Database administrator interview questions
Use these suggested interview exercises to practice explaining assumptions, methods and validation. They are not a list of questions guaranteed to appear in an interview. The employer’s current requirements and assessment instructions take precedence.
Before you practice
Read the job description. Identify the responsibilities you would own. Ask about the assessment format, time limit, data, allowed tools and AI-assistance policy. Practice with public or synthetic data, and be ready to explain a step without relying on an assistant’s output.
How would you verify a recovery plan?
Practice scenario: A database has nightly backups. The team asks whether it can recover after a failure. Explain what additional evidence is needed.
What to explain: Check the required recovery point and recovery time, backup method and retention. Restore into an approved isolated environment and verify the recovered data and application dependencies. A completed backup job does not establish that recovery works.
How would you investigate a slow query?
Practice scenario: A report becomes slow after data grows. Explain your investigation before changing indexes.
What to explain: Inspect the execution plan, row estimates, filters, joins and resource contention. Test a proposed change against the same intended output in an appropriate environment. Explain maintenance and write costs of an index; do not assume every slow query needs one.
How would you change permissions?
Practice scenario: An analyst requests broad write access to debug a report. Describe how you would assess and respond.
What to explain: Clarify the task and required permissions, use the approved access process and prefer a suitable restricted or isolated environment. Keep credentials out of logs and examples. Explain how access is reviewed and removed when the task or role changes.
Review your answer
Check whether you defined the question, justified the method and proposed a way to verify the result. Include a failure case and a limitation. Our suggested rubric assesses reasoning and evidence; it is not an employer’s official scoring system.
Questions for the interviewer
- Which deliverable would I own, and who reviews it?
- What data-quality or operational problems does the team currently face?
- How do you assess success and support learning in this role?
Sources and next steps
Sources checked on October 2, 2026. Follow the linked documentation for current requirements.