11 AbbVie SQL Interview Questions (Updated 2024)
AbbVie use SQL for analyzing clinical trial data, allowing them to assess the safety and effectiveness of new treatments. They also optimize database performance for rapid bioinformatics processing, ensuring that researchers can quickly access and analyze the data they need, that is the reason why AbbVie asks SQL coding questions in interviews for Data Science, Analytics, and Data Engineering jobs.
As such, to help you practice for the AbbVie SQL interview, here's 11 AbbVie SQL interview questions in this article.
11 AbbVie SQL Interview Questions
SQL Question 1: Analyze Medication Sales Records
Given two tables and , write a SQL query that will give the total sales and percentage change in sales from the previous quarter of each drug.
The table is structured as follows:
| sale_id | drug_code | sale_date | units_sold | revenue |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | AB101 | 2021-01-15 | 100 | 1500 |
| 2 | AB102 | 2021-01-21 | 150 | 2450 |
| 3 | AB101 | 2021-03-22 | 120 | 1800 |
| 4 | AB102 | 2021-02-14 | 200 | 3300 |
| 5 | AB101 | 2021-04-01 | 150 | 2250 |
The table details each medication sold, formatted in this way:
| drug_code | drug_name |
|---|---|
| AB101 | Drug A |
| AB102 | Drug B |
Answer:
Here's how you can construct the PostgreSQL query. First, note that you can extract the quarter from a date using the function. The window function will help to access the previous row in the ordered dataset.
This query first groups the sales table by drug, year, and quarter to calculate the total sales for each drug in each quarter. Then, for each drug, it calculates the percent change in total sales compared to the previous quarter. To prevent division by zero, the function is used.
For more window function practice, solve this Uber SQL problem on DataLemur's online SQL coding environment:
Explore how AbbVie is leveraging advanced technologies to accelerate scientific innovation and improve patient outcomes! Understanding their approach can provide valuable insights into the future of healthcare and the role of technology in driving medical advancements.
SQL Question 2: Department Salaries
You're given a table of AbbVie employee and department salaries. Write a SQL query to find departments where the departments average salary is higher than the company's average salary.
Write a SQL query for this interview question and run your code right in DataLemur's online SQL environment:
The answer is LONG – 30+ lines of SQL. You can find a detailed solution with hints here: Department vs. Company Salary.
SQL Question 3: How does and differ?
The clause is used to filter the groups created by the clause. It's similar to the clause, but it is used to specify conditions on the groups created by the clause, rather than on the individual rows of the table.
For example, say you were analyzing salaries for analytics employees at AbbVie:
This query retrieves the total salary for each Analytics department at AbbVie and groups the rows by the specific department (i.e. "Marketing Analytics", "Business Analytics", "Sales Analytics" teams).
The clause then filters the groups to include only AbbVie departments where the total salary is greater than $1 million.
SQL Question 4: Filter AbbVie Customer Records
Given an table that contains all orders made by AbbVie customers, write an SQL query to filter out the records of customers in the 'APAC' region who have ordered in the last 30 days and their total order revenue is greater than 5000.
The table is structured as follows:
Example Input:
| order_id | customer_id | order_date | region | product_id | quantity | unit_price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 7298 | 290 | 09/10/2022 | EMEA | 10011 | 50 | 20 |
| 5729 | 145 | 09/15/2022 | APAC | 10012 | 100 | 35 |
| 3751 | 340 | 09/20/2022 | APAC | 10013 | 30 | 100 |
| 8230 | 451 | 09/25/2022 | AMERICAS | 10011 | 40 | 20 |
| 9074 | 932 | 08/30/2022 | APAC | 10012 | 180 | 55 |
Your task is to return a table with columns , .
Answer:
This query first filters the table where the is in the last 30 days and the is 'APAC'. Then it groups the remaining records by and calculates the for each . Finally, it uses the clause to only include groups where .
SQL Question 5: In SQL, are blank spaces the same as a NULL?
A NULL value represents a missing or unknown value. It is different from a zero or a blank space, which are actual values. It is important to handle NULL values properly in SQL because they can cause unexpected results if not treated correctly.
SQL Question 6: Calculate the Click-through-Rate (CTR) for AbbVie's Digital Ads.
