Kafka interview questions (30 common questions)

If you’re getting ready for a Kafka interview, you may come across some popular Kafka-related questions. Familiarizing with Kafka’s architecture, core concepts, and how it is used in real-world scenarios is important. Below are some of the common questions that you might encounter during a Kafka interview:

1. What is Apache Kafka, and how is it different from traditional message-oriented middleware systems?
2. Can you explain the key components of Apache Kafka architecture?
3. How does Kafka ensure fault tolerance and high availability?
4. Describe the role of ZooKeeper in Apache Kafka.
5. What are the key advantages of using Kafka in a distributed system?
6. Explain the concepts of topics and partitions in Kafka.
7. How does Kafka guarantee message ordering within a partition?
8. What is a consumer group in Kafka, and how does it work?
9. How does Kafka handle data retention and cleanup of old messages?
10. What is the significance of Kafka producers and consumers?
11. How does Kafka handle data serialization and deserialization?
12. Explain the role of Kafka Connect in the Kafka ecosystem.
13. What are the common use cases for Apache Kafka in real-world applications?
14. How does Kafka handle backpressure in a high-throughput system?
15. What is the purpose of Kafka Streams, and how is it used for stream processing?
16. Explain the concept of log compaction in Kafka.
17. What is the impact of increasing the number of partitions in a Kafka topic?
18. How does Kafka maintain data durability and integrity?
19. What are the different delivery semantics in Kafka?
20. Can you discuss the role of replication in Kafka, and how is it achieved?
21. How does Kafka handle the scenario when a broker goes down?
22. Explain the process of Kafka consumer offset management.
23. What is the role of the Kafka Protocol in communication between producers and brokers?
24. How do you configure and tune Kafka for optimal performance?
25. Describe the steps involved in setting up a basic Kafka cluster.
26. Can you discuss the role of partitions in parallelizing processing in Kafka?
27. What are the potential challenges and pitfalls when working with Kafka?
28. How does Kafka handle end-to-end encryption for data security?
29. Explain the concept of idempotent producers in Kafka.
30. How would you scale a Kafka cluster to handle increased load?

Make sure you understand Kafka’s architecture, core concepts, and how it is used in real-world scenarios. Practice working with Kafka configurations, understand how to troubleshoot common issues, and be prepared to discuss trade-offs and best practices in Kafka implementations. Good luck with your interview!