Top 30 Snowflake Interview Questions and Answers (Freshers to Advanced) – 2025 Guide
💡 Introduction
Snowflake has quickly become one of the most trusted cloud data warehouse platforms in the world.
If you’re applying for a data engineer, analyst, or developer role, there’s a high chance you’ll be asked Snowflake interview questions.
This guide from Glimsy.in brings you 30 important Snowflake interview questions and answers — from basic to advanced — written in a simple and human way, perfect for both freshers and experienced professionals.
🧊 Basic Snowflake Interview Questions (For Freshers)
1. What is Snowflake?
Snowflake is a cloud-based data warehouse platform used to store, process, and analyze data efficiently.
It runs on major clouds like AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud and supports structured and semi-structured data formats.
Example:
You can store all your company’s sales data in Snowflake and generate real-time reports without worrying about infrastructure.
—
2. How is Snowflake different from traditional databases?
Unlike traditional databases that require hardware setup and manual scaling, Snowflake is serverless, scalable, and fully managed.
Key Points:
No infrastructure management
Automatic scaling
Separate compute and storage layers
Built-in data sharing
3. What are the main features of Snowflake?
✅ Separation of compute and storage
✅ Automatic scaling
✅ Real-time data sharing
✅ Time travel and fail-safe
✅ Support for JSON, Avro, Parquet
✅ High performance and security
4. What are the three layers of Snowflake architecture?
1. Database Storage Layer – Stores all your data.
2. Compute Layer – Handles query execution (Virtual Warehouses).
3. Cloud Services Layer – Manages metadata, security, and optimization.
5. What is a Virtual Warehouse?
A Virtual Warehouse is Snowflake’s compute engine.
It executes all queries and manages the performance for users.
Example:
If 10 users are running queries, Snowflake can assign different warehouses to avoid delays.
6. What are Database, Schema, and Table?
Database: Top-level container
Schema: Logical grouping inside the database
Table: Actual data storage
Example:
CREATE DATABASE sales_db;
CREATE SCHEMA region_data;
CREATE TABLE india_sales (id INT, city STRING, amount FLOAT);
7. What are Roles in Snowflake?
Snowflake uses Role-Based Access Control (RBAC). Each user is assigned roles that define what actions they can perform.
Common Roles:
ACCOUNTADMIN
SYSADMIN
PUBLIC
8. What is Time Travel in Snowflake?
Time Travel lets you access or restore data from a previous state for up to 90 days.
Example:
UNDROP TABLE sales_data;
9. What is the difference between Permanent, Transient, and Temporary Tables?
Type Description Retention
Permanent Default table type 90 days
Transient No fail-safe 1 day
Temporary Session-based Ends when session closes
10. What is Cloning in Snowflake?
Cloning allows you to make instant copies of databases, schemas, or tables without duplicating data.
Example:
CREATE TABLE sales_clone CLONE sales_data;
⚙️ Intermediate Snowflake Interview Questions
11. What is Micro-Partitioning?
Snowflake automatically splits data into micro-partitions (16MB each) for better performance.
You don’t manage them — Snowflake handles it internally.
12. What is Result Caching?
Snowflake caches query results.
If you run the same query again, Snowflake shows results instantly from cache instead of re-processing data.
13. What are Streams in Snowflake?
Streams record data changes (INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE) on a table.
They’re used in data pipelines to track new records.
14. What are Tasks in Snowflake?
Tasks automate SQL statements and can be scheduled at fixed intervals.
Example:
CREATE TASK daily_summary
WAREHOUSE = compute_wh
SCHEDULE = ‘1 DAY’
AS
INSERT INTO reports SELECT * FROM raw_data;
15. What is Snowpipe?
Snowpipe is used for continuous data loading.
It automatically loads files from cloud storage (like AWS S3) as soon as they arrive.
16. What are Stages in Snowflake?
Stages are locations to store files temporarily before loading.
Types:
Internal Stage (inside Snowflake)
External Stage (like S3, Azure Blob, or GCS)
17. What is Data Sharing?
Snowflake allows secure, live data sharing with other Snowflake accounts without copying data.
Example:
A marketing agency can share real-time customer data with clients safely.
18. What is Zero-Copy Cloning?
Zero-Copy Cloning creates a new copy of data instantly without consuming extra storage until changes are made.
19. What is Query History?
Snowflake maintains a query history view to analyze executed queries, their duration, and performance.
SELECT * FROM SNOWFLAKE.ACCOUNT_USAGE.QUERY_HISTORY;
20. What’s the difference between Compute and Storage?
Storage: Where data is saved
Compute: Where data is processed
They are independent, allowing separate scaling for better cost control.
🚀 Advanced Snowflake Interview Questions (For Experienced)
21. Explain Snowflake Architecture.
Snowflake uses a multi-cluster shared data architecture:
Storage Layer – Compressed columnar storage
Compute Layer – Independent virtual warehouses
Cloud Services Layer – Manages metadata, security, optimization
This design ensures scalability, high concurrency, and strong performance.
22. What is a Materialized View?
A Materialized View stores query results physically to boost performance for repeated queries.
CREATE MATERIALIZED VIEW top_sales AS
SELECT region, SUM(amount) FROM sales GROUP BY region;
23. What is a Fail-Safe?
Fail-Safe is a 7-day recovery window after Time Travel ends.
Snowflake can help restore data lost due to critical failures.
24. How do you optimize queries in Snowflake?
Use clustering keys
Avoid SELECT *
Apply filters early
Monitor via Query Profile
Use result caching
25. How is data secured in Snowflake?
Snowflake provides:
End-to-end encryption
Multi-factor authentication (MFA)
Role-based access control
Dynamic Data Masking for sensitive info
26. What is a Clustering Key?
Clustering organizes data to improve query speed.
ALTER TABLE sales CLUSTER BY (region);
27. What is a Multi-Cluster Warehouse?
It allows multiple clusters to run in parallel, automatically scaling to manage high concurrency workloads.
28. How does Snowflake handle Semi-Structured Data?
Snowflake supports JSON, Avro, and Parquet via the VARIANT data type.
SELECT data:customer.name FROM json_table;
29. What is Metadata in Snowflake?
Metadata contains information about all Snowflake objects (tables, schemas, queries).
It’s managed in the Cloud Services Layer and helps optimize performance.
30. What is Continuous Data Protection (CDP)?
Snowflake offers automatic data protection through:
Time Travel
Fail-safe
Backups and secure replication
This ensures your data is always recoverable.
🎯 Final Tips for Your Snowflake Interview
Here are a few last-minute tips before you go for your Snowflake interview:
Learn Snowflake SQL syntax and basic DDL/DML operations.
Practice real-world use cases with Streams, Tasks, and Snowpipe.
Understand architecture and scaling concepts clearly.
Revise security and role-based access.
✍️ Conclusion
Snowflake is one of the most powerful tools in the data world, and companies are always looking for skilled professionals.
With these 30 easy Snowflake interview questions and answers, you’ll feel confident in both technical and conceptual discussions.
Keep learning and practicing — your data career is just getting started!