10 Sysco SQL Interview Questions (Updated 2024)
Employees at Sysco write SQL queries to examine food service distribution patterns, which helps them optimize delivery routes and ensure timely service. They also analyze large datasets to gain insights about customer behavior that can improve their sales strategies, the reason why Sysco includesSQL problems in interviews for Data Analytics, Data Science, and Data Engineering jobs.
To help you practice for the Sysco SQL interview, we'll cover 10 Sysco SQL interview questions – scroll down to start solving them!
10 Sysco SQL Interview Questions
SQL Question 1: Identify Whale Users at Sysco
Sysco, a multinational food distribution and marketing company, often rewards its top customers - those who frequently place large food orders. This helps to improve customer loyalty and thus positively impacts the company's sales. For this task, as a data analyst at Sysco, your responsibility is to identify the top 10 customers who have placed the largest total number of orders over the past six months. Using this data, Sysco can target these "whale" users for special promotions and rewards.
Let's suppose we have a table called with the following schema:
Example Input:
| order_id | customer_id | order_date | order_total |
|---|---|---|---|
| 9845 | 3091 | 12/16/2022 00:00:00 | 5849.23 |
| 7623 | 2050 | 12/02/2022 00:00:00 | 8952.50 |
| 5201 | 2892 | 10/26/2022 00:00:00 | 3258.60 |
| 6582 | 3091 | 11/14/2022 00:00:00 | 4583.27 |
| 3432 | 1895 | 9/01/2022 00:00:00 | 6890.55 |
Answer:
Here is the SQL query you would use:
Explanation:
This query returns the customer_ids of the top 10 customers in terms of number of orders placed within the last six months. In case of a tie, customers who have spent more in total will be ranked higher. The function is used to calculate the number of orders per customer, the function calculates the total amount spent by each customer, and the clause is used to limit the result set to the top 10 customers.
To work on a similar customer analytics SQL question where you can code right in the browser and have your SQL code automatically checked, try this Walmart Labs SQL Interview Question:
Explore Sysco's newsroom to discover the latest happenings and innovations that are shaping the food service industry! Staying updated on Sysco's initiatives can provide valuable insights into how they are leading the market and adapting to new challenges.
SQL Question 2: Top Department Salaries
Given a table of Sysco employee salary data, write a SQL query to find the top three highest paid employees within each department.
Sysco Example Input:
| employee_id | name | salary | department_id |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Emma Thompson | 3800 | 1 |
| 2 | Daniel Rodriguez | 2230 | 1 |
| 3 | Olivia Smith | 2000 | 1 |
| 4 | Noah Johnson | 6800 | 2 |
| 5 | Sophia Martinez | 1750 | 1 |
| 8 | William Davis | 6800 | 2 |
| 10 | James Anderson | 4000 | 1 |
Example Input:
| department_id | department_name |
|---|---|
| 1 | Data Analytics |
| 2 | Data Science |
Example Output:
| department_name | name | salary |
|---|---|---|
| Data Analytics | James Anderson | 4000 |
| Data Analytics | Emma Thompson | 3800 |
| Data Analytics | Daniel Rodriguez | 2230 |
| Data Science | Noah Johnson | 6800 |
| Data Science | William Davis | 6800 |
Test your SQL query for this interview question interactively on DataLemur:
Answer:
We use the DENSE_RANK() window function to generate unique ranks for each employee's salary within their department, with higher salaries receiving lower ranks. Then, we wrap this up in a CTE and filter the employees with a ranking of 3 or lower.
If the code above is confusing, you can find a detailed solution here: Top 3 Department Salaries.
Check out Sysco's newsroom to stay updated on their latest happenings and innovations! Learning about their strategies can give you great insights into how major companies in the food industry use data to drive success.
SQL Question 3: What are the benefits of normalizing a database?
Normalization can reduce redundancy and improve performance and flexibility in a database.
By dividing larger tables into smaller, more specific ones linked by foreign keys, it is often possible to improve query speed. Note: it is not always the case that query speed will be improved due to costly nature of joins. Still, we think normalization is a good idea because it can also increase flexibility by making it easier to alter individual tables without affecting others, which can be useful for adapting Sysco's database to ever-changing business needs.
