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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.

20,118 data engineer interview questions shared by candidates

SQL questions on promotions, sales schema. 1. find top 5 sales products having promotions 3. what %age of sales happened on first and last day of the promotion Python:- 1. [1,None,1,2,None} --> [1,1,1,2,2] Ensure you take care of case input[None] which means None object. 2. find s in missisipi. 3. Complete a function that returns a list containing all the mismatched words (case sensitive) between two given input strings # For example: # - string 1 : "Firstly this is the first string" # - string 2 : "Next is the second string" # # - output : ['Firstly', 'this', 'first', 'Next', 'second']
avatar

Data Engineer

Interviewed at Meta

3.6★
Sep 11, 2020

SQL questions on promotions, sales schema. 1. find top 5 sales products having promotions 3. what %age of sales happened on first and last day of the promotion Python:- 1. [1,None,1,2,None} --> [1,1,1,2,2] Ensure you take care of case input[None] which means None object. 2. find s in missisipi. 3. Complete a function that returns a list containing all the mismatched words (case sensitive) between two given input strings # For example: # - string 1 : "Firstly this is the first string" # - string 2 : "Next is the second string" # # - output : ['Firstly', 'this', 'first', 'Next', 'second']

SQL question: 1 table with player_id, log in date, and 2 other fields and was asked to calculate first day retention rate. First day retention rate is defined as the player who log in the 2nd straight day, after the first ever time they log into game.
avatar

Data Engineer

Interviewed at Amazon

3.5★
May 8, 2021

SQL question: 1 table with player_id, log in date, and 2 other fields and was asked to calculate first day retention rate. First day retention rate is defined as the player who log in the 2nd straight day, after the first ever time they log into game.

Complete a function that returns a list containing mismatched words in two strings. The return list can be in any order. I used set to solve this question, but was also asked to verbally explain how I would solve it without using sets.
avatar

Data Engineer

Interviewed at Meta

3.6★
Aug 17, 2021

Complete a function that returns a list containing mismatched words in two strings. The return list can be in any order. I used set to solve this question, but was also asked to verbally explain how I would solve it without using sets.

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