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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.

419,835 software engineer interview questions shared by candidates

Given a parking lot of fixed size, made up of a number of rows of spaces, and different vehicle sizes (e.g. car = 1 spot, bike = 1/2 spot, van = 2 spots, bus = 4 spots), develop an algorithm to determine the optimal place to park for any entering vehicle.
avatar

Software Development Engineer I

Interviewed at Amazon

3.5★
Jul 22, 2014

Given a parking lot of fixed size, made up of a number of rows of spaces, and different vehicle sizes (e.g. car = 1 spot, bike = 1/2 spot, van = 2 spots, bus = 4 spots), develop an algorithm to determine the optimal place to park for any entering vehicle.

Find the first character in a stream which is not repeated in the rest of the stream. Please note that you are being provided a stream as a source for these characters. The stream is guaranteed to eventually terminate (i.e. return false from a call to the hasNext() method), though it could be very long. You will access this stream through the provided interface methods. A call to hasNext() will return whether the stream contains any more characters to process. A call to getNext() will return the next character to be processed in the stream. It is not possible to restart the stream. Example: Input: aAbBABac Output: b In this example, the character ‘b’ is the first character in the stream which is not repeated in the stream.
avatar

Software Engineer

Interviewed at Amazon

3.5★
Apr 2, 2013

Find the first character in a stream which is not repeated in the rest of the stream. Please note that you are being provided a stream as a source for these characters. The stream is guaranteed to eventually terminate (i.e. return false from a call to the hasNext() method), though it could be very long. You will access this stream through the provided interface methods. A call to hasNext() will return whether the stream contains any more characters to process. A call to getNext() will return the next character to be processed in the stream. It is not possible to restart the stream. Example: Input: aAbBABac Output: b In this example, the character ‘b’ is the first character in the stream which is not repeated in the stream.

We have a table named 'Employee' with columns employee_id, employee_name, manager_id, manager_name The table contains the following rows: employee_id employee_name manager_id manager_name 1 Bob 2 Alice 2 Alice 3 Jim Write a SQL query to find Bob's manager's manager.
avatar

Software Engineer

Interviewed at Amazon

3.5★
Apr 22, 2013

We have a table named 'Employee' with columns employee_id, employee_name, manager_id, manager_name The table contains the following rows: employee_id employee_name manager_id manager_name 1 Bob 2 Alice 2 Alice 3 Jim Write a SQL query to find Bob's manager's manager.

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