Data Engineer Interview Questions

Review this list of 154 data engineer interview questions and answers verified by hiring managers and candidates.

+ Share interview

Product

Engineering

Operations

Design

Marketing

Data

Sales

Finance

Consulting

Share interview

Explain the differences between Parquet and Avro.
Data Engineer
Technical
1 answer I was asked this
"i did not know ,but the answer is parquet is column-oriented, avro is row-oriented"
Erjan G. - "i did not know ,but the answer is parquet is column-oriented, avro is row-oriented"See full answer
Data Engineer
Technical
Asked at PwC • 6 months ago
How will you develop yourself professionally as a data engineer?
Data Engineer
Behavioral
1 answer I was asked this
"with my worked experienced"
Ritika Y. - "with my worked experienced"See full answer
Data Engineer
Behavioral
Asked at Apple • a year ago
Sliding Window Maximum
Data Engineer
Coding
+1 more
Add answer I was asked this
Data Engineer
Coding
+1 more
Asked at Databricks • a year ago
What is delta lake?
Data Engineer
Data Pipeline Design
Add answer I was asked this
Data Engineer
Data Pipeline Design
Asked at LinkedIn, Oracle, TikTok • a year ago
Serialize and deserialize binary tree
Data Engineer
Data Structures & Algorithms
+2 more
Add answer I was asked this
Data Engineer
Data Structures & Algorithms
+2 more

🧠 Want an expert answer to a question? Saving questions lets us know what content to make next.

Explain the differences between wide and narrow dependencies in Apache Spark.
Data Engineer
Technical
1 answer I was asked this
"i failed to answer, did not know"
Erjan G. - "i failed to answer, did not know"See full answer
Data Engineer
Technical
Asked at Adobe, Apple, LinkedIn + 2 more • a year ago
Print all combinations of numbers from 1 to n that sum to n.
Data Engineer
Data Structures & Algorithms
+4 more
2 answers I was asked this
"import java.util.Arrays; import java.util.stream.Collectors; class Main { // Recursive function to print all combinations of numbers from \i\ to \n\ // having sum \n. The index\ denotes the next free slot in the output array \out\ public static void printCombinations(int i, int n, int[] out, int index) { // if the sum becomes n, print the combination if (n == 0) { System.out.println(Arrays.stream(out).limit(index) .boxed().collect(Collectors.toList())); } // start from the previous e"
Relynn may silver B. - "import java.util.Arrays; import java.util.stream.Collectors; class Main { // Recursive function to print all combinations of numbers from \i\ to \n\ // having sum \n. The index\ denotes the next free slot in the output array \out\ public static void printCombinations(int i, int n, int[] out, int index) { // if the sum becomes n, print the combination if (n == 0) { System.out.println(Arrays.stream(out).limit(index) .boxed().collect(Collectors.toList())); } // start from the previous e"See full answer
Data Engineer
Data Structures & Algorithms
+4 more
Asked at Databricks • a year ago
When should you use a job cluster instead of an all-purpose cluster?
Data Engineer
Data Pipeline Design
Add answer I was asked this
Data Engineer
Data Pipeline Design
What data tools have you worked with, and what specific projects did you use those tools for?
Data Engineer
Technical
1 answer I was asked this
"I have worked with tools such as Hadoop, Oracle, DBeaver, and Databricks. I have used these tools at work when dealing with large datasets, data cleaning, data security, and creating models"
Aneesh D. - "I have worked with tools such as Hadoop, Oracle, DBeaver, and Databricks. I have used these tools at work when dealing with large datasets, data cleaning, data security, and creating models"See full answer
Data Engineer
Technical
What is Pyspark?
Data Engineer
Data Modeling
1 answer I was asked this
"na"
Sonveer K. - "na"See full answer
Data Engineer
Data Modeling
Asked at Adobe, TikTok • a year ago
Print all possible solutions to the N-Queens problem.
Data Engineer
Coding
+2 more
Add answer I was asked this
Data Engineer
Coding
+2 more
Asked at Apple, Google, LinkedIn • a year ago
Calculate the height of a binary tree.
Data Engineer
Data Structures & Algorithms
+3 more
2 answers I was asked this
"The height of a binary tree is the maximum number of edges from the root node to any leaf node. To calculate the height of a binary tree, we can use a recursive approach. The basic idea is to compare the heights of the left and right subtrees of the root node, and return the maximum of them plus one."
Prashant Y. - "The height of a binary tree is the maximum number of edges from the root node to any leaf node. To calculate the height of a binary tree, we can use a recursive approach. The basic idea is to compare the heights of the left and right subtrees of the root node, and return the maximum of them plus one."See full answer
Data Engineer
Data Structures & Algorithms
+3 more
Asked at Amazon • a year ago
Given an array of children’s ratings, assign at least one candy to each child so that higher-rated children get more than their neighbors, and return the minimum total candies needed.
Data Engineer
Coding
+3 more
Add answer I was asked this
Data Engineer
Coding
+3 more
Given a large set of CSV files with thousands of paragraphs each, how would you detect duplicates within each file, and how would you scale this solution for many files?
Data Engineer
Coding
1 answer I was asked this
"My brute force approach was to read them. Give a id to each paragraph and for each token count the number of time it has appeared. If any two rows look same , it is duplicated. Further , interviewer guided me that he will do it with hashing."
Payal B. - "My brute force approach was to read them. Give a id to each paragraph and for each token count the number of time it has appeared. If any two rows look same , it is duplicated. Further , interviewer guided me that he will do it with hashing."See full answer
Data Engineer
Coding