Skip to contentSkip to footer

Software Engineer Interviews

Salaries
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.

419,836 software engineer interview questions shared by candidates

Round 1: Telephonic - 30 minutes The director is late by 10 minutes, Learning that I have no Java work experience he puts me hold for 10 minutes to kill time and in the last 10 minutes he asks me some questions. At visa people are not interested if you have not work experience in Java. Even if you have worked on any other object oriented programming language people consider you are not fit to join Visa. Damn it I don't understand why did you even short list my profile when its clear from my resume I have no experience with J2EE in specific. This is the second similar experience with Visa I had this experience. I interviewed with them for Internship as well. Questions: What is OOP? What is Polymorphism What is inheritance What is a table, view, materialized view Difference between truncate and delete, table and view
avatar

Senior Software Engineer

Interviewed at Visa Inc.

3.8★
Apr 6, 2016

Round 1: Telephonic - 30 minutes The director is late by 10 minutes, Learning that I have no Java work experience he puts me hold for 10 minutes to kill time and in the last 10 minutes he asks me some questions. At visa people are not interested if you have not work experience in Java. Even if you have worked on any other object oriented programming language people consider you are not fit to join Visa. Damn it I don't understand why did you even short list my profile when its clear from my resume I have no experience with J2EE in specific. This is the second similar experience with Visa I had this experience. I interviewed with them for Internship as well. Questions: What is OOP? What is Polymorphism What is inheritance What is a table, view, materialized view Difference between truncate and delete, table and view

Linked lists, BSTs, Arrays and the final round question: You have a set of cars and parking lots. You know the distances from each car to each parking lot and the parking lot capacities. How would you make sure each car gets to a parking lot with a vacancy so that all cars travel the least amount of total distance possible? A small data set example might be: distance_car1_to_lot1 = 1 distance_car1_to_lot2 = 10 distance_car2_to_lot1 = 2 distance_car2_to_lot2 = 100 lot1_capacity = 1 lot2_capacity = 1 You can see here that if you were to take car1 and put it into lot1 and car2 into lot2, the distance traveled of all cars would be 101. Rather than doing that, taking car1 to lot2 and car2 to lot1 would result in a total travel distance of 12. Which would be the correct answer in this small data set. How might you solve this, assuming there could a wide number of cars, parking lots and varying distances than listed above.
avatar

Software Engineer

Interviewed at Dialpad

3.7★
Oct 30, 2020

Linked lists, BSTs, Arrays and the final round question: You have a set of cars and parking lots. You know the distances from each car to each parking lot and the parking lot capacities. How would you make sure each car gets to a parking lot with a vacancy so that all cars travel the least amount of total distance possible? A small data set example might be: distance_car1_to_lot1 = 1 distance_car1_to_lot2 = 10 distance_car2_to_lot1 = 2 distance_car2_to_lot2 = 100 lot1_capacity = 1 lot2_capacity = 1 You can see here that if you were to take car1 and put it into lot1 and car2 into lot2, the distance traveled of all cars would be 101. Rather than doing that, taking car1 to lot2 and car2 to lot1 would result in a total travel distance of 12. Which would be the correct answer in this small data set. How might you solve this, assuming there could a wide number of cars, parking lots and varying distances than listed above.

You have been given two pieces of flammable rope. The speed at which each individual rope can burn is inconsistent, but if you light the end with a match, the short rope will take 30 minutes to burn and the long rope takes an hour. How can you used the ropes to determine when 45 minutes have passed?
avatar

Senior Software Engineer

Interviewed at GoDaddy

3.9★
Sep 8, 2011

You have been given two pieces of flammable rope. The speed at which each individual rope can burn is inconsistent, but if you light the end with a match, the short rope will take 30 minutes to burn and the long rope takes an hour. How can you used the ropes to determine when 45 minutes have passed?

Viewing 3241 - 3250 interview questions

Glassdoor has 419,836 interview questions and reports from Software engineer interviews. Prepare for your interview. Get hired. Love your job.