Calculate variance for A/B test results

Last updated: July 2, 2025

Quick Overview

Given the following scenario about revenue per session, calculate the the p-value.

Zillow
Analytics & Experimentation
Data Scientist
Zillow
July 2, 2025
Data Scientist
Technical Screen
Analytics & Experimentation
Easy

3

5

2,064 solved


Given the following scenario about revenue per session, calculate the the p-value.

Zillow asks this during the Technical Screen to assess your experimentation skills. They want to see how you define success metrics, design controlled experiments, and interpret results with appropriate statistical rigor.

What the Interviewer Expects
  • Define clear success metrics aligned with business goals
  • Propose a basic experimental design with control and treatment groups
  • Interpret results correctly and draw reasonable conclusions
  • Identify obvious confounding variables
Key Topics to Cover
Sample size and power calculation
Network effects and interference
A/B testing methodology
Segmentation and heterogeneous effects
Novelty and primacy effects
How to Approach This
  1. Define success metrics carefully. A good metric is measurable, actionable, and aligned with business goals.
  2. Run experiments long enough to account for novelty effects and weekly seasonality.
  3. Use funnel analysis to identify where users drop off for maximum optimization impact.
  4. Segment results by key dimensions (platform, country, user cohort) to catch hidden patterns.
  5. Consider network effects and interference between treatment and control groups.
Possible Follow-up Questions
  • What if you discover a bug in the logging during the experiment?
  • How would you handle an experiment where the control and treatment groups are different sizes?
  • How would you handle seasonality in your experiment?
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