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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.

419,183 software engineer interview questions shared by candidates

Given two words as Strings, determine if they are isomorphic. Two words are called isomorphic if the letters in one word can be remapped to get the second word. Remapping a letter means replacing all occurrences of it with another letter while the ordering of the letters remains unchanged. No two letters may map to the same letter, but a letter may map to itself. * * Example: * given "foo", "app"; returns true * we can map 'f' -> 'a' and 'o' -> 'p' * * given "foo", "boa"; returns false * we can map 'f' -> 'b', 'o' -> 'o', we can't map 'o' -> 'a' * * given "bar", "foo"; returns false * we can't map both 'a' and 'r' to 'o' * * given "turtle", "tletur"; returns true * we can map 't' -> 't', 'u' -> 'l', 'r' -> 'e', 'l' -> 'u', 'e' ->'r' * * given "ab", "ca"; returns true * we can map 'a' -> 'c', 'b' -> 'a' */
avatar

Software Engineer

Interviewed at LinkedIn

3.8★
May 29, 2015

Given two words as Strings, determine if they are isomorphic. Two words are called isomorphic if the letters in one word can be remapped to get the second word. Remapping a letter means replacing all occurrences of it with another letter while the ordering of the letters remains unchanged. No two letters may map to the same letter, but a letter may map to itself. * * Example: * given "foo", "app"; returns true * we can map 'f' -> 'a' and 'o' -> 'p' * * given "foo", "boa"; returns false * we can map 'f' -> 'b', 'o' -> 'o', we can't map 'o' -> 'a' * * given "bar", "foo"; returns false * we can't map both 'a' and 'r' to 'o' * * given "turtle", "tletur"; returns true * we can map 't' -> 't', 'u' -> 'l', 'r' -> 'e', 'l' -> 'u', 'e' ->'r' * * given "ab", "ca"; returns true * we can map 'a' -> 'c', 'b' -> 'a' */

Phone Interview: The question was very open ended and related to Matrix (Basically, a form of Graph) Traversal, had to figure it out the exact requirements first and then come up with the sol. with the time constraints. P.S: I couldn't make it through the Phone Interview
avatar

Software Engineer- Early Career

Interviewed at Google

4.4★
Aug 18, 2021

Phone Interview: The question was very open ended and related to Matrix (Basically, a form of Graph) Traversal, had to figure it out the exact requirements first and then come up with the sol. with the time constraints. P.S: I couldn't make it through the Phone Interview

Surprisingly the questions were found on the famous cracking the code interview. Like : find the lowest common ancestors of two nodes in a binary tree. (O(n) time). If each node has a pointer to parent, solve the problem in o(logn) time and o(1) space.
avatar

Software Engineer

Interviewed at Google

4.4★
Sep 24, 2012

Surprisingly the questions were found on the famous cracking the code interview. Like : find the lowest common ancestors of two nodes in a binary tree. (O(n) time). If each node has a pointer to parent, solve the problem in o(logn) time and o(1) space.

Third person: Given a 2-d array, write code to print it out in a snake pattern. For example, if the array is this: 1, 2, 3 4, 5, 6 7, 8, 9 the routine prints this: 1,2,3,6,9,8,7,4,5 The array is an NxN array. The final question was just how to write a connection pool (i.e, a class that returns connections to the user, and if the user is done, returns them back to the pool)
avatar

Software Engineer

Interviewed at Google

4.4★
Feb 28, 2013

Third person: Given a 2-d array, write code to print it out in a snake pattern. For example, if the array is this: 1, 2, 3 4, 5, 6 7, 8, 9 the routine prints this: 1,2,3,6,9,8,7,4,5 The array is an NxN array. The final question was just how to write a connection pool (i.e, a class that returns connections to the user, and if the user is done, returns them back to the pool)

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Glassdoor has 419,183 interview questions and reports from Software engineer interviews. Prepare for your interview. Get hired. Love your job.