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Data Engineering Study Guide

Data Engineering Study Guide

Section titled “Data Engineering Study Guide”

About This Guide

Section titled “About This Guide”

This is a data engineering study guide that you can use to help prepare yourself for your interview. This was developed by people who have interviewed and gotten jobs at FAANGs and several other tech companies. We hope these help you get great jobs as well.

Author: Benjamin Rogojan Organization: Data, Automation And Analytics Consulting Source: LinkedIn Post

How to Use: Make a copy of this guide and follow along with the study plan. Keep track of your progress to know where you are and how you are doing.

SQL Practice Problems

Section titled “SQL Practice Problems”

Core SQL Problems

Section titled “Core SQL Problems”
  1. 262. Trips and Users - LeetCode
  2. 626. Exchange Seats - LeetCode
  3. Book Availability Update
  4. Hackerrank The Report
  5. Empty Neighborhoods
  6. Employee Salaries (ETL Error)
  7. 177. Nth Highest Salary - LeetCode
  8. Symmetric Pairs
  9. Occupations
  10. Placements
  11. Ollivander’s Inventory

SQL Video Tutorials

Section titled “SQL Video Tutorials”

Essential SQL Videos

Section titled “Essential SQL Videos”
  • SQL Interview Question Walk Through
  • IQ15: 6 SQL Query Interview Questions
  • Learning about ROW_NUMBER and Analytic Functions
  • Advanced Implementation Of Analytic Functions
  • Advanced Implementation Of Analytic Functions Part 2
  • Wise Owl SQL Videos

Post-Video SQL Practice Problems

Section titled “Post-Video SQL Practice Problems”

Practice these problems after watching the video tutorials:

  1. Binary Tree Nodes
  2. Weather Observation Station 18
  3. Print Prime Numbers
  4. Rolling Bank Transactions
  5. 595. Big Countries - LeetCode
  6. 626. Exchange Seats - LeetCode
  7. SQL Interview Questions: 3 Tech Screening Exercises (For Data Analysts)

Databases, ETL and Data Warehouses

Section titled “Databases, ETL and Data Warehouses”

Essential Video Resources

Section titled “Essential Video Resources”
  • Modern Data Infra Video
  • Designing A Traditional Relational Database Video
  • Data Warehouse Design Video
  • ETL Design Video
  • 38 ETL Interview Questions

Design Exercises

Section titled “Design Exercises”

Practice designing a Database/ETL and Data Warehouse for:

  1. Dating App
  2. Bicycle Rental Service
  3. Music Streaming App
  4. Job Search Website
  5. Udemy-like Website

Data Engineering Project Ideas

Section titled “Data Engineering Project Ideas”

Basic Projects:

  • Basic Project: Webscraping Data From G2/W Snowflake And Tableau
  • Basic Project Level 2: Stock Market Real-Time Data Analysis Using Kafka | End-To-End Data Engineering Project

Algorithms And Data Structures

Section titled “Algorithms And Data Structures”

Pre-Study Problems

Section titled “Pre-Study Problems”

Solve these problems before diving deep into algorithms:

  1. 985. Sum of Even Numbers After Queries - LeetCode
  2. 657. Robot Return to Origin - LeetCode
  3. 961. N-Repeated Element in Size 2N Array - LeetCode
  4. 110. Balanced Binary Tree - LeetCode
  5. 3. Longest Substring Without Repeating Characters - LeetCode
  6. 19. Remove Nth Node From End of List - LeetCode
  7. 23. Merge k Sorted Lists - LeetCode
  8. 31. Next Permutation - LeetCode

Data Structures Videos

Section titled “Data Structures Videos”

Essential video tutorials on data structures:

  • Data Structures & Algorithms #1 - What Are Data Structures?
  • Data Structures: Linked Lists
  • Data Structures: Trees
  • Data Structures: Heaps
  • Data Structures: Hash Tables
  • Data Structures: Stacks and Queues
  • Data Structures: Crash Course Computer Science #14
  • Data Structures: Tries

Algorithm Videos

Section titled “Algorithm Videos”

Essential algorithm tutorials:

  • Python Algorithms for Interviews
  • Algorithms: Graph Search, DFS and BFS
  • Algorithms: Binary Search
  • Algorithms: Recursion
  • Algorithms: Bubble Sort
  • Algorithms: Merge Sort
  • Algorithms: Quicksort

Big O Notation

Section titled “Big O Notation”
  • Introduction to Big O Notation and Time Complexity (Data Structures & Algorithms #7)

Interview Walkthroughs

Section titled “Interview Walkthroughs”

Watch these interview walkthroughs to understand the interview process:

  • Amazon Coding Interview Question - Recursive Staircase Problem
  • Google Coding Interview - Universal Value Tree Problem
  • Google Coding Interview Question and Answer #1: First Recurring Character

Post-Study Problems

Section titled “Post-Study Problems”

Advanced problems to solve after completing the study materials:

  1. Bigger Is Greater
  2. 6. ZigZag Conversion - LeetCode
  3. 7. Reverse Integer - LeetCode
  4. 40. Combination Sum II - LeetCode
  5. 43. Multiply Strings - LeetCode
  6. Larry’s Array
  7. Short Palindrome
  8. 65. Valid Number - LeetCode
  9. Nth Fibonacci

Operational Programming Problems

Section titled “Operational Programming Problems”

Practice these operational-style programming problems:

  1. Kangaroo Problem
  2. Breaking Records
  3. Find A String
  4. itertools.permutations()
  5. No Idea!
  6. Days of the Programmer
  7. Leaderboard
  8. Word Order
  9. Sherlock And Squares
  10. Equalize The Array
  11. Apples And Oranges
  12. More Operational Style Questions

System Design Videos

Section titled “System Design Videos”

Watch these system design videos to understand large-scale system architecture:

  • Tiny URL
  • Parking Lot System
  • WhatsApp
  • Uber Design
  • Instagram
  • Tinder Service

Apache Spark Resources

Section titled “Apache Spark Resources”

Learning Materials

Section titled “Learning Materials”
  • Architecture Overview & Use Cases (Added By Paul Russel)
  • Spark By Examples (Tutorial Documentation)
  • PySpark Syntax Cheat Sheet
Section titled “Recommended Courses”

Udemy Courses

Section titled “Udemy Courses”
  1. The Coding Interview Bootcamp: Algorithms + Data Structures
  2. Data Warehouse Concepts: Basic to Advanced concepts
  3. Data Structures and Algorithms Bootcamp
  4. Data Structures and Algorithms - The Complete Masterclass
Section titled “Recommended Books”

Must-Read Books for Data Engineers

Section titled “Must-Read Books for Data Engineers”

  1. Cracking The Code

    • Essential for coding interview preparation

  2. The Algorithm Design Manual

    • Comprehensive guide to algorithm design and problem-solving

  3. The Data Warehouse Toolkit: The Definitive Guide to Dimensional Modeling, 3rd Edition

    • The industry standard for data warehouse design

Other Resources

Section titled “Other Resources”

Additional Learning Materials

Section titled “Additional Learning Materials”
  • What I Learned From 100+ Data Engineering Interviews - Interview Tips
  • How To Start Your Next Data Engineering Project
  • How To Go From Data Analyst To Data Engineer

Progress Tracking

Section titled “Progress Tracking”

Use this guide by making a copy and tracking your progress through each section:

  • Date Completed: Track when you finish each item
  • Notes: Add your personal notes and insights
  • Personal Difficulty (1-5): Rate each item’s difficulty for future reference

Learn More: Seattle Data Guy’s YouTube Channel