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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

given the output from the first question write a algorithm to calculate how many possible inputs could have created that output. for example. "1211" could be interpreted as one two and one one || one hundred and twenty one ones.
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Software Engineer

Interviewed at Dropbox

3.9★
Nov 5, 2011

given the output from the first question write a algorithm to calculate how many possible inputs could have created that output. for example. "1211" could be interpreted as one two and one one || one hundred and twenty one ones.

You are given an integer N and an integer M. You are supposed to write a method void findBestCoinsThatMinimizeAverage(int N, int M) that prints the best collection of N coins that minimize the average number of minimum coins needed to generate values from 1 to M. So, if M = 100, and N = 4, then if we use the set {1, 5, 10, 25} to generate each value from 1 to 100, so that for each value the number of coins are minimized, i.e. 1 = 1 (1 coin), 2 = 1 + 1 (2 coins),..., 6 = 1 + 5 (2 coins), ..., 24 = 5 + 5 + 5 + 5 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 (8 coins), and we take the average of these coins, we would see that the average comes out to ~5.7. But if we instead use {1, 5, 18, 25}, the average would come out to be 3.7. We are to find that set of N coins, and print them, that produce the minimum average.
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Software Engineer

Interviewed at Meta

3.6★
May 9, 2012

You are given an integer N and an integer M. You are supposed to write a method void findBestCoinsThatMinimizeAverage(int N, int M) that prints the best collection of N coins that minimize the average number of minimum coins needed to generate values from 1 to M. So, if M = 100, and N = 4, then if we use the set {1, 5, 10, 25} to generate each value from 1 to 100, so that for each value the number of coins are minimized, i.e. 1 = 1 (1 coin), 2 = 1 + 1 (2 coins),..., 6 = 1 + 5 (2 coins), ..., 24 = 5 + 5 + 5 + 5 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 (8 coins), and we take the average of these coins, we would see that the average comes out to ~5.7. But if we instead use {1, 5, 18, 25}, the average would come out to be 3.7. We are to find that set of N coins, and print them, that produce the minimum average.

Basically the interview questions were data structure. The first one was just a simple data structure question, but the second one was mathematical question. I hadn't expected that kind of questions would be asked, so I got really confused. The questions was to prove that Y is a multiple of six, where there are consecutive three numbers X, Y, Z and X and Z are a prime number. I was totally stuck at the point and couldn't make it.
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Software Engineer

Interviewed at IXL Learning

3.4★
Jan 23, 2013

Basically the interview questions were data structure. The first one was just a simple data structure question, but the second one was mathematical question. I hadn't expected that kind of questions would be asked, so I got really confused. The questions was to prove that Y is a multiple of six, where there are consecutive three numbers X, Y, Z and X and Z are a prime number. I was totally stuck at the point and couldn't make it.

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