Backend Software Engineer Interview Questions

I Ask You To Create A Microservice App Can You Tell Me What This Would Mean

I ask this question to every Backend Engineer I interview

As a software engineering intern, you’ll likely encounter a variety of projects that vary in difficulty. When asking this question, interviewers want to determine your range of experience creating software applications and your knowledge of terms. Your answer should define a microservice app clearly and concisely.

Example:”To create a microservice app would mean to create an application that’s comprised of multiple services . These services aren’t connected to each other, but provide users the option of purchasing goods, scheduling appointments or placing delivery orders. Further, software engineers use microservice apps to ensure high performance and speed for app users.”

Software Engineering Internship Questions About Experience And Background

Software engineering professionals often have previous education, job experiences or industry certifications that qualify them for their roles. As an intern, you may be in the process of earning a degree or looking to expand your professional experiences after earning your degree. Therefore, hiring managers understand that you have limited professional work experience and typically focus on your education and other related topics in the questioning. Here are 10 examples:

What made you want to pursue a career in software engineering?
Can you tell me more about your college major? what types of courses have you taken that relate to software engineering?
Have you completed software engineering internships in the past?
What software engineering project are you most proud of? Can you tell me more about the creation process?
What examples can you provide from your previous experiences that demonstrate your ability to test and debug software?
Have you ever had to complete a group programming project? What was the experience, like and how did you work as a team?
What programming languages have you used to create a website, versus a mobile application?
Do you have experience referencing coding libraries to complete updates on software systems? If so, what is your process like?
Have you ever needed to organize CSS files? If so, what’s one or more methods you’ve used to do this?
What examples can you provide that demonstrate your ability to overcome programming challenges?

How Does A Hashmap Work

In Java, HashMap works on various hashing principles. It uses its static inner class to store the entries in the map. HashMap uses several buckets, with each bucket pointing to a Singly Linked List. In Java 8, however, HashMap replaces Linked List with a binary tree when the amount of bucket elements reaches a certain threshold. HashMap allows multiple null values and at most one null key.

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What Are Components In Reactjs

Components are the building blocks of a React application that represent a part of the user interface.

A component used in one area of the application can be reused in another area. This helps speed up the development process.
A component can contain several other components.
A component must define a render method that specifies how the component renders to the DOM in its minimal form.
A component can also receive props. These are properties passed by its parent to specify values.

What Are Form Control And Form Groups

Preparing for a Backend Software Engineer Interview at Nutanix

Form Control

It enables validation through the Form Control class.
It produces a new instance of this class for each input field.
These instances allow you to verify the field’s values to see if they’ve been touched, untouched, or dirty.

Form Group

A group of controls is represented by the FormGroup class.
Multiple control groups are possible in a form.
If all the controls are valid, the Form Group class returns True.
It also includes a list of all validation problems.

Algorithms And Data Structures Questions

Many technical questions in software engineering interviews quiz you on the fundamentals of algorithms and data structuresin order to evaluate your baseline knowledge of these vital topics. This seems like a formal process and something thats designed to penalize people who didnt take a formal computer science degree since most software engineers will use libraries to abstract away efficient implementations of these data structures and algorithms. However, its an important part of the process.

Its important for you to understand how these data structures and algorithms actually work, especially since it will come up in interview settings where youll have to whiteboard your solution. This means solving the problem with a paper and pen instead of a computer. Here are a few sample questions to get you to practice.

Q1. What is a stack? What are the two basic operations of a stack?

A stack is a linear data structure with three basic operations: push , pop . Some implementations of stack also allow peek, a function enabling you to see an element in a stack without modifying it. Stacks use a last-in, first-out structure so the last element added to the stack is the first element that can be removed. Queues are a similar data structure, which work with a first-in, first-out structure. Stacks are usually implemented with an array or a linked list. You might be asked to implement a stack in an interview and to implement different operations.

Pieces Of Advice For Asking Your Candidates These Software Engineer Interview Questions

Before we close this article, here are five pieces of advice that you should bear in mind when asking your candidates these software engineer interview questions.

Make sure that skills assessments are the initial approach you use to evaluate your candidates skills. The reason skills assessments are especially ideal for your software engineer hiring process is that technical skills tests make it easy to omit unskilled candidates from the hiring process. This immediately shortens your time-to-hire.

