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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.

418,713 software engineer interview questions shared by candidates

The question was the following. I'm rephrasing the question to make it clear for everyone to understand: - You are going on a one-way flight trip that includes billions of layovers. - You have 1 ticket for each part of your trip (i.e: if your trip is from city A to city C with a layover in city B, then you will have 1 flight ticket from city A to city B, and 1 flight ticket from city B to city C. - Each layover is unique. You are not stopping twice in the same city. - You forgot the original departure city. - You forgot the final destination city. - All the tickets you have are randomly sorted. Question are: - Design an algorithm to reconstruct your trip with minimum complexity. - How would you improve your algorithm. Example: - randomly sorted: New York->London San Francisco-> Hong Kong Paris->New York London->San Francisco - sorted: Paris->New York New York->London London->San Francisco San Francisco-> Hong Kong
avatar

Software Engineer

Interviewed at Google

4.4★
Aug 9, 2009

The question was the following. I'm rephrasing the question to make it clear for everyone to understand: - You are going on a one-way flight trip that includes billions of layovers. - You have 1 ticket for each part of your trip (i.e: if your trip is from city A to city C with a layover in city B, then you will have 1 flight ticket from city A to city B, and 1 flight ticket from city B to city C. - Each layover is unique. You are not stopping twice in the same city. - You forgot the original departure city. - You forgot the final destination city. - All the tickets you have are randomly sorted. Question are: - Design an algorithm to reconstruct your trip with minimum complexity. - How would you improve your algorithm. Example: - randomly sorted: New York->London San Francisco-> Hong Kong Paris->New York London->San Francisco - sorted: Paris->New York New York->London London->San Francisco San Francisco-> Hong Kong

Given a sequence of numbers (34128) and an input map such as a dial pad on a phone (2->[a,b,c], 3->[d,e,f], 4->[g,h,i]) write an algorithm to return all possible words from the sequence. E.g. Input: 232 Output: [ada, adb, adc, aea, aeb, aec, afa, afb, afc, bda, bdb, bdc, bea, beb, bec, bfa, bfb, bfc, cda, cdb, cdc, cea, ceb, cec, cfa, cfb, cfc]
avatar

Software Engineer

Interviewed at Meta

3.6★
May 5, 2015

Given a sequence of numbers (34128) and an input map such as a dial pad on a phone (2->[a,b,c], 3->[d,e,f], 4->[g,h,i]) write an algorithm to return all possible words from the sequence. E.g. Input: 232 Output: [ada, adb, adc, aea, aeb, aec, afa, afb, afc, bda, bdb, bdc, bea, beb, bec, bfa, bfb, bfc, cda, cdb, cdc, cea, ceb, cec, cfa, cfb, cfc]

+-----------+ | 1 | 2 | 3 | +-----------+ | 4 | 5 | 6 | +-----------+ | 7 | 8 | 9 | +-----------+ | * | 0 | # | +-----------+ +---+ | U | +---+ +---+ +---+ +---+ | L | | S | | R | +---+ +---+ +---+ +---+ | D | +—+ Input String: "180*", output is the number of minimum operations needed to dial the input */ 2)How do you test login page?
avatar

Software Development Engineer In Test

Interviewed at Amazon

3.5★
Oct 11, 2017

+-----------+ | 1 | 2 | 3 | +-----------+ | 4 | 5 | 6 | +-----------+ | 7 | 8 | 9 | +-----------+ | * | 0 | # | +-----------+ +---+ | U | +---+ +---+ +---+ +---+ | L | | S | | R | +---+ +---+ +---+ +---+ | D | +—+ Input String: "180*", output is the number of minimum operations needed to dial the input */ 2)How do you test login page?

First, a mathematic question, asking about a card game with how many possible way for the combination based on the rules it given. Second, let you to print out all the combination of 3 digit numbers with no duplicate, ex. 012, 013, ....123, 124, 125...
avatar

Software Engineer

Interviewed at Google

4.4★
Apr 15, 2015

First, a mathematic question, asking about a card game with how many possible way for the combination based on the rules it given. Second, let you to print out all the combination of 3 digit numbers with no duplicate, ex. 012, 013, ....123, 124, 125...

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