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Data Engineer Interview Questions

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Data Engineer Interview Questions

Data engineers are IT professionals who are needed in almost every industry. Data engineers monitor data trends to determine best next steps for companies. A critical part of a data engineer job is to process raw data into usable data by creating data pipelines and building data systems.

Top Data Engineer Interview Questions & How To Answer

Question 1

Question #1: Can you describe in detail your level of expertise with programming languages?

How to answer
How to answer: Before the interview, review your resume and/or portfolio and make a list of the programs you are most proficient with. If you find that you are lacking the expertise in a program that the company predominately uses, describe yourself as a highly motivated self-starter who will work tirelessly to learn the program(s).
Question 2

Question #2: Explain data engineering in your own words.

How to answer
How to answer: Highlight your role in relation to the larger organization and other roles like data scientists to clearly define your contribution to the overall system of business. Clarify the difference between a database-centric engineer and a pipeline-centric engineer.
Question 3

Question #3: Can you describe your experience working with Apache Hadoop and cloud data management environments?

How to answer
How to answer: Research the company's software, data cloud products, and use of Apache Hadoop to be prepared for this inquiry. Data Engineers must be fluent in programming languages and data management systems used throughout the industry such as Apache Hadoop.

20,193 data engineer interview questions shared by candidates

Questions about typical problems that you could phase during your experience with Google Cloud, like dataproc firewall rules, limits of Cloud Functions/Run/App Engine in a VPC - SC environment, Cloud Identity, how would you solve specific problems, etc.
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Data Engineer

Interviewed at Cartier

3.8★
Jun 8, 2023

Questions about typical problems that you could phase during your experience with Google Cloud, like dataproc firewall rules, limits of Cloud Functions/Run/App Engine in a VPC - SC environment, Cloud Identity, how would you solve specific problems, etc.

A: "They focused heavily on how I’ve implemented end-to-end data pipelines using Azure Data Factory and Databricks—especially how I handled data ingestion, transformation using PySpark, and loading into a Delta Lake. They wanted to see both my technical depth and how I troubleshoot production issues."
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Azure Data Engineer

Interviewed at EY

3.7★
Jul 23, 2025

A: "They focused heavily on how I’ve implemented end-to-end data pipelines using Azure Data Factory and Databricks—especially how I handled data ingestion, transformation using PySpark, and loading into a Delta Lake. They wanted to see both my technical depth and how I troubleshoot production issues."

Prime Factorization... They expected me to remember the Sieve of Eratosthenes off the top of my head... That has absolutely nothing to do with the job role they described and I highly doubt they use it in their code base.

Senior Engineer (Data Wrangling)

Interviewed at TrackBill

5★
Jul 21, 2017

Prime Factorization... They expected me to remember the Sieve of Eratosthenes off the top of my head... That has absolutely nothing to do with the job role they described and I highly doubt they use it in their code base.

What have you done so far as a Data Engineer? How many years of experience? How much data you processed? Do you have experience with AWS tools and technologies like DynamoDB? How can you manage MongoDB in production? Why you want to leave current job and country?
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Data Engineer

Interviewed at Arvoia

2.7★
Mar 16, 2018

What have you done so far as a Data Engineer? How many years of experience? How much data you processed? Do you have experience with AWS tools and technologies like DynamoDB? How can you manage MongoDB in production? Why you want to leave current job and country?

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Glassdoor has 20,193 interview questions and reports from Data engineer interviews. Prepare for your interview. Get hired. Love your job.