Join messages and orders to find churn rate
Last updated: February 10, 2026
Quick Overview
Write a query joining messages and users to produce the combined churn rate.
Roblox
Data Manipulation (SQL/Python)
Data Scientist
Roblox
February 10, 2026Data Scientist
Onsite
Data Manipulation (SQL/Python)
Medium
47
7
733 solved
Write a query joining messages and users to produce the combined churn rate.
This question from Roblox's Onsite tests practical data skills. The interviewer wants to see clean, efficient queries that handle edge cases like NULLs, duplicates, and large datasets.
What the Interviewer Expects
- Use advanced SQL features: window functions, CTEs, subqueries
- Write efficient queries that avoid common performance pitfalls
- Handle complex data transformations with multiple joins and aggregations
- Discuss indexing strategy and query optimization
- Address data quality issues: duplicates, missing values, outliers
Key Topics to Cover
Date/time manipulation
Window functions (ROW_NUMBER, RANK, LAG, LEAD)
Common Table Expressions (CTEs)
NULL handling and COALESCE
How to Approach This
- Clarify the schema and expected output format before writing queries.
- Use CTEs (WITH clauses) to break complex queries into readable steps.
- Consider window functions (ROW_NUMBER, RANK, LAG, LEAD) for ranking and sequential analysis.
- Watch for NULLs, duplicates, and edge cases in JOINs and GROUP BY.
- For pandas, prefer vectorized operations over row-by-row iteration.
Possible Follow-up Questions
- What would you do if this query needs to run every 5 minutes?
- What indexes would you create to support this query?
- How would you handle slowly changing dimensions in this scenario?
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Practice SQL ProblemsSample Answer
Problem Understanding
In this problem, we are tasked with calculating the churn rate of users based on their messaging activity and order history. The data involved includes:
- Messages Table: Contains records of mess...
Approach
We will follow this step-by-step strategy:
- Identify Active Users: Use the
messagesandorderstables to find users who have interacted within the last 30 days. - Identify Churned Users...
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