Zepto Senior MLE / Data Scientist Interview Guide

Zepto runs 10-minute quick commerce. Senior MLE / DS roles cover demand forecasting (very tight time horizons), dark-store inventory, delivery routing, dynamic pricing, fraud, and recommendation. The interview tests quick-commerce ML at high pace. This guide covers it.

Zepto runs 10-minute quick commerce across major Indian cities, operating through hyperlocal dark stores. Senior MLE / DS roles cover ultra-short-horizon demand forecasting (10-min granularity per dark store), dark-store inventory optimisation, real-time delivery routing, dynamic pricing, fraud (fake orders, gaming promotions), and recommendation.

The loop structure (Senior MLE / DS)

Standard loop: recruiter screen → ML + SQL → ML system design → hiring manager (often fast-tracked).

What Zepto weights distinctively

1. Ultra-short-horizon forecasting. Demand prediction in 10-min windows. 2. Real-time everything. Inventory, routing, pricing — all sub-second decisions. 3. Fast iteration culture. Zepto ships extremely quickly. 4. Marketplace + dark-store dynamics. Operations-heavy ML.

Top 10 questions

1. "Design 10-minute demand forecasting at SKU × dark-store level." 2. "Real-time inventory: predict stockouts in the next 30 min." 3. "Delivery rider matching — sub-second decisions." 4. "Dynamic pricing — when and constraints." 5. "Fraud detection on rider-side and customer-side." 6. "Recommendation: complete-the-basket in 10 min." 7. "Diagnose: NPS dropped in a specific dark store." 8. "Coding: efficient real-time aggregation." 9. "Walk through your most impactful project." 10. "Why Zepto?"

Prep path through MSL — Tier 5 (all), Tier 7 (all), Posts 88 (Time Series), 123 (Real-Time Features), 125 (Hierarchical Forecasting), 70-72 (RecSys), 95 (Anomaly).

Compensation. Zepto Senior MLE / DS in 2026 ranges ₹40 lakh – ₹70 lakh for 5-7 YOE. Lead ₹85 lakh+. Among the most aggressive comp in Indian D2C/quick-commerce.