Databricks interview questions

63 real Databricks questions from the Big Data bank, as asked in Indian campus drives and tech interviews. Every question has a verified answer and an AI-tutor explanation on placd — free to start.

1. What is Unity Catalog?

Junior
  1. A.the Databricks serverless warehouse offering for running BI and ad-hoc SQL on lakehouse tables with Photon
  2. B.a Databricks compute option that runs SQL on instantly available managed clusters, removing warehouse startup and idle-capacity management
  3. C.Lakeflow pipeline data-quality rules that validate rows and can warn, drop, or fail the pipeline on violations
  4. D.the Databricks unified governance layer that centralizes access control, lineage, and discovery across data and AI assets
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2. Which term means: "the Databricks unified governance layer that centralizes access control, lineage, and discovery across data and AI assets"?

Junior
  1. A.Unity Catalog
  2. B.Genie
  3. C.Databricks Workflows
  4. D.Lakeflow Declarative Pipelines
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3. Which statement is correct?

Junior
  1. A.Unity Catalog — the Databricks unified governance layer that centralizes access control, lineage, and discovery across data and AI assets
  2. B.Unity Catalog — the Databricks vectorized C++ query engine that accelerates SQL and DataFrame workloads while staying API compatible with Spark
  3. C.Unity Catalog — a declarative data-quality rule in Lakeflow Declarative Pipelines that validates rows and can warn, drop, or fail the pipeline on violation
  4. D.Unity Catalog — Databricks compute managed entirely by the platform so users run workloads without provisioning or sizing clusters
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4. What is Photon?

Junior
  1. A.the Databricks capability to query external databases and warehouses through Unity Catalog without ingesting the data
  2. B.the Databricks vectorized C++ query engine that accelerates SQL and DataFrame workloads while staying API compatible with Spark
  3. C.an open protocol from Databricks for securely sharing live data across organizations without copying it
  4. D.the Databricks framework, evolved from Delta Live Tables, where you declare target tables and quality expectations and it manages the pipeline
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5. Which term means: "the Databricks vectorized C++ query engine that accelerates SQL and DataFrame workloads while staying API compatible with Spark"?

Junior
  1. A.Unity Catalog model
  2. B.Databricks SQL
  3. C.Photon
  4. D.automatic liquid clustering
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6. Which statement is correct?

Junior
  1. A.Photon — the Databricks vectorized C++ query engine that accelerates SQL and DataFrame workloads while staying API compatible with Spark
  2. B.Photon — the Databricks serverless warehouse offering for running BI and ad-hoc SQL on lakehouse tables with Photon
  3. C.Photon — the Databricks table layout that replaces partitioning and Z-ordering with flexible clustering keys that can change without rewriting data
  4. D.Photon — a Databricks compute option that runs SQL on instantly available managed clusters, removing warehouse startup and idle-capacity management
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7. What is Delta Sharing?

Junior
  1. A.the Databricks tradeoff where Liquid Clustering adapts layout to evolving query patterns without the rigidity of physical partitions
  2. B.the Databricks feature (CLUSTER BY AUTO) where predictive optimization chooses and updates clustering keys for a managed table based on query patterns
  3. C.the Databricks table layout that replaces partitioning and Z-ordering with flexible clustering keys that can change without rewriting data
  4. D.an open protocol from Databricks for securely sharing live data across organizations without copying it
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8. Which term means: "an open protocol from Databricks for securely sharing live data across organizations without copying it"?

Junior
  1. A.automatic liquid clustering
  2. B.Lakehouse Federation
  3. C.Delta Sharing
  4. D.Auto Loader
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9. Which statement is correct?

Junior
  1. A.Delta Sharing — an open protocol from Databricks for securely sharing live data across organizations without copying it
  2. B.Delta Sharing — the Databricks feature (CLUSTER BY AUTO) where predictive optimization chooses and updates clustering keys for a managed table based on query patterns
  3. C.Delta Sharing — Databricks compute managed entirely by the platform so users run workloads without provisioning or sizing clusters
  4. D.Delta Sharing — the Databricks feature that automatically runs maintenance such as compaction, clustering, and vacuum on managed tables based on usage
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10. What is Lakeflow Declarative Pipelines?

