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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.

418,794 software engineer interview questions shared by candidates

Puzzle: There are 25 horses and 5 lanes for conducting a race among them. In a minimum of how many races, would be able to find out the 3 fastest horses among them? Assumption: Speed of horses are consistent enough across races.
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Software Development Engineer

Interviewed at Scantron

2.8★
Feb 2, 2012

Puzzle: There are 25 horses and 5 lanes for conducting a race among them. In a minimum of how many races, would be able to find out the 3 fastest horses among them? Assumption: Speed of horses are consistent enough across races.

Question Description: Write a function that, given a list of integers (both positive and negative) returns the sum of the contiguous subsequence with maximum sum. Thus, given the sequence (1, 2, -4, 1, 3, -2, 3, -1) it should return 5.
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Software Engineer Intern

Interviewed at LinkedIn

3.8★
Dec 4, 2014

Question Description: Write a function that, given a list of integers (both positive and negative) returns the sum of the contiguous subsequence with maximum sum. Thus, given the sequence (1, 2, -4, 1, 3, -2, 3, -1) it should return 5.

Write a program that given 4 coin denominations and a dollar amount finds the best way to express that amount using the coins given. I.e. you have coins with denominations of 1c, 7c, 13c,19c and you have to express $2.12 with the least number of coins. There is always a 1c coin but the other 3 are arbitrary.
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Software Engineer

Interviewed at Tripadvisor

3.5★
Apr 27, 2012

Write a program that given 4 coin denominations and a dollar amount finds the best way to express that amount using the coins given. I.e. you have coins with denominations of 1c, 7c, 13c,19c and you have to express $2.12 with the least number of coins. There is always a 1c coin but the other 3 are arbitrary.

Behavioral Why outreach The impact you hope to have from your next role?What is most important factor in your career/job What do you think about RSpec? How do you compare it with other frameworks What was the hardest/Challenging technical problem you faced and how did you resolve it Coding This problem concerns finding a time when we can do daily recurring maintenance on a server. You are to write a function that is given the following information: List of times when the server is busy every day Duration, in minutes, of the desired maintenance window The function should return the start time of a daily maintenance window when the server is not busy. In pseudo-code, the function signature would look something like this: maintWindowStart(busyTimes, durationMins) -> startTime The "busy times" should be time ranges like the following, and can be represented in whatever data structure you feel is appropriate. 0:05 to 0:30 = [5, 30] 2:00 to 4:01 = [120, 241] 13:10 to 16:55 = [790, 1015] [[5, 30], [120, 541], [790, 1015]] // requested duration -> expected start time // 10 -> 30 // 120 -> 541 // 4 -> 0 // 300 -> 1015
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Senior Backend Software Engineer

Interviewed at Outreach

3.8★
Jan 12, 2018

Behavioral Why outreach The impact you hope to have from your next role?What is most important factor in your career/job What do you think about RSpec? How do you compare it with other frameworks What was the hardest/Challenging technical problem you faced and how did you resolve it Coding This problem concerns finding a time when we can do daily recurring maintenance on a server. You are to write a function that is given the following information: List of times when the server is busy every day Duration, in minutes, of the desired maintenance window The function should return the start time of a daily maintenance window when the server is not busy. In pseudo-code, the function signature would look something like this: maintWindowStart(busyTimes, durationMins) -> startTime The "busy times" should be time ranges like the following, and can be represented in whatever data structure you feel is appropriate. 0:05 to 0:30 = [5, 30] 2:00 to 4:01 = [120, 241] 13:10 to 16:55 = [790, 1015] [[5, 30], [120, 541], [790, 1015]] // requested duration -> expected start time // 10 -> 30 // 120 -> 541 // 4 -> 0 // 300 -> 1015

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