What Happens At A Behavioral Interview For Software Engineer
When you go to a behavioral interview for a software engineer, you will likely be asked to do some exercises. One of these exercises is to come up with a design for a user interface.
In order to be a successful software engineer, you must be able to take initiative. You must be able to come up with new ideas and solutions. You must be able to work independently.
During the behavioral interview, it is important to be respectful to your interviewer and the other interviewees. You should also be able to take initiative and be creative.
Tell Me About A Time You Had A Disagreement With A Coworker And How You Resolved It
Here is where the interviewer wants to see how you handle challenging situations with your coworkers, so you want to focus on an area where you resolved an issue with them in the past.
Even small disagreements that you have had with coworkers can be used in questions like this, but if you truly cant think of anything, you could try to shape your answer into a more general answer about how you deal, or would deal, with disagreements between your coworkers.
Example: Ill tell you a situation in which I had a disagreement with my engineering lead. The team I was on never adopted a good branching strategy. We were constantly dealing with issues where we would have half-baked features mixed with other features that were ready to go, and we would have to cherry-pick the certain commits we wanted to take into the next build. This took up a lot of time.
My manager put together a new branching strategy and presented it to us as the new path we would follow. The others on the call seemed fine with it, however, I did see a flaw in the strategy, and I spoke up about it. My manager saw the flaw as well but thought that it was still better than what we are currently doing and we should present this to the rest of the team to use for now since we have a lot of other important tasks to accomplish.
How Do You Respond When You Disagree With Someone At Work
Sometimes, you will disagree with another employee on the approach that should be taken to solve a problem or to complete a project. This question is designed to give the interviewer an insight into how you handle these situations.
To answer this question, you should discuss a scenario where you disagreed with someone, and then explore how you went about resolving that disagreement. This question is an ideal time to give clear examples of strong communication skills.
When I was working on a big data project last year, my manager decided that the hypothesis for the project should be changed mid-way through. I suggested that we should finish the analysis under our current hypothesis, to make sure we dont miss anything.
In this situation, I sat down with my manager to outline the benefits of completing the analysis with our current hypothesis, and carefully mentioned that changing the hypothesis during the middle of a project could result in us missing key insights.
After our discussion, we decided that the decision was too big for the manager to make alone, so we had all team members democratically vote on our next steps. In the end, my boss realized after talking with other team members that his approach was not prudent, and so we went with my recommendation.
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How Would You Guide A Junior Developer Or Onboard A New Team Member
Mentorship is a crucial part of any senior software engineering position. Candidates should show that they could assist a junior developer even through informal mentorship, and give you specific examples of how theyve achieved this in the past.
Perhaps they conducted a series of code reviews. Maybe they were part of the onboarding process. They might have contributed to informal coffee chats and given junior developers useful career advice.
Or maybe theyre used to establishing regular meetings. Look for candidates who can explain you their methods of deciding on:
- Crucial topics they need to discuss with the junior developer
- The frequency/cadence of the meetings
- Ways to contribute to progress development
Mentorship can help a senior developer grow within their role. Look out for candidates who mention specific skills that theyve gained while mentoring others, such as:
Give Me An Example Of How You Have Worked On A Team
Most jobs require some degree of collaborative work. In a job interview, an employer may ask you this question to get a better sense of how you work with others, especially if the role for which you are applying involves a lot of teamwork.
To respond, you should give a clear example of when you worked on a team and discuss how you interact with your fellow team members. This is a great opportunity to showcase your teamwork skills and leadership skills.
In my last job, I was a core contributor to our SEO team. My boss was leading a project to help us boost our domain authority, and I was assigned to optimize a number of our existing articles.
Every day, I participated in a stand-up with my colleagues to keep them abreast of my progress, and during this short meeting, we also offered each other our help and support if anyone was encountering any troubles.
To ensure we met our goals, I constantly checked in with my team members, and I also decided to pair up with another team member who was assigned to a similar project so that we could share best practices.
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Which Interview Type Is More Predictive Of Future Performance Devskiller
Behavioral interviews are more predictive of future performance than traditional interviews.
