Data Engineer Interview Questions

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.

20,234 data engineer interview questions shared by candidates

SQL questions: 1. First question was based on the ranking and join to get the solution 2. Second follow up question used the same database and tables. The question asked for a rolling average based on last 3 days. 3. Third question was again based on a rolling sum and then count query based on that rolling sum. All of the SQLs required CTE statements Lastly the Python programming question was a basic for loop to search the position of a target number. Interviewer asked for a different approach of solving it.
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Senior Data Engineer

Interviewed at Atlassian

3.2
May 5, 2025

SQL questions: 1. First question was based on the ranking and join to get the solution 2. Second follow up question used the same database and tables. The question asked for a rolling average based on last 3 days. 3. Third question was again based on a rolling sum and then count query based on that rolling sum. All of the SQLs required CTE statements Lastly the Python programming question was a basic for loop to search the position of a target number. Interviewer asked for a different approach of solving it.

Python: 1. count occurrence of a word , 2. Uncommon words from two sentences 3. Replace None with previous value SQL: questions on Sales, Promotion, Product tables. Calculation of percentage of total sales on start and end dates with overall sales, etc.
avatar

Data Engineer

Interviewed at Meta

3.5
Dec 16, 2020

Python: 1. count occurrence of a word , 2. Uncommon words from two sentences 3. Replace None with previous value SQL: questions on Sales, Promotion, Product tables. Calculation of percentage of total sales on start and end dates with overall sales, etc.

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