SQL Question 4: Compute Product Sales Analysis
Sysco needs to analyze the sales of their products over the duration of each year, quarter and month. You are given a table with the data of each transaction. Each row consists of the product code, the quantity of the product sold in that transaction, the total price of the transaction and the date of the transaction. Write a SQL query to compute the total quantity sold and total revenue for each product by year, quarter and month using window functions strategically for this calculation.
Example Input:
| transaction_id | product_code | quantity | total_price_usd | transaction_date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1001 | P00001 | 10 | 100.00 | 2022-01-15 |
| 1002 | P00002 | 5 | 75.00 | 2022-02-02 |
| 1003 | P00001 | 3 | 30.00 | 2022-02-18 |
| 1004 | P00003 | 6 | 120.00 | 2022-02-21 |
| 1005 | P00002 | 15 | 225.00 | 2022-03-05 |
Answer:
The given SQL query uses window functions to calculate the total quantity sold and total revenue generated for each product per year, per quarter and per month. The clause is used to calculate these metrics for each unique combination of product, year, quarter and month independently. The function calculates the total quantity and revenue, while the function is used to get the year, quarter and month from the .
For more window function practice, try this Uber SQL Interview Question on DataLemur's online SQL coding environment:
SQL Question 5: What's the purpose of a foreign key?
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 table might have a primary key column called , while the Sysco table might have a foreign key column called that references the column in Sysco customers table.
SQL Question 6: Calculating Click-through Conversion Rates
Consider a situation at Sysco where they have just launched an online platform to allow their customers to order products directly. Marketing adverts are run directing potential customers to this new platform. Each click on an ad is logged in a table as well as every time a product is added to the cart. Sysco is interested in understanding the conversion rates from ad click to adding a product in the cart.
Let's assume that we have the following tables:
Example Input:
| click_id | user_id | click_timestamp | product_id |
|---|---|---|---|
| 12345 | 700 | 08/04/2022 18:20:00 | 301 |
| 12346 | 710 | 08/04/2022 18:24:00 | 302 |
| 12347 | 720 | 08/04/2022 18:26:00 | 301 |
| 12348 | 730 | 08/04/2022 18:29:00 | 303 |
| 12349 | 740 | 08/04/2022 18:30:00 | 304 |
Example Input:
| add_id | user_id | add_time | product_id |
|---|---|---|---|
| 789 | 700 | 08/04/2022 18:21:00 | 301 |
| 790 | 710 | 08/04/2022 18:25:00 | 302 |
| 791 | 730 | 08/04/2022 18:31:00 | 303 |
Answer:
This query begins with creating two subqueries, one for and another for , counting the number of entries for each product in both cases. It then joins the two resulting tables on and calculates the ratio (expressed as percentage) of successful conversions i.e., number of times the product was added to the cart after the ad was clicked.
To practice a similar problem about calculating rates, solve this SQL interview question from TikTok on DataLemur's interactive coding environment:
SQL Question 7: What are the various types of joins used in SQL?
In SQL, a join is used to combine rows from different tables based on a shared key or set of keys, resulting in a single merged table of data.
There are four distinct types of JOINs: , , , and .
(INNER) JOIN: Retrieves records that have matching values in both tables involved in the join.
LEFT (OUTER) JOIN: Retrieves all the records/rows from the left and the matched records/rows from the right table.
RIGHT (OUTER) JOIN: Retrieves all the records/rows from the right and the matched records/rows from the left table.
FULL (OUTER) JOIN: Retrieves all the records where there is a match in either the left or right table.
SQL Question 8: Calculate Total Revenue by Product Category
Sysco is a corporation involved in the marketing and distributing of food products to restaurants, healthcare and educational facilities. Let's consider the scenario where they want their total revenue to be calculated for each product category per month for a given year.
Sample tables:
Example Input:
| sale_id | product_id | sale_date | quantity | price_each |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 101 | 234 | 01/06/2022 00:00:00 | 50 | 10.50 |
| 202 | 235 | 01/20/2022 00:00:00 | 100 | 20.50 |
| 303 | 236 | 02/06/2022 00:00:00 | 150 | 15.50 |
| 404 | 234 | 02/20/2022 00:00:00 | 200 | 10.50 |
| 505 | 235 | 03/06/2022 00:00:00 | 250 | 20.50 |
Example Input:
| product_id | product_name | category |
|---|---|---|
| 234 | Product 1 | Category A |
| 235 | Product 2 | Category B |
| 236 | Product 3 | Category A |
We want to return the total revenue per category each month:
Example Output:
| month | category | total_revenue |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Category A | 525.00 |
| 1 | Category B | 2050.00 |
| 2 | Category A | 3415.00 |
| 3 | Category B | 5125.00 |
Answer:
This query links the and table on the field. It then groups the data by month and product category, calculating the total revenue for each category within each month. We use the function to get the first day of each month from the , which we then group by. Ordering by and allows the results to be easily readable.
