From user activity logs, find the top 3 most active users for each day, handling ties appropriately.
A reported Databricks Solutions Architect screen question where the phrase 'handling ties appropriately' is the actual test. The SQL is six lines; the points are in interrogating 'appropriately' and the PySpark follow-up.
Updated Aug 2026 · Grounded in real Forward Deployed Engineer interview loops and written to a senior-engineer editorial bar.
A reported Databricks Solutions Architect screen question where the phrase 'handling ties appropriately' is the actual test. The SQL is six lines; the points are in interrogating 'appropriately' and the PySpark follow-up.
Lead with where the obvious approach breaks, because that is the judgment they are screening for — most candidates jump straight to the happy path and lose the room.
Then walk the failure back through the pipeline in order, naming the one metric the customer's exec sponsor actually cares about before you propose the fix.
