5/28/25, 1:11 AM Kafka:230+ All Scenario interview questions to help you crack | by Gaddam.

Naveen | Medium

Kafka:230+ All Scenario interview

questions to help you crack
Gaddam.Naveen Follow 10 min read · Feb 9, 2025

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Topics Covered (Clickable Links)

1. Basic Kafka Questions

2. Intermediate Kafka Questions

3. Advanced Kafka Questions

4. scenario-Based Kafka Questions

5. Kafka Architecture and Design Questions

6. Kafka Performance Tuning Questions

7. Kafka Ecosystem Questions

8. Kafka Internals and Deep Dive Questions

9. Kafka Security Questions

10. Kafka Monitoring and Troubleshooting Questions

11. Kafka Integration Questions

12. Kafka Use Case Questions

13. Kafka Best Practices Questions

14. Kafka Advanced Use Case Questions

15. Kafka Configuration and Tuning Questions

16. Kafka Ecosystem and Tooling Questions

17. Kafka Advanced Architecture Questions

18. Kafka Real-World Scenario Questions

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19. Kafka Performance and Scalability Questions

20. Kafka Security and Compliance Questions

21. Kafka Advanced Use Case Questions

22. Kafka Troubleshooting and Debugging Questions

Now This are the questions

1. Basic Kafka Questions

1. What is Apache Kafka?

2. What are the key components of Kafka?

3. What is a Kafka Topic?

4. What is a Kafka Partition?

5. What is the role of Zookeeper in Kafka?

6. What is a Consumer Group?

7. What is the difference between a Kafka Producer and a Consumer?

8. What is a Kafka Broker?

9. What is the purpose of Kafka Connect?

10. What is Kafka Streams?

11. What is the purpose of Kafka’s log compaction?

12. What is a Kafka MirrorMaker?

13. What is the difference between Kafka and Apache Flink?

14. What is the role of a Kafka Schema Registry?

15. What is the difference between Kafka and Apache Storm?

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2. Intermediate Kafka Questions

1. How does Kafka ensure fault tolerance and high availability?

2. What is the significance of offsets in Kafka?

3. How does Kafka handle message retention?

4. What is the difference between a Kafka Topic and a Partition?

5. What is the role of a Kafka Leader and Followers in a Partition?

6. How does Kafka ensure message ordering?

7. What is the difference between Kafka and traditional messaging systems like
RabbitMQ?

8. What is a Kafka Log and how does it work?

9. How does Kafka handle data replication?

10. What is the difference between a Kafka Consumer and a Kafka Stream?

11. How does Kafka handle message compression?

12. What is the role of a Kafka Controller?

13. How does Kafka handle unclean leader elections?

14. What is the difference between Kafka and Apache Spark Streaming?

15. How does Kafka handle data serialization and deserialization?

16. What is the role of Kafka ACLs (Access Control Lists)?

17. How does Kafka handle consumer rebalancing?

18. What is the difference between Kafka and Amazon Kinesis?

19. How does Kafka handle message batching?

20. What is the role of Kafka’s acks configuration in producers?

3. Advanced Kafka Questions

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1. How does Kafka achieve high throughput and low latency?

2. What is the role of ISR (In-Sync Replicas) in Kafka?

3. How does Kafka handle consumer lag?

4. What is the difference between Kafka and Apache Pulsar?

5. How does Kafka handle schema evolution?

6. What is the role of Kafka in a microservices architecture?

7. How do you monitor and optimize Kafka performance?

8. What are Kafka Transactions, and how do they work?

9. How does Kafka handle backpressure in consumers?

10. What are the challenges of scaling Kafka clusters?

11. How does Kafka handle cross-datacenter replication?

12. What is the role of Kafka’s linger.ms configuration in producers?

13. How does Kafka handle partition reassignment?

14. What is the role of Kafka’s auto.offset.reset configuration in consumers?

15. How does Kafka handle idempotent producers?

16. What is the role of Kafka’s max.poll.interval.ms configuration in

consumers?

