What is a Data Engineer at Forvis Mazars Group?

As a Data Engineer at Forvis Mazars Group, you are at the critical intersection of advanced technology and global professional services. Your role is foundational to the firm’s ability to deliver high-quality audit, tax, and advisory services. By designing, building, and optimizing scalable data architectures, you empower consultants and auditors to analyze massive financial datasets with precision and speed.

The impact of this position extends directly to the client experience and the firm’s operational efficiency. You will be tasked with transforming raw, unstructured financial records into clean, reliable pipelines that fuel advanced analytics, business intelligence dashboards, and machine learning models. Because Forvis Mazars Group handles highly sensitive corporate data, your work requires not just technical excellence, but a deep commitment to data governance, security, and accuracy.

What makes this role uniquely compelling is the blend of technical rigor and business strategy. You will collaborate with diverse teams—from data scientists to financial auditors—solving complex problems that directly influence global business decisions. Expect an environment that values continuous learning, structured problem-solving, and a collaborative approach to navigating technical ambiguity.

Common Interview Questions

The questions below are representative of what candidates face during the Forvis Mazars Group interview process. While you should not memorize answers, use these to understand the patterns and the depth of knowledge expected, particularly in Python and SQL.

Python and Pandas Fundamentals

This category tests your hands-on ability to manipulate data structures. Expect questions that require you to think about efficiency and data cleanliness.

• How do you handle missing or null values in a Pandas DataFrame?
• Explain the difference between loc and iloc in Pandas.
• How would you merge two large datasets in Pandas, and what steps would you take to ensure it doesn't consume too much memory?
• What are the advantages of using NumPy arrays over standard Python lists for numerical data?
• Can you explain how broadcasting works in NumPy?

SQL and Database Management

These questions evaluate your ability to interact with relational databases and extract meaningful insights from raw data.

• Write a SQL query to find the second highest salary in an employee table.
• Explain the difference between INNER JOIN, LEFT JOIN, and FULL OUTER JOIN.
• What is a window function, and can you provide an example of when you would use RANK() versus DENSE_RANK()?
• How do you optimize a SQL query that is taking too long to execute?
• What is the difference between a WHERE clause and a HAVING clause?

Behavioral and Motivation

This category assesses your alignment with the firm’s culture, your communication skills, and your ability to work within a team.

• Why do you want to work as a Data Engineer at Forvis Mazars Group?
• Tell me about a time you had to work with a difficult dataset. How did you approach cleaning and structuring it?
• Describe a situation where you had a disagreement with a team member over a technical decision. How did you resolve it?
• How do you explain a complex data pipeline failure to a non-technical project manager?
• What is your typical workflow when using Git on a collaborative project?

Getting Ready for Your Interviews

Preparing for an interview at Forvis Mazars Group requires a balanced approach. Interviewers are looking for candidates who possess strong foundational technical skills but also understand how those skills apply to real-world business challenges.

Focus your preparation on these key evaluation criteria:

Technical Proficiency – You must demonstrate a solid command of core data engineering languages and tools. Interviewers will specifically evaluate your fluency in Python and SQL, looking for your ability to write clean, efficient, and scalable code.

Data Manipulation and Analysis – Beyond basic coding, you need to show expertise in handling data structures. Forvis Mazars Group places a heavy emphasis on libraries like Pandas and NumPy for data transformation, cleaning, and aggregation.

Engineering Best Practices – The team expects you to treat data engineering like software engineering. You will be evaluated on your understanding of version control, specifically Git, as well as your approach to testing, debugging, and documenting your pipelines.

Motivation and Culture Fit – Technical skills alone are not enough. Interviewers will assess your enthusiasm for the role, your ability to communicate complex technical concepts to non-technical stakeholders, and your alignment with the collaborative, integrity-driven culture of Forvis Mazars Group.

Interview Process Overview

The interview process for a Data Engineer at Forvis Mazars Group is generally straightforward, structured, and designed to evaluate both your technical baseline and your team fit. Candidates consistently report a positive, logical progression that respects their time while thoroughly assessing their capabilities.

Your journey typically begins with a basic screening call. This is an introductory conversation focused on your background, your resume, and your high-level career goals. If there is a mutual fit, you will advance to the technical interview stage. This round is highly practical, focusing heavily on your core programming and database skills. You will be tested on your knowledge of Python, specific data manipulation libraries, and SQL querying.

