11 Icahn Enterprises SQL Interview Questions (Updated 2024)
At Icahn Enterprises, SQL does the heavy lifting for analyzing financial transactions and managing data warehousing activities. Because of this, Icahn Enterprises frequently asks SQL questions during interviews for Data Science, Data Engineering and Data Analytics jobs.
As such, to help you practice for the Icahn Enterprises SQL interview, we've collected 11 Icahn Enterprises SQL interview questions in this article.
11 Icahn Enterprises SQL Interview Questions
SQL Question 1: Identify the Top Spenders in Icahn Enterprises
You are given access to the Icahn Enterprises customer purchase database. Icahn Enterprises does a lot of business activities, and one of them is automotive. Generate a SQL query that identifies the top 5 customers that have spent the maximum amount of money on automotive parts in the past year.
Example Input:
| customer_id | first_name | last_name |
|---|---|---|
| 001 | John | Doe |
| 002 | Jane | Smith |
| 003 | Alex | Johnson |
| 004 | Sam | Williams |
| 005 | Anna | Brown |
Example Input:
| order_id | customer_id | purchase_date | total_cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| 654321 | 001 | 09/15/2021 | 200.99 |
| 654322 | 002 | 09/16/2021 | 300.49 |
| 654323 | 003 | 09/17/2021 | 150.75 |
| 654324 | 004 | 09/18/2021 | 175.99 |
| 654325 | 005 | 09/19/2021 | 225.49 |
Answer:
This PostgreSQL query first joins the table with the table based on the field. Then, it filters the records for those orders that were made in the past year. The function is used to calculate the total amount spent by each customer on automotive parts. The clause is used to group the results by customer, and the clause sorts the customers in descending order of their total spending. The query limits the number of rows in the result to just the top 5, which represent the customers who have spent the most. These customers would be categorized as 'power users' for the company.
To practice another SQL customer analytics question where you can solve it interactively and have your SQL query instantly graded, try this Walmart SQL Interview Question:
SQL Question 2: Employee Salaries Higher Than Their Manager
Imagine you had a table of Icahn Enterprises employee salaries. Write a SQL query to find all employees who earn more than their direct manager.
Icahn Enterprises Example Input:
| employee_id | name | salary | department_id | manager_id |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Emma Thompson | 3800 | 1 | |
| 2 | Daniel Rodriguez | 2230 | 1 | 10 |
| 3 | Olivia Smith | 8000 | 1 | 8 |
| 4 | Noah Johnson | 6800 | 2 | 8 |
| 5 | Sophia Martinez | 1750 | 1 | 10 |
| 8 | William Davis | 7000 | 2 | NULL |
| 10 | James Anderson | 4000 | 1 | NULL |
Example Output:
| employee_id | employee_name |
|---|---|
| 3 | Olivia Smith |
This is the output because Olivia Smith earns $8,000, surpassing her manager, William Davis who earns 7,800.
Test your SQL query for this problem directly within the browser on DataLemur:
Answer:
First, we perform a SELF-JOIN where we treat the first table () as the managers' table and the second table () as the employees' table. Then we use a clause to filter the results, ensuring we only get employees whose salaries are higher than their manager's salary.
If the solution above is confusing, you can find a detailed solution here: Employee Salaries Higher Than Their Manager.
Read about Icahn Enterprises 2023 financial results and see how the company performed last year.
SQL Question 3: What sets the 'BETWEEN' and 'IN' operators apart?
The operator is used to select rows that fall within a certain range of values, while the operator is used to select rows that match values in a specified list.
For example, suppose you are a data analyst at Icahn Enterprises and have a table of advertising campaign data. To find campaigns with a spend between 5k, you could use BETWEEN:
To find advertising campaigns that were video and image based (as opposed to text or billboard ads), you could use the operator:
SQL Question 4: Analyzing Revenue Data
Icahn Enterprises operates in multiple industries. As an analyst for the company, you are tasked to perform a quarterly analysis of the revenue data of each industry the company operates in.
Given the following table named , which stores the revenue data by industry and by month, write a SQL query to calculate the running quarterly total of revenues for each industry.
