Kroger · Primly Community

Went through the KTD data engineering loop last month. Here's the full breakdown.

de_derek · 5 replies

Just finished the Kroger Technology and Digital process for a senior data engineer role. Total time from application to offer was about 5 weeks, which is actually pretty reasonable for a company this size.

Rounds in order: Recruiter screen, 30 min, mostly background and salary range check Hiring manager call, 45 min, talked through my experience with high-volume pipelines and how I handled incident response on data-critical systems Technical screen, 1 hour: two SQL problems (one was a multi-step query involving a time-series aggregation, the other was about finding anomalies in transaction data), plus a short conceptual conversation about streaming vs batch. I used Spark at my current job so we spent 15 minutes on that. Virtual panel, 3 hours back to back: two behavioral interviews, one system design (design a real-time inventory tracking system that feeds both in-store ops and the website), one with a cross-functional stakeholder (not technical)

The system design question was actually interesting. They care about how you handle the case where POS data and warehouse data disagree. There's a lot of that in grocery.

Comp offer came in at the lower end of market. Cincinnati HQ adjusts down from coastal. Total package was fine for the COL but don't go in expecting tech-company-tier cash. The work itself is genuinely complex though. Their data scale is not a joke.

5 replies

ds_dmitri

the inventory tracking system design question sounds like exactly what I'd expect. did they push on the CAP theorem tradeoffs or was it more operational/practical? i.e., 'what do you do when the number is wrong' rather than 'explain eventual consistency'

de_derek

very practical. they didn't use the word CAP once. it was more 'if a customer clicks buy and inventory says 3 units but the warehouse just scanned 0, what happens and how does your system handle that customer.' operational framing the whole way through.

market_realist

the 'lower end of market' note is useful, thanks. did you try to negotiate? curious whether there was movement or if they were firm citing the Cincinnati adjustment.

ops_omar

appreciate the detail on the cross-functional stakeholder round. that's not something you usually see called out. what was that person testing for? alignment? communication style?

de_derek

honestly felt like a vibe check more than anything structured. she asked about a time I had to explain a data issue to a non-technical audience and what I did when the business stakeholder didn't agree with my recommendation. nothing adversarial, just checking if you can exist in a cross-functional org.