Skip to contentSkip to footer

Data Engineer Interview Questions

Salaries
Interviews

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

Questions on the video call were technical, but basic. 1. What are ACID properties 2. What are indexes 3. What is the difference between Stored Procedures, Functions and Triggers 4. BASE properties 5. JVM, JRE, JDK and JIT 6. What are common table expressions 7. Difference between throw and throws in java 8. What is the difference between Clustered and non clustered index
avatar

Data Engineer

Interviewed at Viant

2.8★
Feb 23, 2018

Questions on the video call were technical, but basic. 1. What are ACID properties 2. What are indexes 3. What is the difference between Stored Procedures, Functions and Triggers 4. BASE properties 5. JVM, JRE, JDK and JIT 6. What are common table expressions 7. Difference between throw and throws in java 8. What is the difference between Clustered and non clustered index

# Q1: Write a function to intersect two *sorted* lists (find common elements) # Write a method taking two lists as input, and returning a new list # You can assume you have a reasonable array/list class available (ArrayList, vector, python list, etc) # Ex: # l1 = [1,2,3,4,5] # l2 = [1,5,7,11,100] # result = [1,5]
avatar

Software Engineer/Data Scientist

Interviewed at Tripadvisor

3.6★
Oct 29, 2014

# Q1: Write a function to intersect two *sorted* lists (find common elements) # Write a method taking two lists as input, and returning a new list # You can assume you have a reasonable array/list class available (ArrayList, vector, python list, etc) # Ex: # l1 = [1,2,3,4,5] # l2 = [1,5,7,11,100] # result = [1,5]

Implement a library function which takes a collection of integers (Collection<Integer>) computes its sum and returns the result. The implementation must establish preconditions which ensure lack of runtime error(s). Implement the above function using recursion only.
avatar

Data Engineer

Interviewed at impact.com

3.7★
Aug 9, 2018

Implement a library function which takes a collection of integers (Collection<Integer>) computes its sum and returns the result. The implementation must establish preconditions which ensure lack of runtime error(s). Implement the above function using recursion only.

Viewing 81 - 90 interview questions

Glassdoor has 20,118 interview questions and reports from Data engineer interviews. Prepare for your interview. Get hired. Love your job.