Data Engineer Interview Questions
Get ready for data engineer interviews with questions on ETL pipelines, data warehousing, and big data technologies.
Top 10 Data Engineer Interview Questions
- Explain the difference between ETL and ELT.
- How would you design a data pipeline for real-time analytics?
- What is the difference between a data lake and a data warehouse?
- Describe your experience with Apache Spark or similar frameworks.
- How do you handle data quality and validation?
- What is data partitioning and why is it important?
- How do you optimize query performance on large datasets?
- Describe a complex data pipeline you have built.
- How do you handle schema evolution in data pipelines?
- What tools do you use for data orchestration?
Tips for Your Data Engineer Interview
- Be proficient in SQL and at least one programming language
- Understand distributed computing concepts
- Know common data modeling techniques
- Be ready to discuss data governance and compliance