Behavioral interviews are more personal and engaging than traditional interviews.
Behavioral interviews provide feedback and opportunities to improve performance.
Behavioral interviews are less distracting than traditional interviews.
Behavioral interviews are more likely to result in job offers.
Non Technical Interview Questions And Answers For Software Developers
But wait theres more!
A subcategory of the behavioral interview involves non technical interview questions for engineers. These are questions that the HR department might use during a phone screen, even before the technical interview or the behavioral interview, and might include non coding technical interview questions.
Here are examples of scenario based interview questions for software developers:
- How do you approach setting professional goals?
- Describe your leadership style.
- What is your ideal work environment?
- What do you hope to accomplish in your senior role for our company?
- How will your experience help you contribute to our goals?
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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.
More Software Engineering Interview Prep
While studying commonly asked software engineering interview questions is crucial, you’ll need some more interview prep to boost your chances. Fortunately, you can find plenty of different resources and types of resources at Exponent to help you practice for your upcoming SWE interview:
ð¬ Get prepared with example software engineering interview questions
ð Read through our Software Engineering company interview guides
ð¯ââï¸ Practice your behavioral and system design skills with our mock interview practice tool.
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Tell Me What A Productive Day At Work Looks Like To You
Katie Wilde, VP of Engineering believes this question is a good way to kick off a behavioral interview. She uses this question to open the conversation and to encourage you to speak a little about yourself in a way that doesnt feel interrogational. This question is her way of asking, Tell me about yourself.
Tell Me About A Time You Had An Interpersonal Conflict At Work
You dont have to pretend youve never disliked or disagreed with a co-worker. Explain what you learned, rather than spending time on the details of a conflict. Did you notice some room for growth in your communication style? Did you pick up a strategy for handling tough situations or competing interests?
People want to know that youre going to take accountability, Stenzel said. Its about being honest about what went wrong, but then I think youve got the opportunity to say, Heres what I learned from that. And heres what I did the next time, or heres what I would do in that situation again.
Always share how you adjusted your behavior in response to the conflict. For example: Maybe you failed to set expectations for a project, and as a result, you and a client miscommunicated. Going forward, you adjusted the cadence of your communication and sent out status updates once every week.
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Behavioral Interview Questions Asked By Top Tech Companies
Get ready for behavioral interview questions with this guide on how to answer them written specifically for developers!
A behavioral interview is one that focuses on your past experience. Hiring managers use the behavioral interview, along with a coding test or technical interview, to assess whether your past performance will help you succeed in this new role.
Behavioral interviews are just as important to a recruiter as your coding test. Most recruiters take the behavioral interview as an opportunity to learn more about your soft skills and to evaluate whether youd be a good culture fit in the organization.
The more advanced you are in your career, the more weight your behavioral interview will carry. This is because, as a more senior leader, youll need to be able to manage others, meet deadlines, and collaborate with other teams.
To prepare for your next behavioral interview, weve compiled some of the top behavioral-based interview questions from companies like Automattic, Dropbox, Microsoft, and Buffer. Here are some sample behavioral interview questions and answers from leaders at remote tech companies.
Tell Me About A Time When You Had A Conflict With A Coworker
GitLabs Matt Nearents, Senior Product Designer, uses this question to learn more about a candidates ability to take feedback and work well with others. Managers have to be especially good at accepting input, resolving conflicts, and working with people.
It may be that youve never had a conflict with another coworker, but try to think of a time when you disagreed with client feedback or otherwise had to compromise your opinion with someone from the team.
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Behavioral Interview Questions Faq
What is a behavioral interview?
A behavioral interview focuses on a candidates past experiences to predict what type of employee they will be. Behavioral interview questions focus on what you have done, not on what you would do. During a behavioral interview, you will be asked a series of questions relating to past experiences that are relevant to the job you are applying for.
How many behavioral questions are asked in an interview?
How many behavioral questions are asked in an interview completely depends on the interviewer and the position you are applying for. Typically, you are asked about five or six behavioral interview questions and you should expect the interview to last one hour.
