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TCS Data Engineer Interview Questions and Answers

Updated 13 Jun 2025

71 Interview questions

A Data Engineer was asked 2mo ago
Q. What are distribution keys in Amazon Redshift?
Ans. 

Distribution keys in Amazon Redshift determine how data is distributed across nodes for efficient query performance.

  • Distribution keys help optimize data storage and query performance by controlling data distribution across nodes.

  • Choosing the right distribution key can minimize data movement during query execution, improving performance.

  • For example, if you frequently join two tables on a common column, setting that...

A Data Engineer was asked 2mo ago
Q. What are some practical PySpark questions?
Ans. 

Pyspark is a powerful tool for big data processing using Python, enabling efficient data manipulation and analysis.

  • Pyspark allows distributed data processing using RDDs (Resilient Distributed Datasets). Example: rdd = spark.parallelize([1, 2, 3])

  • DataFrames in Pyspark provide a higher-level abstraction for structured data. Example: df = spark.read.csv('file.csv')

  • Pyspark supports SQL queries through the Spark SQL mo...

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🔥 Asked by recruiter 6 times
A Data Engineer was asked 3mo ago
Q. What are the differences between a list and a tuple?
Ans. 

Lists are mutable, ordered collections; tuples are immutable, ordered collections in Python.

  • Lists are defined using square brackets: `my_list = [1, 2, 3]`.

  • Tuples are defined using parentheses: `my_tuple = (1, 2, 3)`.

  • Lists can be modified (add/remove elements): `my_list.append(4)`.

  • Tuples cannot be modified after creation: `my_tuple[0] = 10` raises an error.

  • Lists have more built-in methods (e.g., sort, reverse) comp...

A Data Engineer was asked 3mo ago
Q. Can you introduce yourself and provide an overview of your experience in a data engineering role?
Ans. 

Data engineer with 5 years of experience in building scalable data pipelines and optimizing data workflows for analytics.

  • 5 years of experience in data engineering, focusing on ETL processes and data warehousing.

  • Proficient in Python and SQL for data manipulation and analysis.

  • Experience with cloud platforms like AWS and Azure for deploying data solutions.

  • Implemented a real-time data pipeline using Apache Kafka, impr...

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A Data Engineer was asked 4mo ago
Q. Tell me about a project you have worked on.
Ans. 

Worked on a data pipeline project to streamline ETL processes for a retail analytics platform.

  • Designed and implemented ETL processes using Apache Airflow.

  • Utilized AWS services like S3 for storage and Redshift for data warehousing.

  • Optimized data transformation scripts in Python for performance improvements.

  • Collaborated with data scientists to ensure data quality and accessibility.

A Data Engineer was asked 6mo ago
Q. What should you know about query optimization?
Ans. 

Query optimization improves database performance by enhancing query execution efficiency and reducing resource consumption.

  • Use indexes to speed up data retrieval. For example, indexing a 'last_name' column can improve search performance in large tables.

  • Avoid SELECT *; specify only the columns needed to reduce data transfer and processing time.

  • Use WHERE clauses to filter data early in the query process, minimizing ...

A Data Engineer was asked 6mo ago
Q. What is the architecture of Apache Spark?
Ans. 

Apache Spark architecture includes a cluster manager, worker nodes, and driver program.

  • Apache Spark architecture consists of a cluster manager, such as YARN or Mesos, which allocates resources and schedules tasks.

  • Worker nodes execute the tasks and store data in memory or disk.

  • The driver program coordinates the execution of the application and interacts with the cluster manager to distribute tasks.

  • Spark application...

Are these interview questions helpful?
🔥 Asked by recruiter 16 times
A Data Engineer was asked 9mo ago
Q. What is cloud computing?
Ans. 

Cloud computing is the delivery of computing services over the internet, including storage, databases, networking, software, and more.

  • Cloud computing allows users to access and use resources on-demand without the need for physical infrastructure.

  • Examples of cloud computing services include Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform.

  • It offers scalability, flexibility, cost-effectiveness, ...

🔥 Asked by recruiter 3 times
A Data Engineer was asked 10mo ago
Q. Write SQL queries.
Ans. 

SQL queries for data manipulation and retrieval

  • Use SELECT statement to retrieve data from a table

  • Use WHERE clause to filter data based on specific conditions

  • Use JOIN clause to combine data from multiple tables

  • Use GROUP BY clause to group data based on a specific column

  • Use ORDER BY clause to sort the results in ascending or descending order

A Data Engineer was asked 10mo ago
Q. What are some functions used in PL/SQL?
Ans. 

