Member-only story
Data Engineering Interview Questions: Data Stack Questions
I remember walking into an interview once in one of many companies that I did interview with and seeing a massive whiteboard filled with Git commands, references to AWS, and scribbles about Snowflake. The first question was, “So, do you have any background in Git, AWS, or Snowflake?” I answered honestly: I’d used them for many years but wasn’t an expert. Their response was reassuring — what really mattered was my approach to problem-solving and how I’d handle learning new tools. They didn’t expect a mastery of everything, willing to adapt.
Git, Merging, and Rebasing
Not long after, we shifted to the Git strategy. “Do you prefer merges or rebases?” they asked, looking for my opinion on how to keep a repo clean. My take: rebase is a clean way to straighten local commits, as long as it’s done on your private branch. Once a branch is public, rewriting its history can break down anyone who’s already pulled it. There’s a well-known guideline that rebase is fantastic for local changes but shouldn’t be forced on public branches. The golden rule is: never rebase something your teammates have already used, or you’ll rewrite commits they rely on. This can lead to confusion and the famous “forced push.” They pointed to merges versus rebases that highlight how merges preserve the original commit history with a…
