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A lot of new Big Data jobs are popping out recently. What sort of technologies could one learn to get better familiar with this new field?

Are there any interview questions in particular that may come up at these companies?

Any particular sort of algorithms and data-structures, I could expect?

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Have you ever worked with Big Data before? That will be the first question. –  JeffO Dec 6 '11 at 18:38
What exactly is "Big Data"? –  Ramhound Dec 6 '11 at 19:44
@Ramhound en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_data –  Friek Dec 6 '11 at 20:08
Hi Ramin, help with padding a résumé or advice on what you should learn are off-topic here: if there's something specific about big data you'd like someone to explain to you, feel free to ask about that instead. –  user8 Dec 6 '11 at 21:03
@JeffO well not necessarily, I mean it's pretty new to a lot of companies which won't be able to afford experts. They may want to recruit some people with no real experience but willing to move on Big Data. –  xsace Dec 6 '11 at 21:05
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closed as off topic by Steve Evers, Robert Harvey, Mark Trapp Dec 6 '11 at 21:02


2 Answers

If you don't know Hadoop, don't even bother applying. That's the current big-data darling, along with NoSQL DBs (esp, MongoDO and Cassandra). You should also know about distributed key/value stores (e.g., Amazon's Dynamo) and PaaS technologies like OpenStack and AWS. Be able to talk about map/reduce and know a little something about data mining or integration technologies -- companies don't usually just point a pipe at a Hadoop cluster, you'll have to write some code to comb through ERP systems or act as an endpoint on an ESB.

Fortunately, the field's young enough that there aren't too many experts yet, so if you just know the basics you should stand a good chance of getting your foot in the door. Good luck!

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I found Google's Paper on BigTable very informative. I read that when NoSql was gaining popularity. Having a Solid Relational DB Background, i was having difficulty imaging how another DB system could be superior.

Its a great starting point if you are looking to learn more about NoSql and\or Big Data. If you don't have a SOLID understanding of Relational DBs and why they are fast . You need to start there.

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