17. How does Kafka handle schema compatibility?

18. What is the role of Kafka’s min.insync.replicas configuration?

19. How does Kafka handle consumer group rebalancing?

20. What is the role of Kafka’s retention.ms configuration?

4. scenario-Based Kafka Questions

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1. How would you design a Kafka-based system for real-time analytics?

2. How would you handle a Kafka broker failure?

3. How would you debug a Kafka consumer that is not processing messages?

4. How would you ensure exactly-once semantics in Kafka?

5. How would you handle schema changes in Kafka without downtime?

6. How would you design a Kafka-based system for event sourcing?

7. How would you handle a Kafka consumer that is processing messages

slowly?

8. How would you design a Kafka-based system for log aggregation?

9. How would you handle a Kafka topic with uneven partition distribution?

10. How would you design a Kafka-based system for real-time fraud detection?

11. How would you handle a Kafka producer that is experiencing high latency?

12. How would you design a Kafka-based system for IoT data processing?

13. How would you handle a Kafka cluster with high disk usage?

14. How would you design a Kafka-based system for real-time

recommendations?

15. How would you handle a Kafka consumer that is not committing offsets?

5. Kafka Architecture and Design Questions

1. What are the trade-offs of increasing the number of partitions in a Kafka
topic?

2. How does Kafka handle data locality and network latency?

3. What are the key considerations when designing a Kafka cluster for high
availability?

4. How does Kafka handle data deduplication?

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5. What are the key challenges of running Kafka in a cloud environment?

6. Kafka Performance Tuning Questions

1. How would you optimize Kafka for low-latency use cases?

2. What are the key metrics to monitor in a Kafka cluster?

3. How would you optimize Kafka for high-throughput use cases?

4. What are the key configuration parameters for tuning Kafka producers?

5. What are the key configuration parameters for tuning Kafka consumers?

7. Kafka Ecosystem Questions

1. What is the role of Kafka in a data lake architecture?

2. How does Kafka integrate with Apache Hadoop?

3. What is the role of Kafka in a data warehouse architecture?

4. How does Kafka integrate with Apache Cassandra?

5. What is the role of Kafka in a machine learning pipeline?

8. Kafka Internals and Deep Dive Questions

1. How does Kafka handle log segment rolling?

2. What is the role of Kafka’s log.retention.bytes configuration?

3. How does Kafka handle log directory failures?

4. What is the role of Kafka’s log.flush.interval.messages configuration?

5. How does Kafka handle log cleanup?

6. What is the role of Kafka’s log.segment.bytes configuration?

7. How does Kafka handle log segment deletion?

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8. What is the role of Kafka’s log.retention.check.interval.ms configuration?

9. How does Kafka handle log compaction for key-value data?

10. What is the role of Kafka’s log.cleaner.threads configuration?

9. Kafka Security Questions

1. How does Kafka handle SSL/TLS encryption?

2. What is the role of Kafka’s SASL authentication?

3. How does Kafka handle role-based access control (RBAC)?

4. What is the role of Kafka’s authorizer.class.name configuration?

5. How does Kafka handle data encryption at rest?

10. Kafka Monitoring and Troubleshooting Questions

1. What are the key Kafka metrics to monitor in a production environment?

2. How do you troubleshoot a Kafka consumer that is lagging?

3. How do you troubleshoot a Kafka producer that is experiencing high

latency?