You are a data analyst at AbbVie, a pharmaceutical company. Your marketing team has been running several digital ads on various platforms. They want to understand the effectiveness of these ads in terms of user engagement. You are tasked to track the click-through-rates for these ads.
For this scenario, we'll use two tables - and
The table has the following schema:
Example Input:
| ad_id | date | platform |
|---|---|---|
| 101 | 2022-08-01 | |
| 102 | 2022-08-02 | |
| 103 | 2022-08-03 | |
| 104 | 2022-08-04 | |
| 105 | 2022-08-05 |
The table, on the other hand, records every click made on the ads:
Example Input:
| click_id | ad_id | user_id | date |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 101 | 234 | 2022-08-01 |
| 2 | 101 | 578 | 2022-08-01 |
| 3 | 102 | 1029 | 2022-08-02 |
| 4 | 102 | 456 | 2022-08-02 |
| 5 | 103 | 722 | 2022-08-03 |
The marketing team wants an output that shows the total clicks per ad and the click-through rate. The click-through rate (CTR) is calculated as .
Example Output:
| ad_id | platform | total_clicks | CTR |
|---|---|---|---|
| 101 | 2 | 200.00 | |
| 102 | 2 | 200.00 | |
| 103 | 1 | 100.00 | |
| 104 | 0 | 0.00 | |
| 105 | 0 | 0.00 |
Answer:
You can use a LEFT JOIN to combine the two tables and a Group By clause to aggregate the clicks per ad. Here's a likely SQL query:
This query first joins the and tables, counting the number of clicks each ad receives. It then calculates the click-through rate by dividing the number of clicks by the number of ads, thus providing the marketing team with insights into each ad's performance.
To practice another question about calculating rates, solve this TikTok SQL Interview Question on DataLemur's interactive coding environment:
SQL Question 7: What's the difference between and ?
is used to combine the output of multiple statements into one big result!
Suppose you were a Data Analyst at AbbVie working on a Sales Analytics project, and had data on sales leads from both the company's Salesforce CRM and it's legacy Hubspot CRM. To write a query to analyze leads created before 2023 started, across both CRMs, you could use in the following way:
filters out duplicates, so each email/job title/company only shows up once (even if it's in both Salesforce and HubSpot CRMs).
On the other hand, the operator does NOT filter out duplicates, so if a lead shows up in both CRMs, it'll be listed twice in the output of .
SQL Question 8: Calculate the Average Quantity Sold per Month
As a data analyst at AbbVie, a global, research-driven biopharmaceutical company, you are asked to produce a monthly report that details the average quantity of each drug sold per month. The company aims to use this data to identify trends in medicine sales and efficiently manage their inventory.
You have access to a table with the following columns:
- (unique identifier for each sale)
- (date the sale was made)
- (unique identifier for each drug)
- (quantity of the drug sold in this sale)
Example Input:
| sale_id | sale_date | drug_id | quantity |
|---|---|---|---|
| 101 | 02/01/2022 | 201 | 5 |
| 102 | 02/03/2022 | 202 | 2 |
| 103 | 02/05/2022 | 201 | 3 |
| 104 | 03/01/2022 | 203 | 4 |
| 105 | 03/05/2022 | 202 | 1 |
Your task is to write an SQL query to calculate the average quantity of each drug sold per month.
Answer:
Example Output:
| month | drug_id | avg_quantity |
|---|---|---|
| 2 | 201 | 4 |
| 2 | 202 | 2 |
| 3 | 202 | 1 |
| 3 | 203 | 4 |
This query first extracts the month portion from the using the function. Then it groups the data by both the month and to find the average quantity of each drug sold per month, which is calculated using the aggregate function on the column. The output results in a table indicating the month, the and the average quantity sold for that particular drug for that month.
SQL Question 9: Filtering Patient Data for AbbVie
As a database analyst for AbbVie, a global, research-based biopharmaceutical company, you are given a database of customer records. Each record tracks the patient's id, name, medication they are on, the start date of the medication, and the doctor's comments about the patient. Your task is to extract the records of all patients whose doctor's comments contain the string 'liver' as AbbVie is launching a new drug for liver diseases and would like to study the profiles of such patients.
