How to Answer: Describe a time when you found a new use for existing data that had a positive impact on the business.
Advice and answer examples written specifically for a Data Engineer job interview.
1. Describe a time when you found a new use for existing data that had a positive impact on the business.
How to Answer
As a Data Engineer, you may be one of the few who have a bird's eye view of the data throughout a company. In many situations, departments work with a specific set of tables within the corporate databases and therefore may unknowingly be limiting their analyses. To add the most value to the company's strategies, it is valuable, at a general level, to know the initiatives of each department. This gives Data Engineers the ability to provide valuable insight into what data is available and beneficial for analyses being conducted throughout the company.
Written by Helen Lee on June 15th, 2018
Answer Example
"As a Data Engineer, I try to take time to understand the strategic initiatives being conducted across the company. I believe departments need to avoid working in silos and should have approved access to data owned by other groups within the company. From my perspective as a Data Engineer, I was able to connect employee data with sales data to better understand the reasons behind both high and low sales periods. Upon further analysis, it was revealed that hiring employees with a particular education and work experience profile resulted in significant increases in sales for an extended period of time. Prior to this discovery, human resource data was never used in conjunction with sales data for analyses."
Written by Helen Lee on June 15th, 2018