Software Engineer Interviews

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.

419,816 software engineer interview questions shared by candidates

They asked two questions. 1. O(n*log n) time to find the k-th largest element of a n*n matrix, given every row or column of the matrix is pre-sorted. 2. O(log n) tome to find the k-th largest element of two pre-sorted array. Both questions were expected to be well disscussed, then to write pseudocode and test cases. I found it was very stressful and the time was not enough. I provide a O(n^2) solution for the first one, and solved the second one. But I they didn't move me forward.
avatar

Software Engineer

Interviewed at Google

4.4
Apr 15, 2014

They asked two questions. 1. O(n*log n) time to find the k-th largest element of a n*n matrix, given every row or column of the matrix is pre-sorted. 2. O(log n) tome to find the k-th largest element of two pre-sorted array. Both questions were expected to be well disscussed, then to write pseudocode and test cases. I found it was very stressful and the time was not enough. I provide a O(n^2) solution for the first one, and solved the second one. But I they didn't move me forward.

Given an nxn matrix representing a crossword board. Implement a function that verifies that all of the squares that can contain letters (the white squares on the crossword board) are connected to each other throughout the whole board.
avatar

Software Engineer

Interviewed at Google

4.4
May 15, 2015

Given an nxn matrix representing a crossword board. Implement a function that verifies that all of the squares that can contain letters (the white squares on the crossword board) are connected to each other throughout the whole board.

Coding challenge was 3 questions. First 2 were super easy, not much to say. The 3rd question was, given 3 integers that represent the amount of As Bs and Cs you can use to construct a string, return the length of the longest possible string such that this string does not have any sequence of 3 numbers being all the same. For example, if I had the input 3,0,0, meaning 3 As, 0 Bs, 0 Cs, I would return 2 (for AA. AAA would not work, because there is a substring in this string of length 3 such that they are all the same).
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Software Engineer(Internship)

Interviewed at Wayfair

3.1
Dec 25, 2019

Coding challenge was 3 questions. First 2 were super easy, not much to say. The 3rd question was, given 3 integers that represent the amount of As Bs and Cs you can use to construct a string, return the length of the longest possible string such that this string does not have any sequence of 3 numbers being all the same. For example, if I had the input 3,0,0, meaning 3 As, 0 Bs, 0 Cs, I would return 2 (for AA. AAA would not work, because there is a substring in this string of length 3 such that they are all the same).

Four Questions Asked: 1. To find a longest palindrome in a string. 2. What is a HashSet ? Difference between HashSet and TreeSet. 3. Given a list List<x> and a function f: x -> y, convert the list to map i.e. Map<x, y> 4. What happens in the background (whole procedure) when you type a URL till the page is displayed ?
avatar

Software Engineer

Interviewed at Google

4.4
Feb 5, 2015

Four Questions Asked: 1. To find a longest palindrome in a string. 2. What is a HashSet ? Difference between HashSet and TreeSet. 3. Given a list List<x> and a function f: x -> y, convert the list to map i.e. Map<x, y> 4. What happens in the background (whole procedure) when you type a URL till the page is displayed ?

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