Search & Discovery interview questions

Relevance, facets, ranking signals, merchandising rules and zero-result handling.

3 questions in E-commerce & Retail.

E-commerce and RetailA 19-minute read on how the topic fits together, before the questions.E-commerce and retail fundamentals58 short answers on one page, for revising rather than studying.

medium1

mediumScenarioDesign

Where would you start if you were handed a retailer's search and told to improve it?

With the zero-result queries, sorted by volume. Each one is a customer stating exactly what they wanted and being refused, the causes are mundane and fixable, and it is the only part of relevance work where you know for certain the current behaviour is wrong.

4 minmid, senior

hard2

hardDesignScenario

Site search converts poorly. How would you improve relevance when conversion is the metric you are judged on?

Segment the query log first, then blend textual match with behavioural and business signals into a ranking you can explain, treat synonyms and merchandising overrides as owned content with expiry, and handle zero results as a designed page - while guarding against the click feedback loop.

6 minmid, senior, staff

hardDesignScenario

Shoppers keep clicking search results for things they cannot buy - out of stock, discontinued, or not available where they are. How do you fix that without wrecking relevance?

Separate the three cases first, because they need different treatment. Availability is a per-request fact rather than an index field, so filter at query time from a fast availability source and reserve suppression for what is genuinely delisted.

6 minmid, senior, staff