4. What tools do you use to monitor Kafka clusters?

5. How do you troubleshoot Kafka broker failures?

6. How do you troubleshoot Kafka partition reassignment issues?

7. How do you troubleshoot Kafka consumer group rebalancing issues?

8. How do you troubleshoot Kafka disk I/O bottlenecks?

9. How do you troubleshoot Kafka network bottlenecks?

10. How do you troubleshoot Kafka Zookeeper connection issues?

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11. Kafka Integration Questions

1. How does Kafka integrate with Apache Flink?

2. How does Kafka integrate with Apache Spark?

3. How does Kafka integrate with Elasticsearch?

4. How does Kafka integrate with Apache NiFi?

5. How does Kafka integrate with Apache Airflow?

6. How does Kafka integrate with Apache HBase?

7. How does Kafka integrate with Apache Druid?

8. How does Kafka integrate with Apache Pinot?

9. How does Kafka integrate with Apache Superset?

10. How does Kafka integrate with Apache Atlas?

12. Kafka Use Case Questions

1. How would you design a Kafka-based system for real-time inventory
management?

2. How would you design a Kafka-based system for real-time customer

notifications?

3. How would you design a Kafka-based system for real-time anomaly

detection?

4. How would you design a Kafka-based system for real-time payment

processing?

5. How would you design a Kafka-based system for real-time social media
analytics?

6. How would you design a Kafka-based system for real-time supply chain
tracking?

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7. How would you design a Kafka-based system for real-time gaming analytics?

8. How would you design a Kafka-based system for real-time healthcare

monitoring?

9. How would you design a Kafka-based system for real-time financial trading?

10. How would you design a Kafka-based system for real-time ad targeting?

13. Kafka Best Practices Questions

1. What are the best practices for designing Kafka topics?

2. What are the best practices for configuring Kafka producers?

3. What are the best practices for configuring Kafka consumers?

4. What are the best practices for managing Kafka partitions?

5. What are the best practices for managing Kafka consumer groups?

6. What are the best practices for managing Kafka cluster performance?

7. What are the best practices for managing Kafka security?

8. What are the best practices for managing Kafka data retention?

9. What are the best practices for managing Kafka replication?

10. What are the best practices for managing Kafka upgrades?

14. Kafka Advanced Use Case Questions

1. How would you design a Kafka-based system for real-time video streaming
analytics?

2. How would you design a Kafka-based system for real-time autonomous

vehicle data processing?

3. How would you design a Kafka-based system for real-time satellite data
processing?

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4. How would you design a Kafka-based system for real-time energy grid
monitoring?

5. How would you design a Kafka-based system for real-time weather data
processing?

6. How would you design a Kafka-based system for real-time e-commerce

recommendations?

7. How would you design a Kafka-based system for real-time fraud detection in
banking?

8. How would you design a Kafka-based system for real-time airline

reservation tracking?

9. How would you design a Kafka-based system for real-time stock market
analysis?

10. How would you design a Kafka-based system for real-time IoT device
management?

15. Kafka Configuration and Tuning Questions

1. What is the role of Kafka’s replica.lag.time.max.ms configuration?

2. What is the role of Kafka’s replica.fetch.max.bytes configuration?

3. What is the role of Kafka’s replica.fetch.wait.max.ms configuration?

4. What is the role of Kafka’s num.replica.fetchers configuration?

5. What is the role of Kafka’s unclean.leader.election.enable configuration?

6. What is the role of Kafka’s min.insync.replicas configuration?

7. What is the role of Kafka’s message.max.bytes configuration?

8. What is the role of Kafka’s fetch.max.bytes configuration?

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9. What is the role of Kafka’s fetch.max.wait.ms configuration?

10. What is the role of Kafka’s max.poll.records configuration?

16. Kafka Ecosystem and Tooling Questions

1. What is the role of Kafka REST Proxy?

2. What is the role of Kafka Schema Registry?

3. What is the role of Kafka Streams DSL?

4. What is the role of Kafka KSQL?

5. What is the role of Kafka Connect and its connectors?

6. What is the role of Kafka MirrorMaker 2.0?

7. What is the role of Kafka AdminClient API?

8. What is the role of Kafka Streams Processor API?

9. What is the role of Kafka Streams State Stores?

10. What is the role of Kafka Streams Interactive Queries?

17. Kafka Advanced Architecture Questions

1. How does Kafka handle data deduplication in a distributed system?

2. How does Kafka handle data consistency across partitions?

3. How does Kafka handle data replication across multiple data centers?

4. How does Kafka handle data partitioning for global topics?

5. How does Kafka handle data partitioning for time-series data?

6. How does Kafka handle data partitioning for geospatial data?

7. How does Kafka handle data partitioning for hierarchical data?

8. How does Kafka handle data partitioning for graph data?

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9. How does Kafka handle data partitioning for event-sourced systems?

