Data Engineer

Role & responsibilities

Skills- SQL very strong, Power bi & ADF

Please find the below topics and reply with your answer with yes or No.

1) Performance tuning must be hands-on, not conceptual

The candidate should be able to actively diagnose and optimize slow queries not just describe best practices.

What this means:

• Read execution plans and identify bottlenecks
• Optimize joins, filters, and indexing strategies
• Reduce query latency under real workload conditions
• Demonstrate examples of production tuning they personally handled
• Expectation: Immediate problem-solving ability in live scenarios.

2) Deep indexing knowledge is mandatory

Indexes are tied to core business logic — mistakes directly impact a time-critical payment system.

Candidate must be able to:

• Explain index types and when to use each
• Identify missing/fragmented indexes
• Perform index maintenance strategy decisions
• Balance performance vs write overhead
• Expectation: Confidence handling indexing decisions without trial-and-error.

3) Rapid troubleshooting mindset

The environment does not allow experimentation cycles — the candidate must operate with precision under time pressure.

They should demonstrate:

• Structured debugging workflow
• Root cause isolation
• Production-safe remediation approaches
• Prior experience handling critical database incidents
• Expectation: Speed and methodical thinking under pressure.

4) Strong SQL fundamentals, no gaps

Basic relational understanding is non-negotiable.

Candidate must clearly articulate:

• Left join vs inner join behavior and use cases
• Query impact on result sets and performance
• Practical examples of join misuse causing issues
• Expectation: Core database fluency, instantly recallable.

5) Stored procedure optimization skills

Candidates must show a systematic approach to slow stored procedures.

They should be able to discuss:

• Execution plan review
• Parameter sniffing considerations
• Query refactoring
• Resource bottleneck identification
• Logging/monitoring techniques
• Expectation: Structured tuning methodology (not guesswork).

6) Database health awareness

The role requires proactive monitoring capability.

Candidate should understand:

• Health metrics to monitor
• Capacity and performance signals
• Preventive maintenance practices
• Alert interpretation
• Expectation: Ownership mindset toward system stability.

7) Production readiness mentality

This is a payment system, downtime tolerance is low.

Candidate must demonstrate:

• Experience working in high-stakes environments
• Change safety discipline
• Incident response maturity

Expectation: Reliability-first thinking.Preferred candidate profile