Interview Roadmap for Microsoft Fabric & Azure Data Engineering
Role
Phase 1: Understand the Role Expectations (1-2 Days)
- Job Description Analysis: Read the job description again carefully. Identify key areas: Is it more
focused on data engineering, analytics, or governance?
- Align Skills: Match your skills to the JD. Highlight areas you're strong in and note areas needing
improvement.
Phase 2: Strengthen Technical Foundations (5-7 Days)
- Microsoft Fabric Deep Dive
- - Lakehouse Architecture: Understand how Lakehouses work within Fabric and OneLake.
- - Data Pipelines: Learn how to create, schedule, and monitor pipelines.
- - Semantic Models and Power BI Integration: Learn how semantic models are built and linked to
reports.
- - Real-Time Analytics: Explore KQL, Eventstreams, and Direct Lake.
- Azure Ecosystem Review
- - ADF: Pipelines, triggers, linked services, integration runtime.
- - Azure Synapse: Serverless vs Dedicated pools, notebooks, integration with Power BI.
- - Azure Databricks: Delta Lake, Notebooks, Workspace, DBFS, MLflow basics.
- - ADLS Gen2: Storage hierarchy, access control (RBAC vs ACLs), mounting in Databricks.
Phase 3: Coding & Data Transformation Practice (4-6 Days)
- Programming Practice
- - Python/PySpark: Implement ETL pipelines using PySpark, write UDFs, handle structured
streaming.
- - T-SQL/Spark SQL: Practice writing analytical queries, window functions, CTEs, and performance
tuning.
- Data Engineering Scenarios
- - Build an end-to-end pipeline: Ingest -> Transform -> Store -> Visualize.
- - Sample Projects:
- * Load data from API or file to OneLake or ADLS Gen2.
- * Clean and transform using PySpark.
- * Load into Delta Lake.
- * Create a Power BI dashboard using a semantic model.
Phase 4: System Design & Conceptual Prep (3-4 Days)
- Design Concepts
- - How would you design a lakehouse?
- - How does Microsoft Fabric improve over traditional data warehouses?
- - Data governance in OneLake?
- - Delta Lake versioning and schema evolution?
- Core CS Topics (Revisit briefly)
- - DBMS: ACID, indexing, normalization.
- - OOP: Class, inheritance, abstraction.
- - OS: Multithreading, memory management (lightweight review).
Phase 5: Behavioral & Mock Interviews (2-3 Days)
- STAR Framework
- - Prepare stories from your experience:
- * ADF pipeline issue & resolution
- * Optimizing a Spark job
- * Building a cross-team data platform
- * Dealing with dirty data in a lakehouse
- Mock Interviews
- - Practice with a friend or use platforms like Pramp or Interviewing.io.
- - Focus on clear communication and structured thinking.
Final Phase: Day Before Interview
- - Review your key projects.
- - Make a mental map of your tech stack.
- - Get good sleep!
