Top 4 Master data Interview Questions

Browse 4 real-world technical and behavioral interview questions about Master data. Review scenarios, edge cases, and architectural best practices.

Why does a bank end up knowing the same person as six different customers, and what does it take to give them one identity?

A golden customer record in banking is a derived identity view across product systems. Build it with scored entity resolution, source cross-references, attribute survivorship and reversible merge decisions.

harddesign

How do you match patient records across systems when there is no shared identifier?

Patient matching across healthcare systems uses deterministic rules, probabilistic linkage and human review to connect records without a shared identifier. Blocking, thresholding and reversible links matter because false merges are clinically riskier than false splits. It also connects record linkage to the point an interviewer is testing.

harddesign

Two shipments of the same product were declared under different commodity codes. Why does that matter, and whose problem is it?

The code sets the duty rate, the controls that apply and whether the goods can move at all, so two codes mean two different amounts of tax paid on identical goods. It is the importer's legal responsibility rather than the freight forwarder's, and inconsistency is what an audit looks for.

hardscenario

Two patient records were merged last month and it turns out they are different people. How do you unpick that?

Containment first, because clinical decisions are being made on a chart holding two people's data. Then separate the merge itself from everything it caused - the notifications sent onwards, the orders, results and doses now attributed to the wrong person - and treat unmerge as a clinical exercise with human adjudication.

hardscenario