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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.

20,124 data engineer interview questions shared by candidates

You are given an integer list coins representing coins of different denominations and an integer amount representing a total amount of money. Return the fewest number of coins that you need to make up that amount. If that amount of money cannot be made up by any combination of the coins, return {}. You may assume that you have an infinite number of each kind of coin. Example 1: Input: coins = [1, 5, 6, 9, 15], amount = 31 Output: {15:2, 1:1} Example 2: Input: coins = [1, 5, 6, 9, 15], amount = 100 Output: {15:6, 9:1, 1:1}
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Data Engineer

Interviewed at Brave AI Lab

4.7★
Mar 24, 2023

You are given an integer list coins representing coins of different denominations and an integer amount representing a total amount of money. Return the fewest number of coins that you need to make up that amount. If that amount of money cannot be made up by any combination of the coins, return {}. You may assume that you have an infinite number of each kind of coin. Example 1: Input: coins = [1, 5, 6, 9, 15], amount = 31 Output: {15:2, 1:1} Example 2: Input: coins = [1, 5, 6, 9, 15], amount = 100 Output: {15:6, 9:1, 1:1}

1. Imagine a table keeping track of all the rides a driver undertakes in a given day. How do you query that table to find out the time when he did not have any rides. So the table may have a record when he picks up his first ride and then he picks another and then drops both of them. After a while he picks up a few more which again is recorded in the table. So with all that how do you find the data when he does not have any rides
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Senior Data Engineer

Interviewed at Lyft

3.8★
Feb 18, 2019

1. Imagine a table keeping track of all the rides a driver undertakes in a given day. How do you query that table to find out the time when he did not have any rides. So the table may have a record when he picks up his first ride and then he picks another and then drops both of them. After a while he picks up a few more which again is recorded in the table. So with all that how do you find the data when he does not have any rides

SQL Coding: 5 questions 4 tables were given and questions were mostly on joins, aggregate functions, sub queries. Python Coding: I guess there were total 5 questions but could reach only till second question. Count the number of words in a sentence. Count the frequency of words from the list and store the results in a hash map.
avatar

Data Engineer

Interviewed at Meta

3.6★
Feb 4, 2017

SQL Coding: 5 questions 4 tables were given and questions were mostly on joins, aggregate functions, sub queries. Python Coding: I guess there were total 5 questions but could reach only till second question. Count the number of words in a sentence. Count the frequency of words from the list and store the results in a hash map.

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