Databricks Solutions Architect Interview Questions
& Process
Real candidates share what happened, how many rounds they had,
and how the experience turned out.
Based on 156 interview experiences · FREE TO READ
Candidate interview experiences
First-hand accounts from people who interviewed at Databricks.
Databricks
Solutions Architect
Mid Average Negative experience No offer 4 rounds
Interview process
Recruiter call Take home Technical screen Onsite Panel
Interview formats
Behavioral Technical Coding
The process started with a HR round and then went to a take home technical coding round. After that there was a technical round and then a final panel interview. They moved between interviews quite fast. There was also a prep call with the HM. After the final round they didn’t even bother to give feedback or say the outcome. There was just radio silence and I realised it was a rejection.
Confirmed questions1 question
- Fire and forget type questions like explain spark architecture, OLAP vs OLTP and similar stuff.
Databricks
Solution Architect
Senior Average Negative experience No offer 4 rounds
Interview process
Phone screen Recruiter call Take home Technical screen
Interview formats
Behavioral Technical Coding
I would stay away from this over-hyped company. They are just riding current momentum. They will fade out in a few years and then layoffs will start. After passing all the stages of the tech interviews, there was NO feedback from them. After I contacted them, they asked me to call them for feedback! wow. Basically, they don’t pay well, or they found some other friend for the job etc. Never seen a case where you pass all the interview stages and then get a no (without any formal communication from them). I think the roles in the UK are highly pressured from a sales perspective and there is a lot of politics, and the pay is definitely not at US levels. Wait until the sales drop and the layoffs begin. - Initial chat with hiring managers. - Chat with recruiter in the UK. - CodeSignal coding test - you can do it in SQL or any language. - 1hr+ tech fire-and-forget questions around big data and database techs including SQL. They will say well done etc. when you answer only to reject you later!
Confirmed questions2 questions
- They wanted to know some things about big data and database technologies.
- They asked some Spark-related questions.
Databricks
Solutions Architect
Senior Difficult Positive experience Accept offer 5 rounds About a month
Interview process
Recruiter call Panel
Interview formats
Behavioral Technical Presentation Group Other
5 rounds including the recruiter screen – others have already listed out the specific steps, and your recruiter will do the same. I felt the process was straightforward and fair. It can be more technically challenging for some people depending on their experience level in the cloud-first data & AI space. But this is an experienced role and for me, the tougher parts of the process set a very fair expectation. The final step, the panel interview, can also be harder for folks who don’t have previous sales / pre-sales / consulting background. Still, your hiring manager is your ally at that point and will help you prepare a lot, as long as you make good use of them.
Confirmed questions1 question
- Why do you want to join Databricks?
Databricks Solutions Architect Interview Questions
Quoted word for word from Databricks interview reports.
“For a Left Outer join what will be the number of records, can it be different than the outer table?”
Read reports →“If you have tables X and Y and you use a left join from table Y to X, how many rows will you get back?”
Read reports →“What are the different types of joins in spark? (like broadcast, sort merge, shuffle, etc.)”
Read reports →“What is considered best practice for data storage for ML (lake or warehouse)?”
Read reports →“Q: How would you move data from the client's on-premise ftp server into AWS s3?”
Read report →“How would you remove PII from a data lake when you get requests to delete it?”
Read report →“how would you recommend a customer sets up and runs Databricks on their cloud infrastructure”
Read report →“Describe a standard IoT ingest pattern. What are the different Databricks cluster types and how do they work?”
Read report →“Why do you want Databricks? What does OLAB mean? Datalake vs Warehouse vs Lakehouse?”
Read report →Formats, difficulty and experience
Across all 156 Databricks interview reports.