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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.

20,193 data engineer interview questions shared by candidates

How would you design and build a data model to report on active users and number of posts by interface (ipad, iphone, desktop web, etc) given a hierarchy of these interfaces and their rollup groupings, at any and all levels of the hierarchy?
avatar

Data Engineer Manager

Interviewed at Meta

3.5★
Dec 21, 2018

How would you design and build a data model to report on active users and number of posts by interface (ipad, iphone, desktop web, etc) given a hierarchy of these interfaces and their rollup groupings, at any and all levels of the hierarchy?

Phone: SQL qs are pretty basic on equi joins, outer joins, and self joins. Coding exercises are pretty basic like word search, etc. Time is a crunch (1hr). You have to keep explaining while coding so that the interviewer online understands your thought process. In Person: Some live coding exercise, tougher than phone qs, product sense, visualization.
avatar

Data Engineer

Interviewed at Meta

3.5★
Jan 29, 2019

Phone: SQL qs are pretty basic on equi joins, outer joins, and self joins. Coding exercises are pretty basic like word search, etc. Time is a crunch (1hr). You have to keep explaining while coding so that the interviewer online understands your thought process. In Person: Some live coding exercise, tougher than phone qs, product sense, visualization.

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