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Software Engineer Interview Questions

Software engineers write programs to design and develop computer software. Interviews are highly technical, so come ready to work through coding problems and math brainteasers. The specific questions you are asked will depend on what type of programming position you are looking for. Try researching a specific software discipline such as web development, application development, or system development.

Top Software Engineer Interview Questions & How to Answer

Question 1

Question #1: How would you describe your programming task process?

How to answer
How to answer: When answering a question about your process or life cycle for software development and engineering, it's helpful to consider every step, beginning with obtaining the requirements for the end product. Include as much detail as possible to help the interviewer learn more about any work you've done as a software engineer and how you handle a task to show your ability to tackle a project from start to finish.
Question 2

Question #2: Which programming languages do you know and prefer?

How to answer
How to answer: An interviewer will want to know what programming languages you're familiar with, as well as which languages you prefer. This question doesn't necessarily have a right or wrong answer, but it does provide insights into your capabilities and coding expertise. If the job listing for which you are interviewing includes specific language knowledge preferences, make sure to include them when outlining the software languages you know.
Question 3

Question 3: What is an example of a successful project that you completed?

How to answer
How to answer: When describing your success with a past project, it's helpful to identify aspects of the project that went well and detail the different task list elements. You can describe the team with whom you worked on the project, how you managed your time, and how you specifically contributed to the project.

419,495 software engineer interview questions shared by candidates

The recruiter did an initial technical screening on the phone. The questions were multi choice type. He read the questions and then read the choices. There were about 10 questions. Pretty basic.A day later I was scheduled for the first round of phone interview which was an hour long technical assessment. The questions were simple. At the end of this interview I was asked to code a solution for a simple problem. There was a screen share so that the interviewer could look at my screen. A day later I got a call saying they'd want to schedule an on-site. I wasnot given the details as to how many rounds of interview to expect. I wasnot not even given a schedule that listed how long the individual interviews would go for. Was just told the interview would take 2-3 hours. A day before the interview I received an e-mail saying the interview time was pre-poned by like 2 hours. It was very unprofessional to inform me of pre-poning a day before. I had to take the day off at work. I had 2 rounds of interview on-site. For both the rounds there were 2 interviewers. The first round was just a resume walk through and a few behavioural questions. the second interview consisted of 2 parts 1. cognitive interview. 2. root cause analysis type. For the cognitive part, the interviewers would give you a question( like how many ice-creams are sold in US each year) and would want to see your approach for it. for the second part, they'd give you a problem and expect you to come up with the root cause for it.
avatar

Software Engineer-java

Interviewed at American Express

4.1★
Jan 6, 2014

The recruiter did an initial technical screening on the phone. The questions were multi choice type. He read the questions and then read the choices. There were about 10 questions. Pretty basic.A day later I was scheduled for the first round of phone interview which was an hour long technical assessment. The questions were simple. At the end of this interview I was asked to code a solution for a simple problem. There was a screen share so that the interviewer could look at my screen. A day later I got a call saying they'd want to schedule an on-site. I wasnot given the details as to how many rounds of interview to expect. I wasnot not even given a schedule that listed how long the individual interviews would go for. Was just told the interview would take 2-3 hours. A day before the interview I received an e-mail saying the interview time was pre-poned by like 2 hours. It was very unprofessional to inform me of pre-poning a day before. I had to take the day off at work. I had 2 rounds of interview on-site. For both the rounds there were 2 interviewers. The first round was just a resume walk through and a few behavioural questions. the second interview consisted of 2 parts 1. cognitive interview. 2. root cause analysis type. For the cognitive part, the interviewers would give you a question( like how many ice-creams are sold in US each year) and would want to see your approach for it. for the second part, they'd give you a problem and expect you to come up with the root cause for it.

Easier questions 1) Two variations of a program exist, A and B. When run on machine 1, A runs twice as fast as B. When run on machine 2, A runs 10x as fast as B. How would you investigate this? -same datasets -same versions of OS and libraries -same hardware 2) Had to code a method that calculated the factorial, first simply, then a second one recursively.
avatar

Software Engineer

Interviewed at Google

4.4★
Mar 8, 2010

Easier questions 1) Two variations of a program exist, A and B. When run on machine 1, A runs twice as fast as B. When run on machine 2, A runs 10x as fast as B. How would you investigate this? -same datasets -same versions of OS and libraries -same hardware 2) Had to code a method that calculated the factorial, first simply, then a second one recursively.

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