**Why it matters**: At scale, design choices directly impact reliability, latency, and cost. Wrong decisions compound across jobs and teams.
Memory tuning: (1) Increase `spark.executor.memory`. (2) `spark.memory.fraction`—raise if cache-heavy. (3) Reduce `spark.memory.storageFraction` if little caching. (4) Increase partitions to reduce memory per task. (5) Use `MEMORY_AND_DISK` for overflow. (6) Off-heap for very large....
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 LTIMindtree. The answer also includes follow-up discussion points that interviewers commonly explore.
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