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Cloud Data Warehouse Architecture Questions

Understand modern cloud data platforms: Snowflake, BigQuery, Redshift, Azure Synapse. Know their architecture, scalability models, performance characteristics, and cost optimization strategies. Discuss separation of compute and storage, time travel, and zero-copy cloning.

MediumTechnical
0 practiced
Explain the difference between BigQuery on-demand pricing and flat-rate (slots). For a BI team with spiky but predictable dashboard usage, which pricing model would you recommend and why? Include how BI Engine or BI cache influences the decision.
MediumTechnical
0 practiced
Describe how you would implement data quality tests for key BI metrics using dbt (or a similar framework). Provide examples of tests for nulls, referential integrity, row counts, and sudden metric drops, and how you'd surface failures to stakeholders.
MediumTechnical
0 practiced
You inherit a Redshift cluster with many unused or overprovisioned nodes and a handful of slow, frequently-run BI queries. Propose immediate, mid-term, and long-term actions covering re-sizing (RA3), vacuuming, distribution/sort keys, and query refactoring.
HardTechnical
0 practiced
Discuss trade-offs between micro-batch and streaming architectures for a BI platform that needs sub-minute freshness for some metrics but processes billions of events per day. Which approach scales better cost-wise and operationally, and why?
HardSystem Design
0 practiced
Architecture question: Design a solution that allows BI analysts to run ad-hoc queries against raw event data in the lake while preventing expensive queries from impacting production dashboards. Include access controls, query caps, materialized caches, and query sandboxing.

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