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.

20,256 data engineer interview questions shared by candidates

Given a string, write a function “recurring char” to find the strings first recurring character. Return “None” if there is no recurring character. Note: Treat upper and lower case letters as distinct characters. You may assume the input string includes no spaces. Example: input = "interviewquery" output = "i" input = "interv" output = "None"
avatar

Data Engineer

Interviewed at Amazon

3.5★
Aug 16, 2024

Given a string, write a function “recurring char” to find the strings first recurring character. Return “None” if there is no recurring character. Note: Treat upper and lower case letters as distinct characters. You may assume the input string includes no spaces. Example: input = "interviewquery" output = "i" input = "interv" output = "None"

First question was on palindromic strings of 0s and 1s that I spent too much time on, The second question was "simple" sliding window question on memory allocation. It's funny that I have been in long meetings to discuss this kind of logic, but somehow there was an expectation that I would code this on the spot. Yeah, I failed the tech hazing here. The system design questions were really well-made. I honestly had a lot of fun answering those. Lots of things about availability, architecture, and databases.
avatar

Senior Data Engineer

Interviewed at Amazon

3.5★
May 26, 2022

First question was on palindromic strings of 0s and 1s that I spent too much time on, The second question was "simple" sliding window question on memory allocation. It's funny that I have been in long meetings to discuss this kind of logic, but somehow there was an expectation that I would code this on the spot. Yeah, I failed the tech hazing here. The system design questions were really well-made. I honestly had a lot of fun answering those. Lots of things about availability, architecture, and databases.

Viewing 2091 - 2100 interview questions

Glassdoor has 20,256 interview questions and reports from Data engineer interviews. Prepare for your interview. Get hired. Love your job.