Dataford
Top 17
Prep plan
Updated weekly · Last refresh Aug 30

Version 1 Data Engineer Interview Questions

The questions to prepare for a Version 1 Data Engineer interview. Questions from real interview reports rank first. Updated weekly.

17questions
~2htotal time
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1
SQL & Data ManipulationStart here. 6 questions + 3 drills · ~78 min
Star vs Snowflake for Sales AnalyticsMedium

Compare star and snowflake schemas for warehouse design, including trade-offs in normalization, query simplicity, and analytics performance.

JoinsData WranglingGroup ByVersion 1
Optimize SQL for Large DatasetsHard

Tests your approach to diagnosing and improving slow SQL queries at scale.

large datasetsperformancequery optimizationVersion 1
Clarifying SQL and PipelinesMedium

Assesses your practical command of SQL, pipelines, and Python for data engineering tasks.

data pipelinesqlpythonVersion 1
SQL Join and Group By PracticeHard
Practice
Practice drill

Join SAT data, aggregate monthly center performance, and compare average scores with LAG.

JoinsGroup BysqlThe College Board
Second-Highest Salary SQLMedium
Practice
Practice drill

Find the second-highest salary and department statistics using DENSE_RANK, LEFT JOIN, GROUP BY, and aggregate functions.

JoinsGroup Bysqlairtel
Monthly Sales Trends by CategoryMedium
Practice
Practice drill

Aggregate monthly sales by product category and use LAG to calculate month-over-month changes.

InfrastructureToolsData WranglingTotal Wine & MoreInc.Benjamin Moore
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2
Pipelines5 questions · ~40 min
Preferred ETL and Transformation ToolsEasy

Explain your preferred extraction and transformation stack, and the reasoning behind those tool choices.

ToolsETLELTVersion 1
Data Quality and Schema EvolutionMedium

Approach for handling schema changes and data quality checks in a high-volume data lake pipeline.

schema evolutionData ModelingQualityVersion 1
Designing Tables for BillionsHard

Evaluates your data modeling and scalability approach for very large datasets.

Version 1
Leading a Data MigrationMedium

Evaluates your leadership, risk management, and learning from complex migrations.

project leadershipdata migrationlessons learnedVersion 1
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3
Behavioral & Leadership6 questions · ~48 min
Explaining Technical Issues ClearlyMedium

Tests whether you can translate technical complexity into business-relevant language for non-technical stakeholders and drive action.

Stakeholder ManagementCommunicationtechnical explanationVersion 1
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The finish line: interview-readyComplete all 17 questions plus 3 hands-on drills to finish this plan.