How long should behavioral interview answers be?
Behavioral interview answers should be a couple of minutes on average. You should spend a maximum of five minutes on any answer and a minimum of one minute. How long should behavioral interview answers be is completely dependent on the question. For example, two-part questions or open-ended questions may take longer to answer.
How can I ace a behavioral interview?
If you want to know how to ace a behavioral interview then read this guide. This guide will help you identify the top behavioral interview questions and practice your answers. You can study sample questions and common behavioral job interview questions to ensure you are well prepared.
What’s Next?
Top Behavioral Interview Questions
- Talk about a time you disagreed with a superiors decision or approach.
- Tell me about a project or accomplishment youre proud of.
- Do you have any work habits youd like to improve?
- Give an example of a time you werent sure how to solve an issue. How did you resolve it?
- Tell me about a time you had to manage competing priorities.
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Behavioural Interview Questions You Must Know
If youâre looking for the ultimate list of behavioural interview questions then youâve come to the right place!
A recent study shows that tech startups contributed to the creation of nearly 1.6 million jobs in Australia between 2003 and 2014. Clearly, the stats highlight the importance of tech startups and small businesses towards contributing to the net economic development of Australia.
Whether youâre looking to land a job with a big player or hoping to make a difference with a newer startup, youâre in demand.
The only thing standing between you and your dream job is the interview process. Tech startups usually split the interview process into different stages, which includes a phone interview as the first step, a behavioural interview as a second step, followed by more technical & group assessments . This article will focus entirely on the behavioural interviews, and what you need to do to ace them!
Weâll tackle 40 of the most common behavioural interview questions, but first letâs take a look at why companies ask them.
Can You Explain What Responsive Design Is
In the context of front-end design, this approach allows websites and pages to render on all devices and screen sizes. It means that the page will render automatically to any screen.
Your senior software engineers should be able to effortlessly give examples of the screens on which pages can be rendered, including smartphones or mobiles, tablets, desktops, or laptops.
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Behavioral Interview Questions Examples Showing Ability To Adapt
6. Describe a situation in which you met a major obstacle in order to complete a project. How did you deal with it? What steps did you take?
7. Tell me about a time you had to work on several projects at once. How did you handle that?
8. Describe a situation in which you have experienced a significant project change that you werent expecting. What was it? How did that impact you, and how did you adapt to this change? How did you remain productive throughout the project?
9. Describe a situation in which you had to adjust to changes over which you had no control. How did you do this?
Interview Questions For Software Developers
The Indeed Editorial Team comprises a diverse and talented team of writers, researchers and subject matter experts equipped with Indeed’s data and insights to deliver useful tips to help guide your career journey.
Software developers create digital programs, develop software applications and solve technical issues with their analytical skills. While hiring a software developer, recruiters may ask a variety of questions to assess their technical, soft and problem-solving skills. Preparing for some frequently asked questions in advance can increase your confidence and chances of success. In this article, we discuss 30 interview questions for software developers and share some samples answers to help you prepare for your next interview.
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Software Engineer Hiring Process:
The recruitment process of a software engineer basically comprises of three stages. Though every company has its own defined recruitment process for selecting employees, here we will be discussing the generalized form of a hiring process.
Stage 1- Basic questions about yourself along with past work experience involved in this stage.
Stage 2 Complete technical round, here the questions will be asked to assess the developers skills and abilities.
Stage 3 Here employees can ask questions to the interviewer about the company as well as the job role.
The interview process should be very straightforward and up to the point. We have listed a few important interview questions for software developers which you can prefer to ask.
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What Tools Do You Use To Keep Track Of Project Requirements
Hiring managers ask this to determine how you stay organized at work and how strong your time management skills are. When you answer, tell them the specific software or tools you use to stay on top of your projects.
Example:”I typically use an online spreadsheet to track not only project requirements but also their deadlines. This lets me view the requirements no matter my location and in an organized format. It also lets me share the document with other members of my team so everyone understands the project’s requirements and deadlines.”
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