Integration / Apache Kafka Interview questions
What is the difference between Kafka Connect source and sink connectors?
Both run inside a Kafka Connect worker and are configured declaratively rather than coded by hand, but they move data in opposite directions.
| Source Connector | Sink Connector |
| Pulls data FROM an external system INTO a Kafka topic. | Pulls data FROM a Kafka topic and pushes it INTO an external system. |
| Example: JdbcSourceConnector reading database table changes into a topic. | Example: S3SinkConnector writing topic records out as files in object storage. |
| Tracks its own 'source offset' (e.g. a database row ID or file position) to know where to resume. | Tracks Kafka consumer offsets, like any consumer group, to know what's been delivered. |
| Effectively acts as a specialized producer. | Effectively acts as a specialized consumer. |
A single Connect deployment commonly runs both kinds together to build an end-to-end pipeline — for example, a JDBC source connector streaming database changes into a topic, with an Elasticsearch sink connector on the other end indexing those same records for search, with no custom application code written for either half of that pipeline.
Which connector type pulls data out of Kafka into an external system?
What does a source connector track to know where to resume reading from the external system?
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