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Data Engineer Interview Experience

October 1, 2017
Positive ExperienceNo Offer

Process

I interviewed two times in the last two years. Both times the experience was the same, with the same disappointments, the same type of questions, and the same mistakes made by me.

The initial recruiter interview involved a rapid round of 5-6 SQL and programming questions. This was followed by a technical phone interview, which consisted of 30 minutes of SQL and 30 minutes of programming sessions. They use coderpad.io for the entire telephonic interview.

Questions were neither too difficult nor too easy, but the expectation was high: you had to keep talking and explaining your thought process, making it an interactive session. If you stumbled a little, were unsure about something, or uncertain about a particular concept, you were out. You would not make it to an onsite interview. This is what happened to me. I was nervous during the start of my SQL rounds and stumbled a couple of times on the easiest join problems. Because of nervousness, I couldn't even think of a simple join for which I write queries 100 times a day at my job. Later, for programming, I recovered, but I had already done the damage. Interestingly, I got all my answers right in both SQL and programming, but still, I couldn't make it to onsite. They want perfection in typing, coding, and thinking. Little here and there, and you miss the train. They want you to provide solutions within one attempt without rewriting or rerunning solutions. So, if you have that perfection, then you can make it to onsite. The questions were just average, and even college graduates could get solutions.

Questions

The questions were exactly similar to what other users discussed here.

There were 3-4 SQL and 2-3 programming problems, presented in 30-minute sessions based on your speed.

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Interview Statistics

The following metrics were computed from 347 interview experiences for the Meta Data Engineer role in United States.

Success Rate

15%
Pass Rate

Meta's interview process for their Data Engineer roles in the United States is extremely selective, failing the vast majority of engineers.

Experience Rating

Positive63%
Neutral24%
Negative13%

Candidates reported having very good feelings for Meta's Data Engineer interview process in United States.

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