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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

How many race heats are needed to find the 3 fastest pinewood derby cars out of a field of 8, if only 4 cars can run at a time (assuming that every car will always run the way/speed and each lane is exactly equivalent)?
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Member of Technical Staff Software Engineer

Interviewed at VMware

4.4★
Jun 13, 2012

How many race heats are needed to find the 3 fastest pinewood derby cars out of a field of 8, if only 4 cars can run at a time (assuming that every car will always run the way/speed and each lane is exactly equivalent)?

Question was "Given a pattern and a string input - find if the string follows the same pattern and return 0 or 1. Examples: 1) Pattern : "abba", input: "redblueredblue" should return 1. 2) Pattern: "aaaa", input: "asdasdasdasd" should return 1. 3) Pattern: "aabb", input: "xyzabcxzyabc" should return 0. I saw someone else had a similar question, but it was much much easier as the other candidate was given spaces between words to help identify individual words to pattern match.
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Software Engineer

Interviewed at Dropbox

3.9★
Oct 2, 2014

Question was "Given a pattern and a string input - find if the string follows the same pattern and return 0 or 1. Examples: 1) Pattern : "abba", input: "redblueredblue" should return 1. 2) Pattern: "aaaa", input: "asdasdasdasd" should return 1. 3) Pattern: "aabb", input: "xyzabcxzyabc" should return 0. I saw someone else had a similar question, but it was much much easier as the other candidate was given spaces between words to help identify individual words to pattern match.

Consider a stack of N number of cards which are piled up and in facing down. Each card has a unique number from the range 1 to N. The card is stacked in such a way that it exhibits the following behavior: Take the first card and put it under the stack without revealing. Now the next card on the top will have the number 1 on it. Next take 2 cards one after the other and put is under the stack without revealing. Yes you guessed it right - the next card on the top will reveal a value of 2. This goes on. Eg. for such a series : 9,1,8,5,2,4,7,6,3,10 [for N=10] Write a program to generate such a series for a given N number of cards so that this behavior can be exercised.
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Software Development Engineer In Test (SDET)

Interviewed at Microsoft

4★
May 26, 2013

Consider a stack of N number of cards which are piled up and in facing down. Each card has a unique number from the range 1 to N. The card is stacked in such a way that it exhibits the following behavior: Take the first card and put it under the stack without revealing. Now the next card on the top will have the number 1 on it. Next take 2 cards one after the other and put is under the stack without revealing. Yes you guessed it right - the next card on the top will reveal a value of 2. This goes on. Eg. for such a series : 9,1,8,5,2,4,7,6,3,10 [for N=10] Write a program to generate such a series for a given N number of cards so that this behavior can be exercised.

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