Akamai Technologies Data Science Interview Questions and Answers (2026 Guide)

Quick answer: Akamai's Data Scientist interviews reportedly run a recruiter screen, a roughly 60-minute technical phone screen with a data-science team member, then a 4- to 5-round onsite loop covering SQL, Python, machine learning and statistics, plus a mix of technical and behavioural questions. Glassdoor data tied to the Data Scientist track specifically shows a below-average 33% positive-experience rate and an average 40-day hiring process. We could not find a single India-specific data-role candidate account, so this reflects a global, likely largely US, sample rather than confirmed Bengaluru-specific practice.

About Akamai

Akamai Technologies is a US-headquartered content delivery network, cloud security and edge-computing company. Its Bengaluru campus at Embassy Golf Links, opened in 2018, is roughly 250,000 square feet and was planned to house more than 2,000 employees; it hosts Akamai's Network Operations Centre, Security Operations Command Centre and Broadcast Operations Command Centre, and the company describes it as one of three global “centers of innovation and excellence.” (Akamai newsroom; Tech Observer) Akamai Technologies India Pvt Ltd's registered team size was reported at 2,983 employees as of May 2025. (Tracxn) We found no public confirmation of a named data-science team specifically inside the Bengaluru operation; the confirmed functions there are network, security and broadcast operations.

Akamai's Interview Process

• Reported structure for Data Scientist roles: a recruiter screening call of about 20 to 30 minutes, then a technical phone interview of about 60 minutes with a member of the data-science team, followed by an onsite loop of 4 to 5 rounds, each 45 to 60 minutes, with data scientists, a hiring manager, an engineering manager and possibly a director, mixing technical and behavioural questions. (InterviewQuery, an aggregator guide built from Glassdoor-style candidate reports, not a single verified transcript)

• One detailed account describes a roughly 3-month process: recruiter pre-screening, data-science technical interviews, a 6- to 8-hour take-home test task, a review of that task, a network-security-themed interview, and a final manager technical round. The network-security round is the one detail that genuinely ties back to Akamai's core business, though it comes from a single candidate, not a confirmed standard step.

• Glassdoor statistics tied to the Data Scientist track specifically: a difficulty rating of 2.6 out of 5, a 33% positive-experience rate against a 54.7% company-wide average across all roles, and an average time-to-hire of about 40 days. (Glassdoor)

• Sample technical questions reported for the role: designing a function to detect anomalies in univariate data, extending that approach to bivariate data, comparing two categorical variables, and interpreting chi-squared test results. (InterviewQuery)

What Candidates Report

SQL is the most concretely Akamai-flavoured technical theme we could verify. A published set of 9 Akamai SQL interview questions, aimed at Data Analyst, Data Science and Data Engineering candidates, is framed around Akamai's actual CDN business rather than generic tables: identifying the top 5 customers by web traffic in a month, computing total traffic per service per month, finding the data volume served per client alongside average response time, and calculating average daily requests per service. (DataLemur) Separately, a Data Analyst-specific guide describes the role's interview as covering SQL, Python, algorithms, data visualisation, and report or pipeline design, with an emphasis on explaining insights to both technical and non-technical audiences. (InterviewQuery) A separate, non-data-specific campus process for engineering-graduate roles in India runs an online assessment of 10 questions (2 coding, 8 aptitude), a technical interview on data structures and algorithms, a managerial round, and an HR round, but this is sourced to software-engineer hiring, not data roles. (GeeksforGeeks)

What We Could Not Verify

We could not find a single India-specific candidate account for a Data Scientist or Data Analyst interview at Akamai, on Glassdoor, AmbitionBox, Blind or general search. The detailed process descriptions above are not geo-tagged in the sources we could access, and since Akamai's data-science function is generally associated with its Cambridge, Massachusetts headquarters, we treat this reported process as a global, most likely US-weighted, pattern rather than confirmed Bengaluru practice. Glassdoor's India-specific pages and AmbitionBox both returned access errors or no usable results on direct fetch. We also could not confirm that a distinct data-science team or title exists inside Akamai's Bengaluru facility; its publicly confirmed functions are network operations, security operations and broadcast operations, which is adjacent to data work but not the same thing.

How to Prepare

• Practise SQL against traffic-style schemas, such as ranking top customers by volume, aggregating traffic per service per month, and joining response-time metrics to volume data, since this is Akamai's most concretely sourced technical theme.

• Prepare an anomaly-detection walkthrough covering both univariate and bivariate approaches, and be ready to justify a chi-squared or categorical-comparison test, since these are specifically reported questions.

• Expect a long process, potentially several weeks with a multi-hour take-home task, and pace other applications accordingly rather than assuming a quick turnaround.

• Do not over-index on a network-security interview stage; we found this reported by only one candidate, so treat it as possible rather than guaranteed for every data role.