Forward Deployed Engineer Interview Experience

Where are you based out of?

I just kept this part straightforward. It was the usual logistics, where I was based, general fit, and why I wanted Databricks. Nothing tricky happened here and I treated it like a standard recruiter call before the real technical stuff started.

Write me a SQL query.

I approached it like a speed round. The point was not to overcomplicate it, but to show I could think clearly under time pressure and still explain what I was doing. This round is really about proving breadth, so I would answer cleanly and move fast instead of getting lost in edge-case perfection.

Walk me through a small architecture problem or mini decomp.

I would quickly frame scope, stakeholder, and KPI first, then sketch the high-level pieces. Since FDEs need technical breadth, I tried to show I could talk apps, data, and possibly ML without going too deep. The important thing was covering ground fast and showing where my spikes were.

Solve this practical coding problem in a notebook.

Ask a couple clarifying questions, then talk while coding and keep the solution simple (use basic data structures e.g., dictionaries, strings, lists, and loops). They care a lot about thought process, so I made sure I was narrating.

Do not jump straight into architecture! I’d first clarify the actual problem, scope, stakeholder, end user, data access, and the KPI we care about. Then I’d restate the goal concretely and go application first, then data/ETL, then any ML or weighted algorithm if the use case called for it. I’d talk through user flows, APIs, storage, and basic data modeling, but keep it high level instead of going into caching or sharding. The whole thing feels like delivering business value, rather than merely designing infrastructure.