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Intern – Data Engineer (Hybrid: Onsite & Remote)

US Foods · Rosemont, IL · Full time

Posted Sep 1, 2026 · We last checked this listing on Oct 6, 2026

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Likely interview questions for this role

Written from this job description, not a generic list. Each one notes what the interviewer is really checking.

About your past

Walk me through a data pipeline you built or worked on, even for a class project.

What they are checking: Hands-on experience moving data from a source, transforming it and loading it somewhere useful.

Tell me about a time you had to learn a large unfamiliar codebase or dataset quickly.

What they are checking: How they ramp up in a new environment, which matters in a short internship at a large company.

What would you do

A daily data load fails overnight and a dashboard is empty in the morning. How would you start investigating?

What they are checking: A calm, logical troubleshooting approach that checks logs, sources and recent changes before guessing.

What would you do if you were stuck on a problem for most of a day?

What they are checking: Whether they balance working independently with asking their mentor for help at the right time.

How would you explain the value of your summer pipeline work to business leaders at the final presentation?

What they are checking: Ability to connect technical work to faster, more reliable decisions for the business.

About the work

What is the difference between a data analyst and a data engineer, as you see it?

What they are checking: Whether they understand that data engineers build the pipelines and storage that analysts depend on every day.

Explain what ETL means and give an example of a transformation you might need on order or product data.

What they are checking: Grasp of basic data engineering concepts applied to the kind of data a food distributor handles.

How would you write a SQL query to find the top ten products by sales in each region?

What they are checking: SQL skill with grouping and ranking, which is core to almost every data engineering task.

How would you check that the data your pipeline produces is correct?

What they are checking: Awareness of data quality checks like row counts, nulls and duplicates before anyone uses the output.

Have you used any cloud platforms or tools like Python, Spark, Airflow or Snowflake? Tell me how.

What they are checking: Honest picture of their tool experience so the team can scope a realistic summer project.

Practice this interview out loud.

Offer builds a real interview for this exact role at US Foods from your resume and this job description, asks the questions one at a time, and tells you what landed. The first one is free.

Practice this out loud

The full job description

As published by US Foods.

ARE YOU A CURRENT US FOODS EMPLOYEE? PLEASE APPLY DIRECTLY THROUGH OUR INTERNAL WORKDAY CAREER SITE Join Our Community of Food People! The US Foods Summer Internship Program provides a forum for students to apply classroom skills and academic training in a real-world business environment. In addition to being assigned business-impacting projects throughout the summer, students will be matched with a manager who will meet with them on a regular basis to provide direction on assignments as well as deliver performance feedback and a mentor who will be available to offer day-to-day guidance and support. Interns will also get exposure to US Foods executive leadership; have an opportunity to participate in learning and social events with other interns across business functions and have an opportunity to deliver an end of summer presentation to showcase their accomplishments with key business leaders. US Foods internships are full-time paid positions (40 hours per week from June - August) with the possibility of transitioning to a full-time position post-graduation dependent on availability and overall performance. This position has been segmented as Hybrid meaning the work is a combination of onsite and remote. Please note: We are unable to provide internships to students that require sponsorship for employment visa status (e.g., OPT, F-1, H-1B or any other visa status) now or in the future. Local candidates are encouraged to apply. For qualified students whose permanent home of record is located outside 50 miles from US Foods Corporate HQ, a sign-on bonus will be offered to partially offset housing costs for the summer. BASIC PURPOSE: With direct supervision and oversight, this intern position provides exposure and opportunity to investigate a career, gain business knowledge and practical application of data engineering within the food distribution industry. The Data Engineering intern is responsible for the development and implementation of data pipeline solutions to support the organization’s reporting, analytics, and other data needs. The developer will work closely with stakeholders across functional areas to deliver well-structured data in a reliable, efficient, and timely way. ESSENTIAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES: • Design and build large scale datasets for a wide range of consumer needs • Build, test and implement highly efficient data pipelines using a variety of technologies • Ensure consistent use of standard data structures • Analyze new data sources to understand quality, availability and content • Write technical design documentation • Create and executes unit tests • Supports QA team during testing BASIC REQUIREMENTS: • Currently pursuing a Bachelor’s Degree or Master’s Degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Systems/Science or related area of study • Must be enrolled in school during internship • Typically, students currently between their Junior and Senior years or between their 1st and 2nd years of graduate school will be considered for internships • Proven ability to model data for reporting and analytics needs • Proven ability to analyze and understand existing processes and code • Works and communicates effectively with all levels of management • Excellent written, verbal, and interpersonal skills • Must work well within team-oriented environments PREFERRED SKILLS: Proficiency in one or more of the following: • SQL • Oracle, MySQL, other relational databases • Python • AWS (ERM, Lambda, IAM, S3) • Linux • ETL experience • Exposure to Cloud Environments Familiarity with: • Use of CI/CD tools (Chef, Jenkins, Bamboo, Git/Bitbucket) • Supporting self-service reporting and analytics • Working with semi-structured data • LLM Concepts, along with Agentic Development Nice to have: • Snowflake • Airflow • Spark Data Frames or Pandas • API development (Mulesoft) • Machine Learning • Tableau • Kafka • Experience with Copilot or Claude or Cursor ADDITIONAL REQUIREMENTS : • Must have regular, reliable method of transportation to commute to US Foods’ location. RELATIONSHIPS INTERNAL/EXTERNAL MAY INCLUDE: • Internal: Core Team, Internal Business Clients • External: Vendors ***EOE – Race/Color/Religion/Sex/Sexual Orientation/Gender Identity/National Origin/ Age/Genetic Information /Protected Veteran/Disability Status***

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