Senior Data Engineer Interview Questions

2,551 senior data engineer interview questions shared by candidates

The SQL questions were high-level queries involving various joins, or a good understanding of set theory. The Python question was relatively straight-forward. There were also questions that revolved around creating a diagram of a system described to you.
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Senior Data Operations Engineer

Interviewed at Dun & Bradstreet

3.8
Jun 3, 2025

The SQL questions were high-level queries involving various joins, or a good understanding of set theory. The Python question was relatively straight-forward. There were also questions that revolved around creating a diagram of a system described to you.

Questions based on previous work experience from resume. Situation/behavioral questions. Issues you faced, how you resolved while implementing data pipelines. Questions around strategies and experience of massive data migration from on-prem to Cloud.
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Senior Data Engineer

Interviewed at Safelite AutoGlass

3.1
Nov 1, 2022

Questions based on previous work experience from resume. Situation/behavioral questions. Issues you faced, how you resolved while implementing data pipelines. Questions around strategies and experience of massive data migration from on-prem to Cloud.

Interview questions were very simple. You would are they really hiring or what? What is difference between RDD, DF and DS in Spark? What are the benefits of spark over MR? What are transformations and actions? Difference between map and flatMap? The interview with VP was about team fit. The last interview also seemed like they wanted me to join so team lead explained how he will help me in my career progression in the team. However, I ended up not getting the offer. they scheduled all interviews in one go. They don't have clear process to follow. I had answered all my questions correctly. So, I was very hopeful. However, after a week, recruiter didn't show professionalism to send feedback and I sent couple of emails, then she called me saying that they need someone with more Scala exposure. I knew it was just an excuse as they very rarely asked Scala questions. It was more about chit chat rather than techincal. So, it turned out I wasted four hours of mine. One big time suggestion to them is that they should learn to create a process for hiring. If candidate was not good technically, they should stop at that point rather than wasting candidate's time.
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Senior Data Engineer

Interviewed at SecurityScorecard

3.5
Mar 19, 2021

Interview questions were very simple. You would are they really hiring or what? What is difference between RDD, DF and DS in Spark? What are the benefits of spark over MR? What are transformations and actions? Difference between map and flatMap? The interview with VP was about team fit. The last interview also seemed like they wanted me to join so team lead explained how he will help me in my career progression in the team. However, I ended up not getting the offer. they scheduled all interviews in one go. They don't have clear process to follow. I had answered all my questions correctly. So, I was very hopeful. However, after a week, recruiter didn't show professionalism to send feedback and I sent couple of emails, then she called me saying that they need someone with more Scala exposure. I knew it was just an excuse as they very rarely asked Scala questions. It was more about chit chat rather than techincal. So, it turned out I wasted four hours of mine. One big time suggestion to them is that they should learn to create a process for hiring. If candidate was not good technically, they should stop at that point rather than wasting candidate's time.

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