BigBasket Senior MLE / Data Scientist Interview Guide

BigBasket (Tata Digital) runs India's largest online grocery. Senior MLE / DS roles cover demand forecasting (very high-frequency), basket recommendation, delivery routing, dark-store inventory, and dynamic pricing. The interview tests grocery-specific ML depth. This guide covers it.

BigBasket (Tata-owned) runs India's largest online grocery operation. Senior MLE / DS roles cover demand forecasting (massive scale: many SKUs × dark stores × hourly), basket recommendation (cross-sell, complete the basket), delivery routing (last mile), dark-store inventory optimisation, and dynamic pricing for fresh produce.

The loop structure (Senior MLE / DS)

Standard loop: recruiter screen → ML + SQL → ML system design → behavioural.

What BigBasket weights distinctively

1. Grocery-specific forecasting. Perishables, repeat-buy patterns, fresh produce dynamics. 2. Real-time inventory. Dark-store stock-out probabilities affect slot offerings. 3. Delivery routing. Optimisation for last-mile cost. 4. Cross-sell. Basket completion is high-impact.

Top 10 questions

1. "Design grocery demand forecasting at SKU × dark-store × hour." 2. "Basket recommendation: complete-the-basket — architecture." 3. "Dynamic pricing for fresh produce." 4. "Delivery routing for last-mile — ML + optimisation." 5. "Calibration in stock-out prediction." 6. "Diagnose: NPS dropped in Bangalore. Approach?" 7. "Cold-start for new product launches." 8. "Position bias in product ranking on category pages." 9. "Walk through your most impactful project." 10. "Why BigBasket?"

Prep path through MSL — Tier 5 (all), Tier 7 (all), Posts 70-72 (RecSys), 88 (Time Series), 125 (Hierarchical Forecasting), 123 (Real-Time Features).

Compensation. BigBasket Senior MLE / DS in 2026 ranges ₹28 lakh – ₹50 lakh for 5-7 YOE. Lead ₹65 lakh+.