This document provides an overview of how Byteboardâs Data Engineering Assessment differs from Byteboardâs Software Engineering Assessment. It is intended to provide context for individuals who are already familiar with Byteboardâs Software Engineering Assessment.
Overview
There are several skills often requested to evaluate data engineering candidates that are not currently assessed in Byteboardâs Software Engineering assessment. These skills include Distributed Systems, Database Design & Reasoning, and Data Manipulation. To accommodate these additional skills, the Byteboard Data Engineering assessment has reduced the focus on algorithms and data structures as seen in the software engineering assessment.
Content Changes
Part 1 - Design Document | Part 2 - Coding Segment |
The questions asked in comments by âcollaboratorsâ that previously focused on runtime complexity have been replaced with questions that focus on database design & reasoning and distributed systems. | The open-ended task focused on algorithm design has been replaced with a new task that assesses a candidates ability to ingest and manipulate data. Additionally, the assessment is currently only offered in Python (Python competency in itself is a requested data engineering skill), or Java. |
Domain-Specific Skills
Three new skills have been introduced to assess highly requested Data Engineering skills.
Skills | Baseline expectations for displaying desired skill |
Distributed Systems | The candidate is able to understand and critically reason about distributed systems. |
Database Design & Reasoning | The candidate is able to reason about different types of databases, and which you should use for a specific use case and why. |
Data Manipulation | The candidate is able to extract, transform, load and manipulate data. |