Think about the qualities you expect from your candidates. Your candidates should have some of the following qualities to perform well within your team and complete projects easily:

Exceptional technical abilities

Name A Few Git Commands And Function

Git Config – Configure the username and email address
Git init – Initialize a local Git repository
Git Add – Add one or more files to the staging area
Git Diff – View the changes made to the file
Git Commit – Commit changes to the head but not to the remote repository
Git reset – Undo local changes to the state of a Git repo
Git Status – Displays the state of the working directory and staging area
Git Merge – Merge a branch into an active branch
Git Push – Upload content from the local repository to a remote repository
Git Pull – Fetch and download content from a remote repository

What Is The Difference Between A Process And A Thread

Back End Developer Interview Questions with Answers

A process can be defined as the execution of a program, allowing users to perform the appropriate actions that are specified in a program. In other words, it means a program is in execution.

In contrast, a thread is an execution unit. It is part of a process and can be managed independently by a scheduler. A process may have multiple threads, which all execute at the same time.

How To Prepare For A Back End Developer Interview

When preparing to answer backend technical interview questions, start by noting that one of the most important things an interviewer looks out for is your work style. Are you an independent worker? Are you creative? Do you work best within a team? What is your work philosophy?

They may not ask these questions directly, but even in the technical questions they ask, they expect the answers to be embedded with easily discernible clues to what it looks like to hire/work with you.

Therefore, you need to pay attention to not just your answers, but how you deliver them. Interviewers are not only interested in how well you can describe caching, CI/CD, architecture, or software scaling. They want to see how you integrate these skills and knowledge into your work. As such, feel free and confident to draw from a personal example of your own work that can buttress your points and your delivery.

Can You Identify Limitations Within The Development Languages You Prefer

Why do interviewers ask this question?

This question may start a series of detailed questions meant to extract the technical skills and knowledge required for the role. While in the interview seat, the best course of action for you is to make sure that whatever you discussâanything from stack overflow to loose coupling to domain logicâis completely understandable to the person asking the question.

They want to make sure youâre well-trained, so show them you can speak the language of technology in a way that also demonstrates humility and a willingness to listen to others. If you donât know the answer, take a breath. Itâs better to say that you donât know but would like to have an opportunity to research and find out than to stammer with the first thing that comes to mind.

Example answer

âI love working in Python, which is powerful enough to support two of my favorite apps, Spotify and Instagram. Itâs open-sourced with asynchronous coding, and I appreciate my ability to integrate AI into the back end. However, there is plenty to critique. Itâs slow, and itâs not the best for mobile app development. It also uses a lot of RAM.â

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When You Ran Into An Obstacle With Your Project How Did You Handle The Issue

This is an important interview question to ask software engineer job applicants because it identifies how the candidate deals with obstacles, delays, and any problems that come up during the project. Most software development projects have hurdles of some kind, so a developer that has trouble identifying an obstacle with their previous project may raise a potential red flag.

If you decide to hire a software developer, you need to know how they are able to overcome problems to get the job done and within the deadline.

What Is Eager And Lazy Loading

Raytheon software engineer 1 interview questions

Eager loading – The default module-loading approach is eager loading. Eager loading feature modules are loaded before the program starts. You usually reserve this for applications that aren’t too large.

Lazy Loading – When there is a demand, lazy loading dynamically loads the feature modules. This speeds up the application. It’s utilized in larger applications where all the modules aren’t required right at the start.

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Can You Outline Some Useful Software Metrics

Since software metrics are critical for understanding the progress made on a project, ask candidates this question to learn whether they are aware of the most important ones. Proficient candidates might mention the length metrics related to requirement, the number of lines of code, or testing metrics related to the product.

What’s The Difference Between Threads And Processes

Interviewers ask foundational knowledge questions like this to check your specific competence. You can use questions like these as an opportunity to show you have a practical understanding of key back-end terms.

Example: “A process is an active program being executed, while a thread is a lightweight process that a scheduler can manage independently. Threads also make up processes. Since threads are quicker at context switching, an OS can stop one thread and run another much faster than stopping and starting a process.”

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Interview Questions To Ask A Software Engineer

Once you have a shortlist of software engineer candidates, below are the essential questions to ask them . Keep in mind that these questions are general software development questions that donât refer to any specific language. This is not a comprehensive list of questions, so be sure to prepare and ask questions that are relevant to the job that the engineer will be responsible for if hired.

