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Data Engineer · Mid-level · Theory

A Spark job that joins two large tables runs for hours, and the Spark UI shows that almost all tasks finished within a minute, while a few hang for a very long time. What could be the cause, and how do you fix it?

~4 min by voice

How to approach it

The interviewer wants to see whether you recognize data skew from its telltale picture in the Spark UI, understand why it happens during a shuffle, and know a set of practical ways to fix it, rather than just "add more resources".

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The interviewer will ask this question and listen. Think out loud and ask for a hint if you need one. When you're done, pause or tap “That's my answer”. In about a minute, your score and the points you covered show up here.

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Best with headphones · ~4 min