Forward Deployed Engineer interview question · Most asked
Your pipeline works on the customer's sample file but fails on the real export. How do you approach it?
Summary
Profile the real data (encodings, locales, formats, duplicates, nulls, volume), make parsing assumptions explicit per source, validate strictly and quarantine bad rows with reasons, reconcile counts and totals with the source, and give the customer a data-quality report their owners can act on.
Longer Answer
Never swallow errors silently; partial-load policies should be agreed. Store money as decimals and dates with explicit time zones.
Key Points
- Profile full data early.
- Explicit per-source config.
- Quarantine with reasons.
- Reconcile and report.
Deep dive: Forward Deployed Engineering in Practice: Works on the Sample, Fails on Real Data
Explanation
What interviewers look for
Rigour with messy data and transparency with the customer.
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