Amazon Data Engineer Mock Interview + Tips and Feedback!!

Today I interviewed Scott, who works as a machine learning engineer and data engineer at Nextdoor.

Scott has worked at big companies like Amazon and small startups with under 10 people. He's done it all, from backend engineering to scaling data systems to now working as a machine learning engineer at Nextdoor.

We went over a sample question from Amazon at the end and went over general feedback on how he feels about interviews and any tricks he uses. For the rest of the video, you can find it on Interview Query.

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[opusrv]

I would create a temp table. Change the dataflow to the temp table. Add the column to the existing table. Move the flow back to the original table. Insert the records from temp into current.

[my_j.a.r.v.i.s.]

Interviewer is cool thats why this interview feels like a normal conversation.

[satheeshviswanathan]

I will spin up a new node of the same database and make it actively available (active-passive). Once the databases have synced up, I will disconnect the old node (so that the new node become active now) and insert the new column into the old node. Now, add this old node again to the Active Availability group to let it sync with the new node. Now both databases will be in sync having new column.

[jameshizon]

Thanks. I have Data Engineering Zoom interview tomorrow, so I will be watching more of your videos!

[JimmyBrock]

Make changes to a replicate db and switch standby with the primary db.

[Expateer]

Terrible answers. If it's Postgres, an ALTER TABLE command to add the column only locks the table for a few milliseconds. If the column has a default value, you add the column, UPDATE the table, rows at a time with the new value. Once filled, then add the DEFAULT and NOT NULL constraints. That'll give you almost no downtime. The candidate suggested creating a new table and dropping the old one without asking if that table had any child tables pointing to it with a foreign key.

[somdash]

Short answer is use synonyms...! Always use synonyms and switch. But really, need to understand, when that maintenance activity happens. You have to do it then.

[mohit]

If data is added every second, how is it a batch job, it has to be streaming so then the question is a bit weird

[psreotu]

horrible answer to “tell me about yourself” also dude looked like he just woke up

[trickyardi]

If only interviewers would answer my counter-questions same enthusiastically, they often just say "don't know/choose any" or shrug

[murtazajabalpurwala]

Well not a good interview video. It should be watched to understand how you should not do an interview.

[edgehodl]

u did not even use any of leadership principles, this is a fail at real interview

[slothochdonut]

I believe this guy is a tech nerd, telling from his look😬

[varunmanjunath]

I dare you to read ian goodfellows book on deep learning