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Data & AI

How to hire a Data Engineer

What the role does, the job description, the interview questions, and the 40-minute screening pack that tells you who can do the job before you book a single interview.

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The role

What a Data Engineer does

A Data Engineer sits in the Data & AI function. The sections below give you the job description, the interview questions and the screening pack for the role.

Screen before you interview

The Data Engineer screening pack

ETL, modelling, distributed processing and SQL are the core of the job. Every applicant gets one link. You get one ranked report.

Skills tests · 40 minutes total
Data & analyticsData Extraction, Transformation and Loading Test10 min · 20 questions · IntermediateThe Data Extraction, Transformation and Loading Test helps hiring teams assess intermediate ETL skills before interviews. It is suited to candidates who build, maintain or troubleshoot data workflows and need to reason about pipeline design, transformations and reliability.Data & analyticsData Modeling Concepts Test10 min · 20 questions · IntermediateThe Data Modeling Concepts Test helps hiring teams assess whether candidates can structure data clearly and avoid common design problems. It is suited to intermediate candidates in data and analytics roles who need practical knowledge of normalisation, dimensional modelling, and table relationships.Programming knowledgeApache Spark Test10 min · 20 questions · IntermediateThe Apache Spark Test helps hiring teams assess intermediate Spark knowledge before interviews. It is suited to roles that build, run or tune Spark pipelines, and checks whether candidates understand how Spark executes work, applies transformations and improves performance.Software skillsPostgreSQL Test10 min · 20 questions · IntermediateThe PostgreSQL Test is an intermediate screening assessment for hiring teams evaluating candidates who work with relational data. In 10 minutes, it checks practical knowledge of queries and joins, indexes, and constraints, helping you spot people who can reason through common database tasks.
Personality inventory
Big 5 (OCEAN) Personality TestThe Big 5 (OCEAN) Personality Test helps hiring teams understand how entry level candidates are likely to approach work, people and pressure. It measures five broad personality dimensions that can support decisions for roles where reliability, teamwork, adaptability and communication matter.
One-way video questions · answered on camera, scored by AI
  1. 1

    Describe a pipeline you built end to end. Where did it break first?

  2. 2

    How do you design a schema for analytics versus for an application?

  3. 3

    How do you handle late-arriving or duplicate data?

  4. 4

    What do you monitor in production, and what wakes you up at night?

  5. 5

    Batch or streaming for our use case? Argue it.

Send this pack to your applicantsFree plan, 10 candidates a month, no card.

Interview questions

Data Engineer interview questions

For the candidates who pass the pack. Each comes with a sample answer on the full page.

  1. 01

    What attracted you to data engineering?

  2. 02

    Tell me about your background and the data platforms you have worked with.

  3. 03

    What kind of data platform maturity are you looking to join?

  4. 04

    How do you keep your engineering skills sharp?

  5. 05

    How do you design a data pipeline to be reliable and maintainable?

  6. 06

    Explain how you approach data modeling in a warehouse.

  7. 07

    How do you decide between batch and streaming for a given use case?

  8. 08

    How do you ensure and monitor data quality?

All Data Engineer interview questions with answers

Frequently asked questions

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Cleaning data, querying it, explaining it and knowing the statistics behind it.

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Hire your next Data Engineer on proof, not promises.

One link tests, interviews and ranks every applicant. Free plan, no card.

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