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Explain the difference between TriggerDagRunOperator and ExternalTaskSensor in Airflow.

Spark/Big Datahard0.5 min readPremium
Frequency
Low
Asked at 1 company
Category
452
questions in Spark/Big Data
Difficulty Split
88E|81M|283H
in this category
Total Bank
1,863
across 7 categories
Asked at these companies
Citi
Key Concepts Tested
airflowoptimizationpartition
Expert AnswerPremium
108 wordsInterview-ready
**Why it matters**: At scale, design choices directly impact reliability, latency, and cost. Wrong decisions compound across jobs and teams. TriggerDagRunOperator: triggers another DAG as a task; creates a new run of that DAG. ExternalTaskSensor: waits for a task in another DAG to complete (polling). Use TriggerDagRun when you need to explicitly start a child DAG. Use ExternalTaskSensor when your DAG depends on completion of another DAG's task (e.g., wait for upstream pipeline)....
The complete answer continues with detailed implementation patterns, architectural trade-offs, and production-grade considerations. It covers performance optimization strategies, common pitfalls to avoid, and real-world examples from companies like Citi. The answer also includes follow-up discussion points that interviewers commonly explore.

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