Data Engineer Interview Questions with Answers 2026

Type 3 adds a “previous value” column to the existing row. Window functions perform calculations across a set of table rows related to the current row without collapsing them. Semi-structured data has some markers but no rigid schema (like JSON or XML). For a beginner-friendly breakdown, see our guide on Batch vs Stream Processing.

  • Both accumulators and broadcast variables are shared variables in Spark, but they solve different problems.
  • Stay in your domain — add the AI edge and out-prepare the room.
  • We need to focus only on Jan 2022, thus filter the data frame for that.
  • Plot the results and look for the point where the line starts to level off.
  • They can handle both numerical and categorical input features.

It returns from l1, not the sorted l2, so the result isn’t sorted and the sort is wasted. That costs O(n) memory, and it never finishes on an infinite generator. From sync code, https://uvik.io/ call asyncio.run() at the entry point, or run a loop in a background thread and submit coroutines with asyncio.run_coroutine_threadsafe(). It doesn’t help CPU-bound work, and one blocking call inside an async handler stalls every request on that loop.
Finally, the dictionary with element-frequency pairs is returned. If the element is not present in the dictionary, it defaults to 0. It iterates through the list and uses the get() method to retrieve the current frequency of the element. This approach has a time complexity of O(N), where N is the length of the list. This approach has a time complexity of O(N), where N is the length of the string. This approach has a time complexity of O(N), where N is the length of the string, as it requires traversing the entire string once.

Common Python Interview Questions for Data Engineers

The follow-up they askThe API returns 429 with a Retry-After header. The questions that separate scripters from engineers in senior loopsWork through 12 problems → The follow-up they askWhich aggregations can be computed chunk-wise and recombined exactly, and which cannot? The follow-up they askImplement the same as-of semantics in SQL on a warehouse.
The residuals (differences between predicted and actual values) should not be related to each other. This allows for the analysis of audio data in data science projects. They can understand the meaning behind search queries and return more relevant results.
PySpark does not require Hadoop to run, but it does typically operate in a production environment with Hadoop (HDFS, YARN) as part of its architecture. It’s best to learn how to use PySpark by focusing on the concept of Distributed Execution, rather than trying to memorize everything. We discussed basic concepts, optimization methods, and realistic examples when using PySpark throughout this tutorial. This significantly reduces disk I/O, network traffic, and query execution time.
The follow-up they askAt what malformed-rate threshold should the job fail loudly instead of dead-lettering, and who picks that number? Compile the pattern once outside the loop, use named groups so the extraction is self-documenting, and route non-matching lines to a dead-letter list with a counter instead of raising. How much do you buffer, and what is that called in streaming systems? The follow-up they askEvents arrive slightly out of order (up to 2 minutes).

You can answer this question by explaining that databases using Delete SQL statements, Insert, and Update SQL statements focus on speed and efficiency, so analyzing data can be more challenging. You’ll want to list the tools that you’ve mastered, explain your process for choosing certain tools for a particular project, and choose one. Your interviewer is testing whether you understand its significance in data engineering, so you’ll want to explain that it is compatible with multiple types of hardware that make it easy to access. Hadoop is an open-source software framework for storing data and running applications that provides massive amounts of storage and processing power. Snowflake schema is an extension of a star schema and adds additional dimension tables that split the data up, flowing out like a snowflake’s spokes. Design schemas are fundamental to data engineering, so try to be accurate while explaining the concepts in everyday language.
Data warehouses also support advanced analytics techniques like data mining and predictive modeling. This makes it simpler for non-technical users to gain insights from complex data sets. This long-term perspective helps inform strategic decision-making and planning. This allows for consistent reporting and analysis across different teams and departments. These systems are designed to handle and organize vast quantities of information efficiently.

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