Mid
  1. A.the Databricks capability to query external databases and warehouses through Unity Catalog without ingesting the data
  2. B.a declarative data-quality rule in Lakeflow Declarative Pipelines that validates rows and can warn, drop, or fail the pipeline on violation
  3. C.the Databricks framework, evolved from Delta Live Tables, where you declare target tables and quality expectations and it manages the pipeline
  4. D.an open protocol from Databricks for securely sharing live data across organizations without copying it
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11. Which term means: "the Databricks framework, evolved from Delta Live Tables, where you declare target tables and quality expectations and it manages the pipeline"?

Mid
  1. A.serverless SQL warehouse
  2. B.Lakeflow Declarative Pipelines
  3. C.predictive optimization
  4. D.Databricks Workflows
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12. Which statement is correct?

Mid
  1. A.Lakeflow Declarative Pipelines — Lakeflow pipeline data-quality rules that validate rows and can warn, drop, or fail the pipeline on violations
  2. B.Lakeflow Declarative Pipelines — the Databricks unified governance layer that centralizes access control, lineage, and discovery across data and AI assets
  3. C.Lakeflow Declarative Pipelines — the Databricks framework, evolved from Delta Live Tables, where you declare target tables and quality expectations and it manages the pipeline
  4. D.Lakeflow Declarative Pipelines — the Databricks tradeoff where Liquid Clustering adapts layout to evolving query patterns without the rigidity of physical partitions
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13. What is Databricks SQL?

Mid
  1. A.the Databricks serverless warehouse offering for running BI and ad-hoc SQL on lakehouse tables with Photon
  2. B.the Databricks table layout that replaces partitioning and Z-ordering with flexible clustering keys that can change without rewriting data
  3. C.the Databricks tradeoff where Liquid Clustering adapts layout to evolving query patterns without the rigidity of physical partitions
  4. D.the automatic column- and table-level lineage Unity Catalog captures across queries, notebooks, and pipelines
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15. Which statement is correct?

Mid
  1. A.Databricks SQL — an open protocol from Databricks for securely sharing live data across organizations without copying it
  2. B.Databricks SQL — the Databricks table layout that replaces partitioning and Z-ordering with flexible clustering keys that can change without rewriting data
  3. C.Databricks SQL — Lakeflow pipeline data-quality rules that validate rows and can warn, drop, or fail the pipeline on violations
  4. D.Databricks SQL — the Databricks serverless warehouse offering for running BI and ad-hoc SQL on lakehouse tables with Photon
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16. What is Genie?

Mid
  1. A.a governed Unity Catalog object that manages access to non-tabular files in cloud storage, such as images, models, and raw landing data
  2. B.the Databricks capability to query external databases and warehouses through Unity Catalog without ingesting the data
  3. C.the Databricks natural-language interface that lets business users ask questions of governed data and get SQL-backed answers
  4. D.the Databricks unified governance layer that centralizes access control, lineage, and discovery across data and AI assets
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17. Which term means: "the Databricks natural-language interface that lets business users ask questions of governed data and get SQL-backed answers"?

Mid
  1. A.Auto Loader
  2. B.Genie
  3. C.Databricks Workflows
  4. D.automatic liquid clustering
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18. Which statement is correct?

Mid
  1. A.Genie — the Databricks unified governance layer that centralizes access control, lineage, and discovery across data and AI assets
  2. B.Genie — the Databricks capability to query external databases and warehouses through Unity Catalog without ingesting the data
  3. C.Genie — the Databricks vectorized C++ query engine that accelerates SQL and DataFrame workloads while staying API compatible with Spark
  4. D.Genie — the Databricks natural-language interface that lets business users ask questions of governed data and get SQL-backed answers
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19. What is Unity Catalog lineage?

Mid
  1. A.the Databricks natural-language interface that lets business users ask questions of governed data and get SQL-backed answers
  2. B.the automatic column- and table-level lineage Unity Catalog captures across queries, notebooks, and pipelines
  3. C.a governed Unity Catalog object that manages access to non-tabular files in cloud storage, such as images, models, and raw landing data
  4. D.an open protocol from Databricks for securely sharing live data across organizations without copying it
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21. Which statement is correct?

Mid
  1. A.Unity Catalog lineage — Databricks-managed Unity Catalog tables exposing operational metadata such as billing, audit logs, and lineage for analysis
  2. B.Unity Catalog lineage — the Databricks table layout that replaces partitioning and Z-ordering with flexible clustering keys that can change without rewriting data
  3. C.Unity Catalog lineage — the Databricks serverless warehouse offering for running BI and ad-hoc SQL on lakehouse tables with Photon
  4. D.Unity Catalog lineage — the automatic column- and table-level lineage Unity Catalog captures across queries, notebooks, and pipelines
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22. What is Liquid Clustering vs partitioning?