10. How does Kafka handle data partitioning for CQRS (Command Query
Responsibility Segregation) systems?

18. Kafka Real-World Scenario Questions

1. How would you design a Kafka-based system for real-time traffic
monitoring?

2. How would you design a Kafka-based system for real-time sports analytics?

3. How would you design a Kafka-based system for real-time election results
tracking?

4. How would you design a Kafka-based system for real-time disaster recovery?

5. How would you design a Kafka-based system for real-time cybersecurity

threat detection?

6. How would you design a Kafka-based system for real-time retail inventory
tracking?

7. How would you design a Kafka-based system for real-time airline baggage
tracking?

8. How would you design a Kafka-based system for real-time telemedicine data
processing?

9. How would you design a Kafka-based system for real-time smart home
automation?

10. How would you design a Kafka-based system for real-time agricultural
monitoring?

19. Kafka Performance and Scalability Questions

1. How does Kafka handle horizontal scaling of brokers?

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2. How does Kafka handle vertical scaling of brokers?

3. How does Kafka handle scaling of consumer groups?

4. How does Kafka handle scaling of producer throughput?

5. How does Kafka handle scaling of topic partitions?

6. How does Kafka handle scaling of replication factor?

7. How does Kafka handle scaling of Zookeeper clusters?

8. How does Kafka handle scaling of Kafka Connect clusters?

9. How does Kafka handle scaling of Kafka Streams applications?

10. How does Kafka handle scaling of Kafka MirrorMaker clusters?

20. Kafka Security and Compliance Questions

1. How does Kafka handle GDPR compliance?

2. How does Kafka handle HIPAA compliance?

3. How does Kafka handle PCI DSS compliance?

4. How does Kafka handle SOC 2 compliance?

5. How does Kafka handle data encryption in transit?

6. How does Kafka handle data encryption at rest?

7. How does Kafka handle audit logging?

8. How does Kafka handle role-based access control (RBAC)?

9. How does Kafka handle multi-tenancy security?

10. How does Kafka handle secure inter-cluster communication?

21. Kafka Advanced Use Case Questions

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1. How would you design a Kafka-based system for real-time cryptocurrency

trading?

2. How would you design a Kafka-based system for real-time blockchain

analytics?

3. How would you design a Kafka-based system for real-time AI/ML model
training?

4. How would you design a Kafka-based system for real-time voice

recognition?

5. How would you design a Kafka-based system for real-time video analytics?

6. How would you design a Kafka-based system for real-time augmented reality
(AR) data processing?

7. How would you design a Kafka-based system for real-time virtual reality
(VR) data processing?

8. How would you design a Kafka-based system for real-time drone data
processing?

9. How would you design a Kafka-based system for real-time robotics data
processing?

10. How would you design a Kafka-based system for real-time space exploration
data processing?

22. Kafka Troubleshooting and Debugging Questions

1. How do you debug a Kafka producer that is not sending messages?

2. How do you debug a Kafka consumer that is not receiving messages?

3. How do you debug a Kafka broker that is not starting?

4. How do you debug a Kafka topic that is not being created?

5. How do you debug a Kafka partition that is not being assigned?

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6. How do you debug a Kafka consumer group that is not rebalancing?

7. How do you debug a Kafka cluster that is experiencing high latency?

8. How do you debug a Kafka cluster that is experiencing high disk usage?

9. How do you debug a Kafka cluster that is experiencing high CPU usage?

10. How do you debug a Kafka cluster that is experiencing high network usage?

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