Example Input:
| id | industry | month | revenue |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Automotive | 01/01/2022 | 2000000 |
| 2 | Real Estate | 01/01/2022 | 3000000 |
| 3 | Energy | 01/01/2022 | 4000000 |
| 4 | Automotive | 02/01/2022 | 1500000 |
| 5 | Real Estate | 02/01/2022 | 3500000 |
| 6 | Energy | 02/01/2022 | 4500000 |
| 7 | Automotive | 03/01/2022 | 2200000 |
| 8 | Real Estate | 03/01/2022 | 4000000 |
| 9 | Energy | 03/01/2022 | 5000000 |
Expected Output:
| industry | quarter | total_revenue |
|---|---|---|
| Automotive | Q1 2022 | 5700000 |
| Real Estate | Q1 2022 | 10500000 |
| Energy | Q1 2022 | 13500000 |
Answer:
With PostgresSQL, you can utilize window functions and date functions for this problem. Here's one way it can be solved:
This SQL query first extracts the quarter and year from the month field and concatenates them to form the quarter field in the desired format. It uses the function as a window function, partitioning by industry and quarter (calculated dynamically), to compute the running total of revenues. The clause sorts the results by industry and then by quarter.
p.s. Window functions show up pretty often during SQL interviews, so practice the 27+ window function questions on DataLemur
SQL Question 5: In SQL, are values same the same as zero or a blank space?
A value represents a missing or unknown value. It is different from a zero or a blank space, which are actual values.
It's important to handle values properly in SQL because they can cause unexpected results if not treated correctly. For example, comparisons involving values always result in . Also values are not included in calculations. For example, will ignore values in the column.
SQL Question 6: Sales Analysis of Automotive Components
Icahn Enterprises has a significant investment in the automotive sector. Let's consider one of the units which deals with the sales of automotive components. The company has a requirement to understand the sales pattern of different components sold across various regions in order to improve their focus and increase their revenues.
The company maintains sales data across multiple regions. Each row in the table represents one sale and records the , , , , and .
Using this data, come up with a SQL query that provides the total quantity sold for each across different for the year 2022.
Example Input:
| sale_id | sale_date | component_id | quantity | region_id | sales_person_id |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 101 | 01/07/2022 | 1001 | 50 | 301 | 2001 |
| 102 | 07/08/2022 | 1002 | 70 | 302 | 2002 |
| 103 | 01/01/2022 | 1001 | 20 | 303 | 2003 |
| 104 | 20/08/2022 | 1002 | 80 | 302 | 2004 |
| 105 | 05/05/2022 | 1003 | 60 | 303 | 2005 |
Expected Output:
| component_id | region_id | total_quantity |
|---|---|---|
| 1001 | 301 | 50 |
| 1001 | 303 | 20 |
| 1002 | 302 | 150 |
| 1003 | 303 | 60 |
Answer:
This SQL query will aggregate the total quantity for each component, sold across each region during the year 2022. The function is used to filter the rows belonging to the year 2022. The clause helps to summarize the total quantity on a per region, per component basis.
SQL Question 7: Can you explain the distinction between cross join and natural join?
Imagine you are organizing a party and have two database tables: one table of people you want to invite and another list of food items you want to serve.
A cross join would be like inviting every person on your list to the party and serving them every food item on the menu, regardless of whether they like the food or not. So, if you had 10 people on your invite list and 5 food items on the menu, you would generate all 50 different combinations of people and food (10 x 5 = 50).
On the other hand, a natural join would be like inviting only the people who like the food items on the menu (based on doing a inner/left/right/outer JOIN on a common key like ).
SQL Question 8: Average Return on Investment
As a data analyst at Icahn Enterprises, an American diversified holding company engaged in several businesses, you are asked to calculate the Average Return on Investment (ROI) for all active investments in the fiscal year 2020.
Example Input:
| investment_id | portfolio_id | purchase_date | sale_date | cost_price | sale_price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1175 | 341 | 01/01/2020 00:00:00 | 12/31/2020 00:00:00 | 100000 | 120000 |
| 2240 | 562 | 01/02/2020 00:00:00 | 12/31/2020 00:00:00 | 200000 | 240000 |
| 3256 | 419 | 01/03/2020 00:00:00 | 12/31/2020 00:00:00 | 150000 | 180000 |
| 6635 | 821 | 01/04/2020 00:00:00 | NULL | 250000 | NULL |
| 7823 | 162 | 01/07/2020 00:00:00 | 12/31/2020 00:00:00 | 300000 | 330000 |
Answer:
This SQL query calculates the average Return on Investment (ROI) for all active investments in the fiscal year 2020. It first calculates the ROI for each investment with the formula which gives the ROI as a percentage, and then it averages all the ROI percentages. The WHERE clause filters for investments that were purchased and sold within the fiscal year 2020.
To practice a very similar question try this interactive Amazon Highest-Grossing Items Question which is similar for calculating top profit items or this CVS Health Pharmacy Analytics (Part 1) Question which is similar for finding the most profitable product.
