Interview prep

Database Administrator interview questions

13 questions database administrators get asked, grouped by type. Under each one are the skills it is really testing, so you can pick a story from your own work that shows them.

Technical

  1. A query that used to run fine is now timing out in production. Walk me through how you'd diagnose it.
    Tests: performance, debugging
  2. How do you plan a schema migration on a table that's under constant read and write load, with no acceptable downtime?
    Tests: reliability, judgment
  3. How do you decide when a database needs to be scaled up versus when the real problem is inefficient queries or schema design?
    Tests: performance, judgment
  4. Walk me through how you'd test that a database failover actually works before you need it in a real incident.
    Tests: reliability, backup and recovery

Situational

  1. You discover during a routine check that backups have silently been failing for two weeks. What do you do?
    Tests: backup and recovery, ownership
  2. A developer asks for broad production database access to debug an issue quickly. How do you respond?
    Tests: security, judgment
  3. Someone asks you to permanently delete a set of records from production right away, outside the normal process. How do you handle it?
    Tests: security, judgment
  4. During an outage, the application team says the database is slow and the database looks healthy by every metric you can see. How do you work through the disagreement?
    Tests: communication, debugging

Behavioral

  1. Tell me about a time you disagreed with a coworker and how you handled it.
    Tests: conflict resolution, communication
  2. Describe a project or task that did not go well and what you did about it.
    Tests: ownership, reflection
  3. Give an example of persuading someone to adopt an idea they initially resisted.
    Tests: influence, communication
  4. Walk me through how you decided what to work on when you had more requests than time.
    Tests: prioritisation, judgment
  5. Tell me about a time you had to learn something new quickly to get a job done.
    Tests: learning agility, ownership
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Database Administrator interview questions — Gurus Consulting