SQL Question 9: Join and Analyze Customer and Orders Data
You are provided with two tables: and . The table contains information about all purchases made by customers, while the table contains demographic information about each customer.
Write a SQL query that joins these two tables and calculates the total quantity of products bought by customers from each state.
Example Input:
| order_id | customer_id | order_date | product_id | quantity |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1001 | 100 | 06/08/2020 | 1 | 5 |
| 1002 | 101 | 06/10/2020 | 2 | 2 |
| 1003 | 100 | 06/18/2020 | 1 | 10 |
| 1004 | 102 | 07/26/2020 | 3 | 6 |
| 1005 | 103 | 07/05/2020 | 2 | 8 |
Example Input:
| customer_id | first_name | last_name | state |
|---|---|---|---|
| 100 | Peter | Parker | New York |
| 101 | Bruce | Wayne | California |
| 102 | Clark | Kent | Kansas |
| 103 | Diana | Prince | California |
Example Output:
| state | total_quantity |
|---|---|
| New York | 15 |
| California | 10 |
| Kansas | 6 |
Answer:
In this query, we first join the and table on the column. This gives us a combined table with information about each order and the customer who made it. We are specifically interested in the state of the customer and the quantity of the product ordered.
We then group this combined table by the column and for each state, we calculate the sum of the column to get the .
This results in a table with each state and the total quantity of products bought by customers from that state.
Because join questions come up so often during SQL interviews, take a stab at an interactive SQL join question from Spotify:
SQL Question 10: Why are stored procedures useful for analysts?
Stored procedures in SQL are like recipes in a cookbook. Just like a recipe tells you the ingredients and instructions for making a particular dish, a stored procedure tells the DBMS the logic/statements needed to perform a specific task. Just like you can use a recipe to make the same dish over and over again, you can use a stored procedure to repeat the same task multiple times with different input parameters (which is why stored procedures are so damn useful!).
Say you were a Data Analyst working on a HR analytics project. A common sub-task you might have to do is calculate the average salary for a given department at Sysco, which would be perfect for a stored procedure:
To call this stored procedure and find the average salary for the Data Science department you'd execute a query like this:
Sysco SQL Interview Tips
The key to acing a Sysco SQL interview is to practice, practice, and then practice some more! Besides solving the earlier Sysco SQL interview questions, you should also solve the 200+ SQL coding questions which come from companies like FAANG (FB, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, Google).
Each problem on DataLemur has hints to guide you, step-by-step solutions and most importantly, there's an online SQL code editor so you can instantly run your query and have it executed.
To prep for the Sysco SQL interview you can also be useful to solve SQL questions from other food and facilities companies like:
- US Foods SQL questions
- SpartanNash SQL questions
- Performance Food Group SQL questions
- US Foods SQL questions
However, if your SQL skills are weak, forget about jumping right into solving questions – improve your SQL foundations with this DataLemur SQL Tutorial.
This tutorial covers things like aggregate functions and window functions – both of which pop up frequently in Sysco SQL interviews.
Sysco Data Science Interview Tips
What Do Sysco Data Science Interviews Cover?
Beyond writing SQL queries, the other types of problems tested in the Sysco Data Science Interview are:
- Probability & Stats Questions
- Python or R Programming Questions
- Product-Sense Questions
- Machine Learning Questions
- Resume-Based Behavioral Questions
How To Prepare for Sysco Data Science Interviews?
I believe the optimal way to prepare for Sysco Data Science interviews is to read the book Ace the Data Science Interview.
It covers 201 data interview questions taken from FAANG, tech startups, and Wall Street. The book's also got a crash course covering Python, SQL & ML. And finally it's helped a TON of people, which is why it's got over 1000+ 5-star reviews on Amazon.
While the book is more technical, it's also key to prepare for the Sysco behavioral interview. Start by reading the company's culture and values.