Some functions used in PL/SQL include TO_CHAR, TO_DATE, NVL, and CONCAT.

  • TO_CHAR: Converts a number or date to a string

  • TO_DATE: Converts a string to a date

  • NVL: Replaces NULL values with a specified default value

  • CONCAT: Concatenates two or more strings

TCS Data Engineer Interview Experiences

97 interviews found

Data Engineer Interview Questions & Answers

user image Anonymous

posted on 17 May 2025

Interview experience
1
Bad
Difficulty level
-
Process Duration
-
Result
-

I appeared for an interview in Apr 2025, where I was asked the following questions.

  • Q1. TCS Bhubaneswar Absolutely the Worst Walk-in Interview Experience Ever! I’ve never seen such a poorly organized and mismanaged interview process in my life. The entire setup was a disaster from the start. ...
  • Q2. The chaos, the waiting time, the heat, and the indifferent attitude of the panel made it one of the most frustrating and humiliating experiences ever. If you value your time, energy, and dignity — avoid th...

Interview Preparation Tips

Interview preparation tips for other job seekers - My honest advice: Don’t fall into this trap. Avoid this company’s walk-ins(Specially TCS Bhubaneswar)unless you want to be disrespected, misled, and left exhausted and disappointed. One of the Worst Walk-in Interview Experiences Ever – A Complete Disaster! I’ve attended many interviews in my career, but this was by far the worst and most mismanaged experience ever. The level of unprofessionalism and disorganization was beyond anything I could’ve imagined. They scheduled walk-in interviews for 15–17 different technologies on the same day without any proper planning. Around 700+ candidates showed up, and there was no seating arrangement, no air conditioning, not even fans. We were all left standing for hours under the harsh sun like cattle. No water, no shelter, no communication — it was pure chaos. Now, here's where it gets even more ridiculous: I went there specifically for a Snowflake position. The person who interviewed me claimed to be from the Snowflake panel — but as it turns out, there was no Snowflake requirement at all. Shockingly, two other candidates who were interviewed after me were told the same thing — that there’s no Snowflake opening, and if they wanted to proceed, they’d have to switch and interview for Azure Databricks instead. Is this fair? If you don’t have a requirement, and if you don’t have the right panel, then why call people in the first place? Why make hundreds of people wait from 9 AM to 5 PM in the heat with zero basic facilities and then casually tell them there’s no opening for the technology they applied for? And the panelists? Extremely rude and arrogant — they talked down to candidates as if we were wasting their time, when in fact they were wasting ours.

Data Engineer Interview Questions & Answers

user image Anonymous

posted on 17 Oct 2024

Interview experience
3
Average
Difficulty level
Moderate
Process Duration
-
Result
Not Selected

I applied via Walk-in

Round 1 - Technical 

(2 Questions)

  • Q1. Difference between rank and dense_rank, Left vs Left anti join
  • Ans. 

    Rank assigns unique ranks to rows, while dense_rank handles ties by assigning the same rank to tied rows. Left join includes all rows from the left table and matching rows from the right table, while left anti join includes only rows from the left table that do not have a match in the right table.

    • Rank assigns unique ranks to rows based on the specified order, while dense_rank handles ties by assigning the same rank to ...

  • Answered by AI
  • Q2. Python list comprehension, SQL query
Round 2 - Behavioral 

(1 Question)

  • Q1. Project related questions

Interview Preparation Tips

Interview preparation tips for other job seekers - No response from HR, even after clearing technical and managerial rounds

Skills evaluated in this interview

Data Engineer Interview Questions & Answers

user image Anonymous

posted on 20 Sep 2024

Interview experience
4
Good
Difficulty level
Easy
Process Duration
Less than 2 weeks
Result
Selected Selected

I applied via Recruitment Consulltant and was interviewed in Aug 2024. There were 2 interview rounds.

