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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.

20,235 data engineer interview questions shared by candidates

The technical interview covered the take-home assessment, which required me to explain why I did it a certain way. The questions would require one to think critically about one's methodology. Other questions include when to use TDD, how to build a data pipeline given X, Y, Z tables. The cultural interview consisted of questions on past experiences/situations, as well as hypothetical scenarios (e.g. being stuck in a situation between two stakeholders). The bar raiser round was similar to the cultural/behavioural interview.
avatar

Data Engineer

Interviewed at foodpanda

3.5★
May 24, 2023

The technical interview covered the take-home assessment, which required me to explain why I did it a certain way. The questions would require one to think critically about one's methodology. Other questions include when to use TDD, how to build a data pipeline given X, Y, Z tables. The cultural interview consisted of questions on past experiences/situations, as well as hypothetical scenarios (e.g. being stuck in a situation between two stakeholders). The bar raiser round was similar to the cultural/behavioural interview.

SCHEMAS: cards customer_id (INT) card_number (VARCHAR) open_date (DATE) 3612 4733-8080 2/15/2020 1825 5743-6687 2/3/2020 1825 4521-3390 5/15/2020 transactions transaction_id (INT) card_number transaction_datetime (UTC) transaction_amount (DECIMAL) 2214 5743-6687 02/20/2020 17:00 122.76 2652 5743-6687 02/27/2020 08:15 3.63 3456 4521-3390 06/02/2020 13:44 89.17 daily_customer_addresses customer_id home_address state report_date 2051 123 Main St NY 08/29/2020 2051 123 Main St NY 08/30/2020 2051 123 Main St NY 08/31/2020
avatar

Senior Data Engineer

Interviewed at Petal

4.1★
Feb 2, 2021

SCHEMAS: cards customer_id (INT) card_number (VARCHAR) open_date (DATE) 3612 4733-8080 2/15/2020 1825 5743-6687 2/3/2020 1825 4521-3390 5/15/2020 transactions transaction_id (INT) card_number transaction_datetime (UTC) transaction_amount (DECIMAL) 2214 5743-6687 02/20/2020 17:00 122.76 2652 5743-6687 02/27/2020 08:15 3.63 3456 4521-3390 06/02/2020 13:44 89.17 daily_customer_addresses customer_id home_address state report_date 2051 123 Main St NY 08/29/2020 2051 123 Main St NY 08/30/2020 2051 123 Main St NY 08/31/2020

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