Following the technical assessment, the process culminates in a motivational and behavioral interview. In this final stage, you will meet with various members of the department to discuss your working style, your motivation for joining Forvis Mazars Group, and how you integrate into a team environment. The exact number of final conversations may differ slightly depending on the specific team or regional office, but the focus remains on collaboration and cultural alignment.

This visual timeline outlines the typical progression from the initial recruiter screen through the technical and behavioral stages. Use this to pace your preparation—focus first on sharpening your foundational coding skills for the technical round, then shift your energy toward articulating your career narrative and team-oriented mindset for the final motivational interviews.

Deep Dive into Evaluation Areas

To succeed in the Forvis Mazars Group interview, you must be prepared to demonstrate depth in a few highly specific technical and behavioral areas. Interviewers prefer candidates who have a strong grasp of the fundamentals over those who have superficial knowledge of many different tools.

Python and Data Manipulation

Python is the backbone of data engineering at the firm. Interviewers are not just looking for basic scripting ability; they want to see how you manipulate data efficiently. Strong performance here means writing vectorized operations, understanding memory management in Python, and knowing how to clean messy datasets.

Be ready to go over:

• Pandas DataFrames – Merging, joining, grouping, and aggregating large datasets efficiently.
• NumPy Arrays – Performing mathematical operations and understanding the performance benefits of NumPy over standard Python lists.
• Data Cleaning – Handling missing values, standardizing formats, and identifying outliers in financial datasets.
• Advanced concepts (less common) – Optimizing Pandas performance with chunking, or utilizing parallel processing libraries for massive datasets.

Example questions or scenarios:

• "How would you handle a dataset with millions of rows where 15% of the values in a critical financial column are missing?"
• "Explain the difference between merge, join, and concat in Pandas, and when you would use each."
• "Walk me through how you would optimize a Pandas script that is currently running out of memory."

SQL and Database Fundamentals

Because you will be working with vast amounts of structured data, your SQL skills must be sharp. Interviewers evaluate your ability to extract, transform, and load data directly within the database engine. A strong candidate writes queries that are not only accurate but also optimized for performance.

Be ready to go over:

• Complex Joins and Subqueries – Combining data from multiple transactional tables accurately.
• Window Functions – Using functions like ROW_NUMBER(), RANK(), and SUM() OVER() for advanced analytical queries.
• Query Optimization – Understanding execution plans, indexing, and how to avoid bottlenecks in large relational databases.
• Advanced concepts (less common) – Database normalization, designing schema for data warehouses, and handling slowly changing dimensions.

Example questions or scenarios:

• "Write a query to find the top three highest-grossing clients per region, partitioned by year."
• "How do you identify and resolve a slow-running query in a production database?"
• "Explain the difference between a clustered and a non-clustered index."

Version Control and Engineering Standards

Data pipelines must be reliable and reproducible. Forvis Mazars Group evaluates your adherence to software engineering best practices, with a specific focus on Git. They want to ensure you can collaborate safely with other engineers on the same codebase.

Be ready to go over:

• Git Workflows – Branching, merging, rebasing, and resolving merge conflicts.
• Code Quality – Writing modular, reusable code and understanding the importance of PEP 8 standards.
• CI/CD Concepts – Basic understanding of how code moves from a local environment to production.

Example questions or scenarios:

• "Walk me through your typical Git workflow when collaborating on a team project."
• "You have a merge conflict on a critical pipeline script. How do you resolve it safely?"

Motivation and Team Fit

The final rounds focus heavily on who you are as a professional. Forvis Mazars Group values team members who are communicative, driven, and aligned with the firm's mission of delivering excellence. Strong performance in this area means providing specific examples of past collaboration and showing genuine interest in the company's work.

Be ready to go over:

• Cross-functional Collaboration – How you work with non-technical stakeholders, like auditors or business analysts.
• Adaptability – Your ability to pivot when project requirements change or when faced with ambiguous data.
• Career Motivation – Why you specifically want to work in the professional services and consulting industry.

Example questions or scenarios:

• "Tell me about a time you had to explain a complex technical data issue to a non-technical stakeholder."
• "Why are you interested in joining Forvis Mazars Group specifically?"

Key Responsibilities

As a Data Engineer at Forvis Mazars Group, your day-to-day work revolves around building the infrastructure that makes data accessible and actionable. You will be responsible for designing, developing, and maintaining robust data pipelines that ingest data from various internal and external client sources. This involves writing extensive Python scripts and SQL queries to extract, transform, and load (ETL) data into centralized data lakes or warehouses.

