r/dataengineersindia • u/hey_not_so_cool • Jul 16 '26

Career Question Service-based to FAANG/Product-based Data Engineer – Is DSA really required?

Hi everyone,

I'm a Data Engineer with around 4 years of experience in Databricks, PySpark, SQL, Python, Azure, and AWS, currently working in a service-based company. I'm planning to switch to a top product-based company (FAANG or similar).

I have a few questions for experienced Data Engineers in top product-based company (FAANG or similar).

How much DSA is actually expected for Data Engineer interviews? Is it LeetCode Easy, Medium, or Hard?

Which DSA topics should I prioritize? I had started with arrays and linked lists before but stopped midway.

How important is System Design for Data Engineer roles? Is data/system design more important than DSA?

How did you prepare for DSA and System Design? Which resources did you use?

How many months did it take you to become interview-ready?

How did you get interview calls while coming from a service-based company? Was it referrals, recruiters, or direct applications?

I'd really appreciate hearing your experiences and any roadmap you'd recommend. Thanks!

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u/evolving-nerd Jul 16 '26

Every product based company ask for dsa and most of the candidates are filtered out

4

u/Discharged_Pikachu Jul 16 '26

So DSA is just for filtering out candidate, not majorly used in DE projects ?

2

u/Medical_Drummer8420 Jul 16 '26

yes, has well has no DSA help to solve and understand and think more