Mid-level interview questionAsked at Databricks · interview write-up
Users search an enterprise catalogue of tables, columns and dashboards by exact name and by meaning. How would you design hybrid retrieval over that metadata?
Model answer
Queries mix exact identifiers, like a table name or catalogue path, with intent, like churn by region. Run a keyword index over names, paths and column names, and embeddings over descriptions and comments.
Normalise identifiers first, splitting snake_case and camelCase so cust_id matches customer id. Merge them with reciprocal rank fusion, but let an exact name match go straight to the top. Filter by permissions first, and tune on search logs.
Practise the rest
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