How to Answer: What is your experience level with NoSQL databases? Give me an example of a project/situation where you found building a NoSQL database to be more appropriate than a relational database.
Advice and answer examples written specifically for a Data Engineer job interview.
17. What is your experience level with NoSQL databases? Give me an example of a project/situation where you found building a NoSQL database to be more appropriate than a relational database.
How to Answer
There are advantages and disadvantages of using one type of database over another. In your answer, try to communicate what you know about each and through your example show how you would apply your knowledge to an actual project.
Written by Helen Lee on June 15th, 2018
Answer Example
"Modeling a database in NoSQL can be advantageous in some situations. One situation in particular was when the franchisee system in our company was increasing in size exponentially. We needed the ability to scale up quickly so we could take advantage of all the sales and operational data now available to us. Scaling out, as opposed to scaling up with bigger servers, is the way to go when dealing with increases in data processing loads and this is more easily accomplished through NoSQL databases. Scaling out can be more affordable and can be accomplished more efficiently than scaling up. NoSQL databases also have the ability to handle larger volumes of data, which is important when you need to react quickly to significant changes in data loads in the future. There are certainly more developers familiar with relational databases versus NoSQL databases, but the extra training is well worth the benefits in my opinion. In addition, although relational databases may have more connectivity to analytics tools, I believe the future is bright for NoSQL databases in this regard as more analytics tools are being developed."
Written by Helen Lee on June 15th, 2018