Please note that patient names and doctor's comments are case-sensitive. For this task, assume that the string 'liver' will appear in lowercase in the doctor's comments
Example Input:
| patient_id | name | medication_start_date | doctor_comments |
|---|---|---|---|
| 101 | John Doe | 2021-01-01 | Patient has diabetes |
| 102 | Jane Smith | 2020-12-12 | Minor liver problems detected |
| 103 | Tom Brown | 2021-03-03 | High risk of liver disease |
| 104 | Mary Johnson | 2021-07-07 | Patient in early stages of Alzheimer's |
| 105 | Robert Williams | 2021-09-09 | No known health issues |
Answer:
This query filters out the rows in the table where the doctor's comments contain the substring 'liver'. The wildcard character is used on both sides of 'liver' to select any string that has 'liver' anywhere in the text.
When executed on the provided sample data, this query should return the records for Jane Smith and Tom Brown.
SQL Question 10: What do foreign key's do?
A foreign key is a column or group of columns in a table that refers to the primary key in another table. The foreign key constraint helps maintain referential integrity between the two tables. The table with the foreign key is called the child table, while the table with the candidate key is called the parent or referenced table.
For example, consider a database with two tables: and . The Customers table might have a primary key column called , while the AbbVie orders table might have a foreign key column called that references the column in AbbVie customers table.
SQL Question 11: Analyzing Customer and Product Data
As a data scientist at AbbVie, you are given access to two tables: and . The table includes information about each customer including their , , and . The table contains the details of each purchase such as , , , , and .
You are required to write a SQL query that lists the total quantity of each product bought by each customer in each location.
Example Input:
| cust_id | name | location |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | John | Chicago |
| 2 | Smith | New York |
| 3 | Paul | Los Angeles |
| 4 | Mike | Chicago |
Example Input:
| purchase_id | cust_id | product_id | quantity | purchase_date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 | A | 15 | 06/08/2022 |
| 2 | 2 | B | 10 | 06/10/2022 |
| 3 | 1 | B | 20 | 06/12/2022 |
| 4 | 3 | A | 10 | 06/15/2022 |
| 5 | 4 | A | 5 | 06/18/2022 |
Answer:
In this query, we first join the table with the table on . Then we group by and to get the total quantity of each product bought by customers in each city. The final result will have three columns: , , and .
Because joins come up so often during SQL interviews, take a stab at this interactive Snapchat SQL Interview question using JOINS:
Preparing For The AbbVie SQL Interview
The best way to prepare for a AbbVie SQL interview is to practice, practice, practice. Besides solving the earlier AbbVie SQL interview questions, you should also solve the 200+ DataLemur SQL Interview Questions which come from companies like Meta, Google and healthcare and pharmaceutical companies like AbbVie.
Each SQL question has multiple hints, fully explained answers along with a discussion board to see how others solved it and crucially, there is an online SQL code editor so you can easily right in the browser your query and have it executed.
To prep for the AbbVie SQL interview you can also be a great idea to practice SQL problems from other healthcare and pharmaceutical companies like:
- HCA Healthcare SQL questions
- Pfizer SQL questions
- Humana SQL questions
- Johnson & Johnson SQL questions
But if your SQL coding skills are weak, forget about going right into solving questions – improve your SQL foundations with this SQL tutorial for Data Scientists & Analysts.
This tutorial covers things like creating summary stats with GROUP BY and sorting data with ORDER BY – both of these come up routinely in AbbVie interviews.
AbbVie Data Science Interview Tips
What Do AbbVie Data Science Interviews Cover?
Beyond writing SQL queries, the other topics tested in the AbbVie Data Science Interview include:
- AB Testing Questions
- Python or R Programming Questions
- Product Data Science Interview Questions
- ML Interview Questions
- Behavioral Based Interview Questions
How To Prepare for AbbVie Data Science Interviews?
I think the best way to prepare for AbbVie Data Science interviews is to read the book Ace the Data Science Interview.
It has 201 data interview questions taken from Facebook, Google & startups. The book's also got a crash course on SQL, Product-Sense & ML. And finally it's helped thousands of people land their dream job in data, which is how it's gotten to be an Amazon best-seller with over 1000+ 5-star reviews.
While the book is more technical, it's also key to prepare for the AbbVie behavioral interview. Start by understanding the company's cultural values.