de_derek · 4 replies
got the recruiter call last week for a senior DE role on their supply chain data team. interview in 3 weeks and I'm trying to figure out what to actually focus on. I know every loop is a little different but pattern data helps.
anyone who's done the data engineering or analytics engineering loop recently: what did coding look like, did they do system design, was it more SQL or Spark-flavored? how technical was the behavioral round?
drop whatever you remember. even partial info beats zero info.
I did a DS loop adjacent to DE last year. coding was SQL-heavy, two problems involving aggregations and window functions over order/shipment data. system design was a batch pipeline for reporting. they asked about partitioning strategy and how I'd handle late-arriving data. Spark came up but wasn't required.
not DE but I interviewed for senior analyst there. SQL round was two problems, one was a classic retention/churn calculation and one was sessionization. they really like window functions. behavioral was about how I'd handle conflicting stakeholder data needs.
sessionization is such a Wayfair thing to test. ecommerce clickstream is their whole world. thanks, adding window functions deep-dive to the prep list.
friend went through the DE loop for logistics team about 6 months ago. said there was a take-home data modeling problem, design a schema for tracking package status across the fulfillment network. he had to justify grain choices. they sent feedback that he passed but they went on a hiring freeze. the problem itself was solid preparation material.