dbt interviews

Work in the tool while you explain your decisions.

Choose a role and level. Each interview has a new task, follow-up questions and a report that checks your work and your explanation.

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Timed assessment

12 practical questions
50 minutes
Mid level

Questions are drawn from a bank of 36. Your report includes a skill breakdown and lessons to practice next.

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Practice interviews

Junior tasks cover the fundamentals. Mid and senior tasks add debugging, changing requirements and review decisions.

Position

10 interviews

Analytics engineer
Junior
20 min

Slate Service: Source lineage and normalization

Slate Service needs intake_301 with ticket_id (source order_id plus 301000), account_id, credit (amount times 1.0 plus 2), phase normalized to lowercase and trimmed, ledger normalized to uppercase and trimmed, event_at and arrived_at. Preserve every source record. Declare the intake.tickets source dependency.

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Skills and rubricSource lineage and normalization

Builds the stated source lineage and normalization result and identifies the source population.
Uses the supplied missing-value or boundary record to test the result.
Explains the purpose of each selected output field.

Analytics engineer
Junior
20 min

Copper Intake: Dependency and aggregation grain

Copper Intake asks for one row per ledger in review_302: ledger, tickets as the count of intake rows, and net_credit as the sum of credit with NULL contributing zero. Use ref('intake_302').

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Skills and rubricDependency and aggregation grain

Builds the stated dependency and aggregation grain result and identifies the source population.
Uses the supplied missing-value or boundary record to test the result.
Explains the purpose of each selected output field.

Analytics engineer
Junior
20 min

Willow Dispatch: Deterministic keys and tests

Review Willow Dispatch's review_303. Keep one complete row per ticket_id, newest arrived_at first and highest credit as the tie breaker (NULL credit last). Preserve event_at for late records.

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Skills and rubricDeterministic keys and tests

Builds the stated deterministic keys and tests result and identifies the source population.
Uses the supplied missing-value or boundary record to test the result.
Explains the purpose of each selected output field.

Analytics engineer
Mid
30 min

Slate Service: Accepted-value tests

Slate Service publishes review_304 with ticket_id and ledger. Fix the ledger accepted_values test to allow USD, EUR and GBP. Keep every intake row and run the test; do not weaken it to a warning or remove it.

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Skills and rubricAccepted-value tests

Handles test-scope without constants tied to visible rows.
Applies the changed requirement and checks replay or boundary behavior.
Explains a realistic wrong approach using the supplied counterexample.

Analytics engineer
Mid
30 min

Copper Intake: Relationship tests

Copper Intake needs review_305: ticket_id, account_id and credit. Exclude known account IDs absent from accounts_305, and add a relationships test from account_id to accounts_305.account_id. Keep the ref dependency.

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Skills and rubricRelationship tests

Handles relationship-contract without constants tied to visible rows.
Applies the changed requirement and checks replay or boundary behavior.
Explains a realistic wrong approach using the supplied counterexample.

Data engineer
Mid
30 min

Willow Dispatch: Incremental replay

Willow Dispatch's review_306 must be incremental merge keyed by ticket_id. Keep the latest complete row per key using arrived_at descending then credit descending NULLS LAST. Explain replay before editing, then include current source versions so replay is stable. No source deletion is requested.

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Skills and rubricIncremental replay

Handles incremental-replay without constants tied to visible rows.
Applies the changed requirement and checks replay or boundary behavior.
Explains a realistic wrong approach using the supplied counterexample.

Data engineer
Mid
30 min

Slate Service: Late-data correction

Slate Service's review_307 must be incremental merge keyed by ticket_id. Keep the latest complete row per key using arrived_at descending then credit descending NULLS LAST. Explain replay before editing, then include current source versions so replay is stable and the correction behind the stored maximum is included. No source deletion is requested.

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Skills and rubricLate-data correction

Handles late-correction without constants tied to visible rows.
Applies the changed requirement and checks replay or boundary behavior.
Explains a realistic wrong approach using the supplied counterexample.

Analytics platform engineer
Senior
40 min

Copper Intake: Selective CI

A saved comparison marks only models/review_308.sql modified. Build exactly review_308; leave unrelated_308 and unchanged parents unselected. Use state selection and the supplied saved_manifest context. Parent relations are prepared for this CI workspace.

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Skills and rubricSelective CI

Defends the state-selection contract and its downstream effect.
Keeps correctness evidence separate from performance assumptions.
Names a release or refresh check and a responsible owner.

Analytics engineer
Senior
40 min

Willow Dispatch: Materialization choice

Willow Dispatch approves a persisted daily extract review_309 with ledger and total_credit, summing credit by ledger over the full intake. NULL totals must follow SQL SUM semantics. Any runtime improvement needs a warehouse measurement.

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Skills and rubricMaterialization choice

Defends the materialization-cost contract and its downstream effect.
Keeps correctness evidence separate from performance assumptions.
Names a release or refresh check and a responsible owner.

Analytics platform engineer
Senior
40 min

Slate Service: Model contracts

Slate Service's consumer expects review_310 as a table with an enforced contract: ticket_id INTEGER and credit DOUBLE, in that order. Keep every source row. Correct the model types without disabling the contract.

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Skills and rubricModel contracts

Defends the model-contract contract and its downstream effect.
Keeps correctness evidence separate from performance assumptions.
Names a release or refresh check and a responsible owner.

Choose your character

dbt interviews

Timed assessment

Practice interviews

Slate Service: Source lineage and normalization

Copper Intake: Dependency and aggregation grain

Willow Dispatch: Deterministic keys and tests

Slate Service: Accepted-value tests

Copper Intake: Relationship tests

Willow Dispatch: Incremental replay

Slate Service: Late-data correction

Copper Intake: Selective CI

Willow Dispatch: Materialization choice

Slate Service: Model contracts

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