Round 1 - One-on-one 

(3 Questions)

  • Q1. Questions from pyspark - theoritical
  • Q2. Pyspark basic coding
  • Q3. SQL easy level coding question
Round 2 - One-on-one 

(1 Question)

  • Q1. 2 nd round was managerial. The interviewer asked about projects worked and assessed how I fit for the company

Interview Preparation Tips

Topics to prepare for TCS Data Engineer interview:
  • pyspark
  • databricks
  • SQL
  • projects

Data Engineer Interview Questions & Answers

user image Anonymous

posted on 10 Oct 2024

Interview experience
5
Excellent
Difficulty level
-
Process Duration
-
Result
-
Round 1 - Aptitude Test 

Focus of quantitative maths and aptitude a bit more

Round 2 - Technical 

(3 Questions)

  • Q1. Some basic questions on your comfortable programming knowledge
  • Q2. Some behaviour oriented questions
  • Q3. Some role related questions
Round 3 - HR 

(2 Questions)

  • Q1. Some behaviour oriented
  • Q2. Salary discussion

Data Engineer Interview Questions & Answers

user image Mohammed Suboor Ahmed

posted on 24 Nov 2024

Interview experience
5
Excellent
Difficulty level
Easy
Process Duration
Less than 2 weeks
Result
Selected Selected

I applied via LinkedIn and was interviewed in Oct 2024. There was 1 interview round.

Round 1 - Technical 

(2 Questions)

  • Q1. Reverse string in python list
  • Ans. 

    Reverse strings in a Python list

    • Use list comprehension to iterate through the list and reverse each string

    • Use the slice notation [::-1] to reverse each string

    • Example: strings = ['hello', 'world'], reversed_strings = [s[::-1] for s in strings]

  • Answered by AI
  • Q2. 2nd highest salary sql
  • Ans. 

    To find the 2nd highest salary in SQL, use the 'SELECT' statement with 'ORDER BY' and 'LIMIT' clauses.

    • Use the 'SELECT' statement to retrieve the salary column from the table.

    • Use the 'ORDER BY' clause to sort the salaries in descending order.

    • Use the 'LIMIT' clause to limit the result to the second row.

  • Answered by AI

Skills evaluated in this interview

Data Engineer Interview Questions & Answers

user image Anonymous

posted on 11 Oct 2024

Interview experience
5
Excellent
Difficulty level
Moderate
Process Duration
Less than 2 weeks
Result
Not Selected

I appeared for an interview in Sep 2024.

Round 1 - One-on-one 

(3 Questions)

  • Q1. Spark architecture
  • Q2. Databricks clusters
  • Q3. Copy activity and all features
Interview experience
4
Good
Difficulty level
Moderate
Process Duration
-
Result
-

I applied via Approached by Company and was interviewed in Sep 2024. There was 1 interview round.

Round 1 - Technical 

(2 Questions)

  • Q1. SCD 1 vs SCD 2
  • Ans. 

    SCD 1 overwrites old data with new data, while SCD 2 keeps track of historical changes.

    • SCD 1 updates existing records with new data, losing historical information.

    • SCD 2 creates new records for each change, preserving historical data.

    • SCD 1 is simpler and faster, but can lead to data loss.

    • SCD 2 is more complex and slower, but maintains a full history of changes.

  • Answered by AI
  • Q2. Corrupt Record Handling in Spark
  • Ans. 

    Corrupt record handling in Spark involves identifying and handling data that does not conform to expected formats.

    • Use DataFrameReader option("badRecordsPath", "path/to/bad/records") to save corrupt records to a separate location for further analysis.

    • Use DataFrame.na.drop() or DataFrame.na.fill() to handle corrupt records by dropping or filling missing values.

    • Implement custom logic to identify and handle corrupt records...

  • Answered by AI

Interview Preparation Tips

Topics to prepare for TCS Data Engineer interview:
  • Python
  • PySpark
  • SQL
  • ETL

Skills evaluated in this interview

Data Engineer Interview Questions & Answers

user image Anonymous

posted on 30 Aug 2024

Interview experience
3
Average
Difficulty level
-
Process Duration
-
Result
-
Round 1 - One-on-one 

(3 Questions)

  • Q1. What is oops concept
  • Ans. 

    Object-oriented programming (OOP) is a programming paradigm based on the concept of objects, which can contain data in the form of fields and code in the form of procedures.

    • OOP focuses on creating objects that interact with each other to solve a problem

    • Key concepts include encapsulation, inheritance, polymorphism, and abstraction

    • Encapsulation involves bundling data and methods that operate on the data into a single uni...

  • Answered by AI
  • Q2. Explain data engineer life cycle and its tools
  • Ans. 

    Data engineer life cycle involves collecting, storing, processing, and analyzing data using various tools.

