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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.

20,268 data engineer interview questions shared by candidates

mostly standard questions in all rounds. one of the questions though was regarding my current salary which was very disappointing because it's pretty much established that women in tech are underpaid. don't ask your candidates and especially not your female candidates that question! to my question concerning remote work, the response was also disappointing. it was explained to me that it's not possible to work from any random place for weeks/months. this however was not at the heart of my question. the context for my question was simply that over the past year and a half (given covid), i have not been able to see any family as they do not live in germany or europe for that matter. and it's important to me when restrictions on travel lift, that i can spend a month or two working remotely. i would except policies in place that reflect the fact that not everyone has the same cookie-cutter biography. if you want to attract more people of color to your company, then you need to accommodate the fact that some of them might have family elsewhere as well and update some of your policies. instead diversity was treated as a matter of numbers ("we're diverse because we have people from 40 nationalities"). the response i had been looking for was "yes it's possible if your team is ok with it". instead i got a long winded explanation around yes maybe you can work one week from there and take 3 weeks off and we try and make an exception for you. this conversation and the question about salary left me with the impression that the company conflates diversity with nationality. anyway, i get that not every employer or every job will be able to allow for remote work for a month a year (tho i don't see why it wouldn't be possible in this case) but it's a fair question that should not be treated with condescension.
avatar

Data Engineer

Interviewed at Elinvar

3.1★
Jul 7, 2021

mostly standard questions in all rounds. one of the questions though was regarding my current salary which was very disappointing because it's pretty much established that women in tech are underpaid. don't ask your candidates and especially not your female candidates that question! to my question concerning remote work, the response was also disappointing. it was explained to me that it's not possible to work from any random place for weeks/months. this however was not at the heart of my question. the context for my question was simply that over the past year and a half (given covid), i have not been able to see any family as they do not live in germany or europe for that matter. and it's important to me when restrictions on travel lift, that i can spend a month or two working remotely. i would except policies in place that reflect the fact that not everyone has the same cookie-cutter biography. if you want to attract more people of color to your company, then you need to accommodate the fact that some of them might have family elsewhere as well and update some of your policies. instead diversity was treated as a matter of numbers ("we're diverse because we have people from 40 nationalities"). the response i had been looking for was "yes it's possible if your team is ok with it". instead i got a long winded explanation around yes maybe you can work one week from there and take 3 weeks off and we try and make an exception for you. this conversation and the question about salary left me with the impression that the company conflates diversity with nationality. anyway, i get that not every employer or every job will be able to allow for remote work for a month a year (tho i don't see why it wouldn't be possible in this case) but it's a fair question that should not be treated with condescension.

A mixture of both HR and technical questions. First round was technical. I was asked to tell the ways I can improve the product from a data science perspective. In the second round, it was part HR, part technical. I was asked about the scalability and algorithms; and then about the desired salary.
avatar

Data Science Engineer

Interviewed at Kayako

4.1★
Feb 13, 2015

A mixture of both HR and technical questions. First round was technical. I was asked to tell the ways I can improve the product from a data science perspective. In the second round, it was part HR, part technical. I was asked about the scalability and algorithms; and then about the desired salary.

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