Updated April 18, 2023
Introduction to Data Architect Interview Questions
The following article provides an outline for Data Architect Interview Questions. A data management practitioner who designs, designs, and deploys the data architecture in the organization is called a data architect. It is better to have a degree in math and statistics but more importantly, they should have worked in RDBMS and SQL server, and they should be we well versed in writing queries in SQL Server management studio if they work in Azure cloud platform. Secure databases are the responsibility of data architects, and hence they should write codes in maintaining the safety of the database and should give access only to destined people so that the data will not be corrupted in the database.
In this 2023 Data Architect Interview Questions article, we shall present the 20 most important and frequently asked Data Architect Interview Questions. These interview questions are divided into two parts are as follows:
Part 1 – Data Architect Interview Questions (Basic)
This first part covers basic interview questions and answers:
Q1. What are the important aspects of the data architect role?
Answer:
Experience with data warehousing tools, automating all the processes, and managing the safety of the databases are the most important roles of Data Architect. Data can be sorted easily, and various frameworks like SAS should be helpful in this process. In addition, cybersecurity measures should be incorporated with all the tasks so that confidential information is not compromised at all.
Q2. How to improve the performance of an existing database?
Answer:
The infrastructure of the database, along with the speed and time of the processes, should be noted for any operations. Automating these checks will help to normalize the routine checks on the database. This helps to know where improvement is needed, and if it is on the infrastructure side, we can improve the structure of the database with faster queries.
Q3. What are the main elements of data warehouse architecture?
Answer:
We have bottom tier, middle tier and top tier in a data warehouse. Data is present in every tier based on the source.
Q4. How to make useful of the elements of a data warehouse?
Answer:
It is better to store the data from a separate source in each tier that helps in fastening the data recovery while querying the data. This helps users to access data in a simple manner where data is broken down into small repositories.
Q5. What are the key skills required in managing the data architect role?
Answer:
Knowledge in both SQL and SAS functions and coding skills will help automate the processes as and when needed. Complex tasks should be broken down into small tasks where the present data should be explained to everyone, and hence communication is also important.
Q6. How to ensure the integrity of data?
Answer:
While working on data manipulation, it is important to follow the existing processes. Do not take any shortcuts to modify the data that may pose security risks to the data present in the database.
Q7. Is it important to be updated about new trends in data architecture?
Answer:
It is very important to be updated about data architecture. We can get all the relevant information from TechNews World and the conferences related to data architecture that happens once a year.
Q8. How to manage your database with external data sources?
Answer:
The data source will be different from the existing data sources, and hence it is inevitable to check the external data format. Therefore, we can run a script to check the data structure and format and change it according to the data in the database for smooth operations.
Q9. What are the underlying problems while working with open-source technology?
Answer:
There will not be any dedicated support desk while working with open-source technology as we must depend on the customer forums. Also, most of the open-source technology will not have a proper interface to work with.
Q10. Name the types of SQL joins?
Answer:
We have inner join, full join, left join and right join. All records from the left table are returned from the left join, and all records from the right table is returned from the right join. Likewise, common entries are returned from the inner join, and full entries of both tables are returned from the full join.
Part 2 – Data Architect Interview Questions (Advanced)
Let us now have a look at the advanced interview questions:
Q11. What dimensions have you used to ensure the data quality?
Answer:
Consistency, accuracy, validity, uniqueness and completeness are used to check data quality.
Q12. What modelling tools have you used?
Answer:
SQL Server, Oracle SQL and PowerBI are some of the tools been used. Since SQL is common in both SQL server and Oracle SQL with slight differences in queries, they are easy to work. On the other hand, PowerBI is used mostly for visualization.
Q13. What are the data structures in the R language?
Answer:
Vectors, matrixes, factors and data frames.
Q14. What is the difference between primary key and foreign key?
Answer:
A primary key is unique for all the entries in a table and cannot be present in other tables as a primary key. We use primary key to represent the table data. A foreign key is an entry present in both the tables so that it references the second table.
Q15. What are the important features of hadoop?
Answer:
Reliability, fault tolerance, distributed processing, scalability and high availability are the features. Also, hadoop is open source.
Q16. How to achieve security in any database or even in hadoop?
Answer:
Authorization and authentication are the best ways to ensure that only relevant people have access to the data.
Q17. What are the steps in data analysis?
Answer:
We should know the requirement and priorities for the data to be analyzed. Then, data collection and data analysis are the next steps, followed by results interpretation in the database.
Q18. Define MapReduce?
Answer:
A programming model in the hadoop framework for processing big data where parallel algorithms are on a cluster, each cluster has storage capacity.
Q19. How is data placed in hadoop?
Answer:
The default format is text format, and if the data is placed in sequence, sequence input format can be used. If the files are broken into lines or plain text files, the key-value input format can be used.
Q20. What are the five V’s of Big Data?
Answer:
Volume is the amount of data. Variety explains the formats of data. Velocity is the data growth in various sources. Veracity is the accuracy of data present in the source. Finally, value is the output of data being used for various use cases.
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This is a guide to Data Architect Interview Questions. Here we discuss the introduction and basic & advanced data architect interview questions. You may also have a look at the following articles to learn more –