SQL Question 9: Analyzing Click-through Conversion Rates for Icahn Enterprises
Icahn Enterprises is running a marketing campaign for its various product lines. For each ad, they are tracking the number of users who viewed the ad, and how many of them made a purchase (added the product to their cart). The challenge is to calculate the click-through conversion rate for each product.
Given the following tables:
Example Input:
Example Input:
Example Input:
Answer:
Here's how you could write a SQL query to answer this:
This will give a table showing the product id, number of views, number of clicks and the click through rate (CTR) for each product. The is used to cast the integers to decimals for accurate division result. The CTR is calculated by dividing the number of clicks by the number of views for each ad and multiplying by 100 to get a percentage.
Example Output:
In the output, the click_through_rate column shows the rate of conversion from views to clicks for each product. Companies can use this rate to assess the effectiveness of their ads and potentially identify areas for improvement.
To solve a related SQL problem on DataLemur's free online SQL code editor, attempt this Meta SQL interview question:
SQL Question 10: What do the SQL commands / do?
For a tangible example of in PostgreSQL, suppose you were doing an HR Analytics project for Icahn Enterprises, and had access to Icahn Enterprises's contractors and employees data. Assume that some employees were previously contractors, and vice versa, and thus would show up in both tables.
You could use operator to find all contractors who never were a employee using this query:
Note that is available in PostgreSQL and SQL Server, while is the equivalent operator which is available in MySQL and Oracle (but don't worry about knowing which RDBMS supports which exact commands since Icahn Enterprises interviewers aren't trying to trip you up on memorizing SQL syntax).
SQL Question 11: Filtering Customer Records
Assume you are given access to a customer database for Icahn Enterprises and you are asked to filter the data based on the customers' city of residence. More specifically, your task is to extract all records of customers living in cities whose names start with 'San'.
Use the table for this task.
Example Input:
| customer_id | first_name | last_name | city | sign_up_date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1001 | John | Doe | San Francisco | 01/03/2021 |
| 1002 | Jane | Smith | San Diego | 02/14/2021 |
| 1003 | Joseph | Clark | Los Angeles | 08/10/2021 |
| 1004 | Maria | Lopez | San Jose | 05/15/2021 |
| 1005 | Patricia | Garcia | Santa Clara | 09/09/2021 |
Answer:
This query leverages the LIKE keyword with the wildcard symbol . In this context, represents any number of characters. Therefore, the query filters the city column to include any entries that start with 'San'. The output will include all customer records living in cities whose names start with 'San'.
The sample output would look something like this:
Example Output:
| customer_id | first_name | last_name | city | sign_up_date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1001 | John | Doe | San Francisco | 01/03/2021 |
| 1002 | Jane | Smith | San Diego | 02/14/2021 |
| 1004 | Maria | Lopez | San Jose | 05/15/2021 |
| 1005 | Patricia | Garcia | Santa Clara | 09/09/2021 |
Icahn Enterprises SQL Interview Tips
The best way to prepare for a SQL interview, besides making sure you have strong SQL fundamentals, is to practice a ton of real SQL questions that were asked in recent job interviews.
Beyond just solving the earlier Icahn Enterprises SQL interview questions, you should also solve the 200+ DataLemur SQL Interview Questions which come from companies like Netflix, Airbnb, and Amazon.
Each DataLemur SQL question has multiple hints, full answers and best of all, there's an online SQL coding environment so you can instantly run your query and have it checked.
To prep for the Icahn Enterprises SQL interview it is also useful to practice SQL questions from other conglomerate companies like:
In case your SQL foundations are weak, don't worry about jumping right into solving questions – refresh your SQL knowledge with this SQL interview tutorial.
This tutorial covers topics including Subquery vs. CTE and grouping by multiple columns – both of which show up often in Icahn Enterprises interviews.
Icahn Enterprises Data Science Interview Tips
What Do Icahn Enterprises Data Science Interviews Cover?
In addition to SQL query questions, the other types of problems covered in the Icahn Enterprises Data Science Interview include:
- Statistics and Probability Questions
- Coding Questions in Python or R
- Business Sense and Product-Sense Questions
- ML Interview Questions
- Behavioral Based Interview Questions
How To Prepare for Icahn Enterprises Data Science Interviews?
I'm a bit biased, but I think the best way to prep for Icahn Enterprises Data Science interviews is to read my book Ace the Data Science Interview.
The book covers 201 interview questions taken from FAANG tech companies. It also has a refresher on Python, SQL & ML. And finally it's helped thousands of people land their dream job in data, which is why it's earned 1000+ reviews on Amazon and a 4.5-star rating.