-value to determine if the observed retention rates are statistically significant. We'll co...