A significant portion of your time will be spent on data quality and reliability. Because the data is often used for financial auditing and advisory, you will implement rigorous validation checks using tools like Pandas to ensure accuracy and consistency. You will actively monitor pipeline performance, troubleshoot failures, and optimize legacy code to improve processing speeds.

Collaboration is a daily requirement. You will work closely with data scientists, business intelligence analysts, and audit teams to understand their data needs. By translating their business requirements into technical architectures, you ensure that the downstream teams have the clean, structured data they need to build reports, dashboards, and predictive models.

Role Requirements & Qualifications

To be a highly competitive candidate for the Data Engineer role at Forvis Mazars Group, you need a distinct blend of programming expertise and data intuition. The firm looks for candidates who can hit the ground running with core data manipulation tools.

• Must-have skills – Advanced proficiency in Python (specifically Pandas and NumPy). Strong command of SQL for complex querying and database management. Solid understanding of version control using Git.
• Nice-to-have skills – Experience with cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, or GCP). Familiarity with workflow orchestration tools like Apache Airflow. Knowledge of modern data warehousing solutions like Snowflake or BigQuery.
• Experience level – Typically, successful candidates have 2 to 5 years of experience in data engineering, data analytics, or software engineering roles, often with a background in computer science or engineering.
• Soft skills – Exceptional problem-solving abilities, strong verbal and written communication skills, and the capacity to manage expectations with non-technical stakeholders.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: How difficult is the technical interview for this role? Candidates generally rate the technical interview as easy to average in difficulty. The focus is heavily on fundamental knowledge—specifically your practical ability to use Python, Pandas, NumPy, and SQL—rather than obscure algorithmic puzzle questions. If you know your core data manipulation libraries well, you will be in a strong position.

Q: How much time should I spend preparing? Plan for 1 to 2 weeks of focused preparation. Dedicate the majority of your time to brushing up on Pandas syntax, practicing complex SQL queries (especially window functions and joins), and reviewing your Git commands.

Q: What differentiates a successful candidate from the rest? Successful candidates don't just write code that works; they write code that is clean, efficient, and easy for others to read. Furthermore, candidates who can articulate why they chose a specific technical approach and how it impacts the broader business goals stand out significantly during the final motivational rounds.

Q: What is the culture like during the final interview rounds? The final rounds are highly collaborative and conversational. Forvis Mazars Group places a premium on teamwork and mutual respect. The interviewers want to see that you are approachable, eager to learn, and capable of integrating smoothly into their existing department.

Other General Tips

• Master the Fundamentals First: Do not get distracted by advanced machine learning or niche cloud tools if your core Python and SQL skills are rusty. The interview data explicitly highlights Pandas, NumPy, and SQL as the primary technical hurdles.
• Think Like an Auditor: Remember that Forvis Mazars Group operates in the financial and professional services space. When answering data cleaning questions, emphasize your commitment to accuracy, validation, and preventing data loss.

• Structure Your Behavioral Answers: Use the STAR method (Situation, Task, Action, Result) for the motivational and behavioral round. Keep your answers concise but ensure you highlight the specific actions you took to drive a positive outcome.
• Ask Thoughtful Questions: Use the end of your interviews to ask about the team's current data infrastructure, the scale of the data they work with, or how the engineering team collaborates with the audit practice. This shows genuine interest in the role.

Summary & Next Steps

Securing a Data Engineer position at Forvis Mazars Group is an excellent opportunity to build high-impact data solutions within a globally recognized firm. By stepping into this role, you will be instrumental in modernizing data workflows and enabling advanced analytics that drive strategic business decisions. The work is challenging, highly visible, and deeply rewarding for engineers who care about data integrity and performance.

To succeed, focus your preparation on the core pillars identified in this guide: mastery of Python data manipulation (specifically Pandas and NumPy), advanced SQL querying, and solid engineering practices like Git. Balance this technical preparation by reflecting on your career narrative and readiness to collaborate in a professional services environment. Focused, targeted practice in these areas will dramatically improve your confidence and performance.

This compensation module provides a baseline understanding of the financial expectations for data engineering roles. Use this data to ensure your salary expectations align with the market and the seniority of the specific role you are targeting at the firm.

You have the skills and the roadmap to excel in this process. For further practice, continue exploring technical challenges and real-world scenarios on Dataford. Trust in your preparation, approach each round with curiosity and confidence, and you will be well-positioned to land the offer.