Senior
  1. A.the Databricks serverless warehouse offering for running BI and ad-hoc SQL on lakehouse tables with Photon
  2. B.the Databricks tradeoff where Liquid Clustering adapts layout to evolving query patterns without the rigidity of physical partitions
  3. C.the Databricks table layout that replaces partitioning and Z-ordering with flexible clustering keys that can change without rewriting data
  4. D.a declarative data-quality rule in Lakeflow Declarative Pipelines that validates rows and can warn, drop, or fail the pipeline on violation
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23. Which term means: "the Databricks tradeoff where Liquid Clustering adapts layout to evolving query patterns without the rigidity of physical partitions"?

Senior
  1. A.DLT expectation
  2. B.Liquid Clustering vs partitioning
  3. C.Lakeflow Declarative Pipelines
  4. D.Expectations
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24. Which statement is correct?

Senior
  1. A.Liquid Clustering vs partitioning — Databricks compute managed entirely by the platform so users run workloads without provisioning or sizing clusters
  2. B.Liquid Clustering vs partitioning — the Databricks serverless warehouse offering for running BI and ad-hoc SQL on lakehouse tables with Photon
  3. C.Liquid Clustering vs partitioning — the Databricks tradeoff where Liquid Clustering adapts layout to evolving query patterns without the rigidity of physical partitions
  4. D.Liquid Clustering vs partitioning — Lakeflow pipeline data-quality rules that validate rows and can warn, drop, or fail the pipeline on violations
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25. What is Serverless compute?

Senior
  1. A.the native orchestration service for scheduling and chaining notebooks, scripts, and pipelines into multi-task jobs with dependencies and retries
  2. B.the Databricks natural-language interface that lets business users ask questions of governed data and get SQL-backed answers
  3. C.Databricks compute managed entirely by the platform so users run workloads without provisioning or sizing clusters
  4. D.the Databricks feature that automatically runs maintenance such as compaction, clustering, and vacuum on managed tables based on usage
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26. Which term means: "Databricks compute managed entirely by the platform so users run workloads without provisioning or sizing clusters"?

Senior
  1. A.Serverless compute
  2. B.Lakeflow Declarative Pipelines
  3. C.Delta Sharing
  4. D.Expectations
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27. Which statement is correct?

Senior
  1. A.Serverless compute — Databricks compute managed entirely by the platform so users run workloads without provisioning or sizing clusters
  2. B.Serverless compute — the Databricks feature that automatically runs maintenance such as compaction, clustering, and vacuum on managed tables based on usage
  3. C.Serverless compute — the Databricks natural-language interface that lets business users ask questions of governed data and get SQL-backed answers
  4. D.Serverless compute — Databricks-managed Unity Catalog tables exposing operational metadata such as billing, audit logs, and lineage for analysis
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28. What is Expectations?

Senior
  1. A.a Databricks compute option that runs SQL on instantly available managed clusters, removing warehouse startup and idle-capacity management
  2. B.the Databricks table layout that replaces partitioning and Z-ordering with flexible clustering keys that can change without rewriting data
  3. C.the native orchestration service for scheduling and chaining notebooks, scripts, and pipelines into multi-task jobs with dependencies and retries
  4. D.Lakeflow pipeline data-quality rules that validate rows and can warn, drop, or fail the pipeline on violations
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29. Which term means: "Lakeflow pipeline data-quality rules that validate rows and can warn, drop, or fail the pipeline on violations"?

Senior
  1. A.Expectations
  2. B.automatic liquid clustering
  3. C.Unity Catalog
  4. D.Lakeflow Declarative Pipelines
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30. Which statement is correct?

Senior
  1. A.Expectations — the Databricks capability to query external databases and warehouses through Unity Catalog without ingesting the data
  2. B.Expectations — the Databricks unified governance layer that centralizes access control, lineage, and discovery across data and AI assets
  3. C.Expectations — Lakeflow pipeline data-quality rules that validate rows and can warn, drop, or fail the pipeline on violations
  4. D.Expectations — a registered machine-learning model governed in Unity Catalog with versions, aliases, and lineage across the workspace
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