Not only do these interview questions test the developerâs knowledge of engineering and building software, but these questions will also help you understand whether or not the developer can communicate effectively with you.

Note: The software engineer interview questions below are in no particular order.

Phone & Video Interview Tips

Google Coding Interview With A Normal Software Engineer

Phone interviews usually happen at the very beginning of the hiring process. Video interviews may take place for a second interview or any follow up interviews if companies are hiring for a remote team. Whether it’s a phone or video interview,it should be taken as seriously as an in person interview. All of the tips we’ve given above â conducting research on the company, tailoring your elevator pitch to the role, preparing relevant questions to ask, closing the conversation by asking about what to expect next â apply to phone and video interviews as well.

We won’t repeat the tips we’ve highlighted in the previous sections here. Instead, we’ll provide you with some practical tips on what to watch out for during a phone interview and video interview.

Phone interview

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Differentiate Between Centralized And Distributed Version Control System

In a Centralized Version Control System:

It stores all file versions on a central server.
No developer has a complete copy of the local system’s files.
If the project’s central server fails, you will lose all the project’s data.

In a Distributed Version Control System:

Every developer has a copy of all the code versions on their computer.
Improves the ability to work offline and eliminates the need for a single backup location.
Even if the server crashes, there is no danger.

Full Stack Java Developer Course

How Do You Explain Technical Challenges To Stakeholders Who Do Not Have Technical Knowledge Or Backgrounds

Businesses form software development teams to solve problems for real people. Being deeply immersed in development, its easy to forget this. While some engineers may wish to be provided software requirements and work uninterrupted on a project until its ready, its important to remember that stakeholders in non-technical departmentslike customer success and marketingmust plan around the development. Unforeseen obstacles often present themselves in one form or another, requiring a conversation on how to best solve the problem. Employers want to know that you are able to clearly communicate these obstacles to non-technical stakeholders, ensuring all parties are fully informed when decisions are made.

Example:”When confronted with an obstacle, I dont feel it is my job to unilaterally alter the project scope or tell stakeholders that something cant be done. The quality of software is often a matter of balancing scope, cost and time. That balance is a business decision as opposed to a technical one. Rather, I come up with some potential alternatives and present their impact on that balance. For example, if an impediment may significantly push delivery beyond what was projected, I might present an alternative that can meet the current timeline with much of the same scope but will likely diminish the quality and degrade the user experience.

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Have You Ever Made A Mistake When Programming Or Learning How To Code

Your candidates might select from a broad range of mistakes, including writing messy code and ignoring code quality, forgetting or deciding not to plan, or failing to practice. Whichever mistake they might have made, look for answers that indicate that they could learn to avoid these errors.

For instance, if your candidate wrote messy code as a beginner, which steps did they take to tidy up their coding quality? Did they learn about well-structured code, and how did they achieve this?

If they initially failed to plan before starting a project, did they actively seek to understand why planning is critical? And how have their current projects increased in quality thanks to the implementation of their new planning approach?

What’s The Most Challenging Problem You Have Faced And How Did You Solve It

Different to the previous question, the interviewer is interested in the most job-related challenge you faced in your career. By asking this question, the interviewers are trying to gauge what “challenging” means to you and how well you’re able to problem-solve and handle stressful situations. With that said, you may not want to be completely honest aboutthe most difficult challenge you’ve faced if you didn’t end up solving it.

Choose a specific example

Choose a problem you effectively resolved. Give the interviewer some context of the problem, the process and actions you took to resolve it, and the final results. Be careful if your “problem” is related to teamwork or communicationâmake sure your “problem” is not your boss or your coworker.

What to focus on

Why you think the problem was especially challenging
Why you were determined to solve the problem, regardless of how challenging it was
How you handled the mental and emotional stress during the process
Whether you asked for help and collaborated with others in the process of problem-solving
How you came up with the solutions to solve the problem at hand

What to avoid

Complaining about having to handle the problem
Showing how annoyed you were at the problem
Pointing fingers at others for the problem
Talking ill of your bosses or coworkers

What Is Virtual Dom

The Virtual DOM is the lightweight version of the Real DOM that React retains in memory.
Because nothing is drawn on the screen when processing Real DOM, it is substantially slower than handling virtual DOM.
When an object’s state changes, Virtual DOM updates only that object in the real DOM rather than all of them.