Technical interview guide

Data Catalog & Lineage

Making data discoverable and traceable — what a dataset means, where it came from, and what depends on it.

Read: 33 min
Practice MCQs: 25
Interview QA: 25
Edition: v4
Editorial status: Reviewed
Relevant for: Data Architect

Scope: W3C DCAT 3 and PROV-O, OpenLineage 1.53 object model/facets, Google Cloud Knowledge Catalog lineage, dbt manifest artifacts, Apache Atlas lineage API, and UK metadata guidance current 2026-08-31.

Interview QA

Treat each question like a live interview question: answer out loud first (structure, assumptions, tradeoffs), then open the model answer to spot gaps and rehearse a tighter follow-up.

Curated: 2026-10-05 · Written: 2026-09-09 · Reviewed: 2026-10-03

QA-1

Design a data catalog for a multi-team data platform.

QA-2

Define stable identities for catalog resources.

QA-3

Create minimum metadata requirements for a critical dataset.

QA-4

Design catalog search and ranking.

QA-5

Design lineage capture across orchestrators, SQL engines, and dbt.

QA-6

Model OpenLineage jobs, runs, and datasets correctly.

QA-7

Reconcile declared and runtime lineage.

QA-8

Implement column-level lineage responsibly.

QA-9

Capture lineage for dynamic SQL and runtime-selected tables.

QA-10

Build a reliable lineage-event ingestion service.

QA-11

Detect missing lineage events.

QA-12

Secure catalog and lineage metadata.

QA-13

Run impact analysis for a breaking schema change.

QA-14

Use lineage during a data-quality incident.

QA-15

Use lineage for a privacy deletion request.

QA-16

Retire a dataset using catalog and lineage evidence.

QA-17

Unify lineage across cloud accounts and regions.

QA-18

Model lineage for a streaming pipeline.

QA-19

Represent a backfill in lineage.

QA-20

Design lineage for an ML model and feature pipeline.

QA-21

Measure catalog and lineage quality.

QA-22

Migrate from one catalog or lineage platform to another.

QA-23

Assign ownership for catalog metadata and lineage.

QA-24

Test a catalog and lineage system before production.

QA-25