Top 20 Databricks Interview Questions for All Levels

Databricks is a data analytics platform that simplifies data engineering, data science, and machine learning. More and more job opportunities are becoming available to data engineers and other professionals who know about or want to learn Databricks. 

To help you get the upper hand during an interview, I have created this guide to prepare you with the essential topics. The following questions are shaped by my own experience hiring data engineers and working with other data professionals who use Databricks. For this reason, I believe this article will provide good insight into what hiring managers are looking for.

If you are completely new to Databricks or you are looking to improve your skills, then I’d recommend taking a look at Datacamp’s Introduction to Databricks course to get you up to speed. I have also provided references to DataCamp courses and tutorials throughout this article if you would like to understand any specific concepts in greater detail.

Basic Databricks Interview Questions

Now, at a basic user level, interview questions will focus on foundational knowledge of Databricks, including basic tasks like deploying notebooks and using the essential tools available within the platform. You are likely to encounter these questions if you have had limited experience with Databricks or if the interviewer isn’t certain of your skill level. 

Below are some of the key topics you are likely to be asked about. Read also our Databricks Tutorial: 7 Must-Know Concepts as an additional resource to prepare.

• High Level Overview of Databricks: You should be able to describe what Databricks is and also how it fits into a modern data platform. 
• Core Feature and Users: You should know about collaborative workspaces, notebooks, the optimized Spark engine, and the ability to handle both batch and streaming data.
• Simple Use Cases: You should provide some high-level examples of how customers use Databricks, including some insight into basic architecture.

Also, if the idea of streaming data is new to you, then I’d recommend taking a look at our Streaming Concepts course to boost your knowledge in this area.