How to prepare for your First Data Engineering Interview?

Indian IT companies historically has been one of the largest job providers in Engineering colleges. Engineering students would take admission in any field of engineering, was assured that he will get an offer from IT services company in India. The demand was soared high in last two decades. Post covid and after the great resignation era we are in a situation where job offers from Indian IT giants are on decline. The campuses are awaiting their recruiters. I am writing this to help Engineering students understand what the real situation in Job market is.

What is the exact situation in Job market? Is this really bad?

The Tech industry reinvent itself every 6-8 years. The consumer markets such as US and UK in which the Indian Tech companies operate are facing inflation and slow growth. The is slowing their spending decision. Coupled by AI disruption has led to double whammy. The customers are not taking quick investment decisions. This is resulting in slow growth forecast and resulting in lesser deal conversion and even lesser realization on ground. overall, yes situation in job market is bad.

How it impacts the first-time job seekers?

First time job seekers are being punished for no reason. Earlier interview process would comprise mostly of problem solving and students would be hired in bulk. With the confidence that organization would run 6 months longs training camps to get people ready for corporate world. I still remember Infosys would provide an amazing first-time training experience in Mysuru campus. No one wish to spend this time and money in training programs. First time job seeker therefore is denied this opportunity to get themselves trained.

What is way forward to come out of First time Job Crisis?

The expectations from first time job seeker are changed. They need to distinguish themselves from a crowd. It is therefore recommended to declutter and focus on specific technologies to stand out in competition. If a student is seen to have taken additional efforts in learning, then he would benefit.

One such path is "Data Engineering". Last decade saw a rise in Digitalization, Emergence of 5G, Industry 4.0 and IIOT. The hardware revolution led to data generated from data. The data when processed can give amazing insights on industry. Applying AI and ML on data can result in additional value engineering. Engineering students showcasing commitment towards Data Engineering can really make a difference.

How to prepare yourself for first Data Engineering Interview?

There are several high level steps

1. Get a good hand on in Python language.
2. Get a good practice of SQL basics and Data modeling concepts.
3. Read a bit on Data Engineering history.
4. Learn basics of Apache Spark Framework.
5. Take a project in final year on your domain and try to include data processing design.

Let me elaborate with example. A student can learn python basics and participate in hacker rank to get a good rank in python. SQL basics can be learned from YouTube. For SQL practice is must on some real data. We even have online SQL editor as well. Data engineering history on HDFS, pig, hive and Hadoop helps in getting some based on the Data engineering technology. Apache Spark is a super star framework. Learning basics would go long way. Suppose you are an Electrical or Electronics engineer take a project of Industrial Internet of things (IIOT) as example implementation.

You can showcase your knowledge on IOT as well as data processing. This establishes a mode of communication between you can your interviewer. As interviewer I always look for problem solving skill of student. Through your project you could showcase Interviewer a good knowledge of domain along with Data Engineering. This is just one example you can have multiple such use cases related to your engineering domain and data.

The moment you stand out you will be picked, and you would beat the odds. This is just a very high-level example but a detailed one I would put on my website and share. We would explore more on same topic of first time Data Engineering preparation in next article.

Engineering students if you find this article helpful, please like and comment so that next I would put an article on AI Engineering.

Thanks for reading!! Happy learning!!