PySpark — Top 5 Optimization Techniques

Ryan Arjun
2 min readMar 28, 2024

If you are working as a PySpark or Python developer in any Data Engineering stack on a very huge data process then Optimizing PySpark jobs is crucial for improving performance and efficiency.

Understanding when to apply transformations and actions correctly is crucial for optimizing Spark jobs, reducing unnecessary computations, and improving overall performance.

In Apache Spark, transformations and actions are two fundamental concepts that play crucial roles in defining and executing Spark jobs. Understanding the difference between transformations and actions is essential for effectively designing and optimizing Spark applications.

Here are the top 5 PySpark optimization techniques:

Partitioning:

👉Properly partitioning data can significantly improve performance by reducing shuffle operations.

👉Use repartition function or coalesce function to control the number of partitions based on the size of your data and available resources.

Caching and Persistence:

👉Cache intermediate DataFrame or RDD results in memory using cache function or persist function to avoid recomputation.

👉This is especially beneficial for iterative algorithms or when reusing the same data in multiple…

--

--

Ryan Arjun

BI Specialist || Azure || AWS || GCP — SQL|Python|PySpark — Talend, Alteryx, SSIS — PowerBI, Tableau, SSRS