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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.

20,274 data engineer interview questions shared by candidates

Round 1- 1 easy and 1 medium leetcode question Round 2- 1 medium leetcode question and questions related to cluster sizing and other common data engineering questions . At last only rejected me because I didn't remembered pyspark syntax. Never expected such a dumb interviewer at such a good company.
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Data Engineer

Interviewed at PayU

3.5★
Aug 15, 2023

Round 1- 1 easy and 1 medium leetcode question Round 2- 1 medium leetcode question and questions related to cluster sizing and other common data engineering questions . At last only rejected me because I didn't remembered pyspark syntax. Never expected such a dumb interviewer at such a good company.

SQL queries: delete duplicate records from the table, Nth highest salary, Select 2 from employee, Basic joins Python: 1.Create list of integers from a list of string containing integers ( 'a_101_z', 'b_103_z') 2. String replace with characters based on dictionary values 3. 2nd highest array element without using inbuilt methods and functions 4. Smallest repeating substring And there were some questions around project, Apache Kafka, basic data warehousing concepts, acid properties in rdbms etc
avatar

Data Engineer

Interviewed at Shaadi.com

3.9★
Nov 23, 2023

SQL queries: delete duplicate records from the table, Nth highest salary, Select 2 from employee, Basic joins Python: 1.Create list of integers from a list of string containing integers ( 'a_101_z', 'b_103_z') 2. String replace with characters based on dictionary values 3. 2nd highest array element without using inbuilt methods and functions 4. Smallest repeating substring And there were some questions around project, Apache Kafka, basic data warehousing concepts, acid properties in rdbms etc

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