Interview prep · 3 parts

Apache Kafka Interview Questions

Topics and partitions, consumer groups, offsets, delivery guarantees and replication. Each question has an answer you can say out loud, the reasoning, and the follow-ups to expect.

Also coversKafkaKafka Streamsevent streamingmessage brokerpub/sub

Start with part 1 →All topics
In this series
1
parts published
6
questions
2
parts coming
Free
no sign-in
2 Beginner2 Intermediate2 Advanced
About this series

What Apache Kafka interviews test

Apache Kafka interviews go deep quickly. After topics, partitions and offsets, expect questions on consumer groups and rebalancing, keeping messages in order, delivery guarantees and exactly-once processing, and how replication keeps data safe when a broker fails.

The answers are written for engineers with some experience: the short answer, the reasoning behind it, configuration and code examples, the mistake that gives away a shallow understanding, and the follow-up questions interviewers ask next.

Follow the order, or jump in

The 3 parts

PART 016 questionsApache Kafka Interview Questions and AnswersPartitions, consumer groups, ordering, delivery guarantees, replication and rebalancing - the Kafka questions asked most, with answers and config.2 Beginner2 Intermediate2 Advanced13 min
PART 02Coming soonKafka Producers and Consumers in Depth
PART 03Coming soonKafka Streams and Connect
Jump to an answer

6 Apache Kafka questions in this series

Apache Kafka Interview Questions and Answers

  1. What are topics, partitions and offsets?Beginner
  2. How do consumer groups work?Beginner
  3. How do you keep related messages in order?Intermediate
  4. What delivery guarantees does Kafka offer, and how do you get exactly-once?Advanced
  5. How does replication work, and what is the ISR?Intermediate
  6. What is a consumer rebalance, and how do you reduce its impact?Advanced
Popular searchesSearching for one of these? Start here:
How to use this series
  1. Turn on Practice mode and answer each question out loud.
  2. Reveal the answer and compare it with the short version.
  3. Learn the follow-ups - that is where interviews are decided.
  4. Come back the night before and skim the short answers.