    • Data collection: Gathering data from various sources such as databases, APIs, and logs.

    • Data storage: Storing data in databases, data lakes, or data warehouses.

    • Data processing: Cleaning, transforming, and enriching data using tools like Apache Spark or Hadoop.

    • Data analysis: Analyzing data to extract insights and mak...

  • Answered by AI
  • Q3. What types of spark join strategies
  • Ans. 

    Spark join strategies include broadcast join, shuffle hash join, and shuffle sort merge join.

    • Broadcast join is used when one of the DataFrames is small enough to fit in memory on all nodes.

    • Shuffle hash join is used when joining two large DataFrames by partitioning and shuffling the data based on the join key.

    • Shuffle sort merge join is used when joining two large DataFrames by sorting and merging the data based on the j...

  • Answered by AI

Interview Preparation Tips

Interview preparation tips for other job seekers - prepared hadoop ecosystem related question ,sql and one programing language (python,java,sacala)

Skills evaluated in this interview

Interview experience
4
Good
Difficulty level
-
Process Duration
-
Result
-
Round 1 - Technical 

(2 Questions)

  • Q1. What is Spark? Why it is so popular
  • Ans. 

    Spark is a fast and general-purpose cluster computing system for big data processing.

    • Spark is popular for its speed and ease of use in processing large datasets.

    • It provides in-memory processing capabilities, making it faster than traditional disk-based processing systems.

    • Spark supports multiple programming languages like Java, Scala, Python, and R.

    • It offers a wide range of libraries for diverse tasks such as SQL, strea...

  • Answered by AI
  • Q2. What is Clustering? what is difference between pods and nodes?
  • Ans. 

    Clustering is the process of grouping similar data points together. Pods are groups of one or more containers, while nodes are individual machines in a cluster.

    • Clustering is a technique used in machine learning to group similar data points together based on certain features or characteristics.

    • Pods in a cluster are groups of one or more containers that share resources and are scheduled together on the same node.

    • Nodes ar...

  • Answered by AI

Skills evaluated in this interview

Data Engineer Interview Questions & Answers

user image Himanshu Pilkhwal

posted on 19 Dec 2024

Interview experience
2
Poor
Difficulty level
Moderate
Process Duration
-
Result
No response
Round 1 - Technical 

(1 Question)

  • Q1. Regarding Pipeline scheduling multiple questions

TCS Interview FAQs

How many rounds are there in TCS Data Engineer interview?
TCS interview process usually has 1-2 rounds. The most common rounds in the TCS interview process are Technical, HR and Coding Test.
How to prepare for TCS Data Engineer interview?
Go through your CV in detail and study all the technologies mentioned in your CV. Prepare at least two technologies or languages in depth if you are appearing for a technical interview at TCS. The most common topics and skills that interviewers at TCS expect are Python, SQL, Spark, AWS and Big Data.
What are the top questions asked in TCS Data Engineer interview?

Some of the top questions asked at the TCS Data Engineer interview -

  1. what is an internal and external table in H...read more
  2. what is view in SQL and dense and dense r...read more
  3. How to deal with data quality iss...read more
How long is the TCS Data Engineer interview process?

The duration of TCS Data Engineer interview process can vary, but typically it takes about less than 2 weeks to complete.

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Overall Interview Experience Rating

4/5

based on 101 interview experiences

Difficulty level

Easy 22%
Moderate 73%
Hard 5%

Duration

Less than 2 weeks 68%
2-4 weeks 18%
4-6 weeks 7%
6-8 weeks 5%
More than 8 weeks 2%
View more
TCS Data Engineer Salary
based on 6.3k salaries
₹3.7 L/yr - ₹10 L/yr
41% less than the average Data Engineer Salary in India
View more details

TCS Data Engineer Reviews and Ratings

based on 513 reviews

3.6/5

Rating in categories

3.5

Skill development

3.9

Work-life balance

2.5

Salary

4.6

Job security

3.5

Company culture

2.4

Promotions

3.3

Work satisfaction

Explore 513 Reviews and Ratings
Data Engineer

Chennai

7-12 Yrs

Not Disclosed

Sr. AWS Databricks Data Engineer

Kolkata,

Pune

+1

6-11 Yrs

Not Disclosed

AWS Databricks Data Engineer

Hyderabad / Secunderabad,

Bangalore / Bengaluru

+1

6-11 Yrs

Not Disclosed

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