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Embedded Software Engineer Interview Questions

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Embedded Software Engineer Interview Questions

Embedded software engineers develop and maintain embedded systems, which may require advanced software skills and problem solving. In an embedded software engineer interview, the interviewer may ask questions that test your coding skills and experience. Expect to also discuss how you work with others, as the role may function within a team.

Top Embedded Software Engineer Interview Questions & How To Answer

Question 1

Question #1: Define an embedded system.

How to answer
How to answer: Prove your competency by delivering a concise but thorough answer. Explain that an embedded system is a computer that lives within a bigger machine and operates in a unique way to perform a particular task. Consider offering some examples, like a car, a kitchen appliance, or an MP3 player.
Question 2

Question #2: What programming languages are you able to use?

How to answer
How to answer: Embedded software engineers are responsible for building complex functional systems, so it's beneficial to highlight your technical skills. The interviewer may want to hear you mention basic programming languages like C and C++. You might mention which languages you prefer or which you would like to gain more experience in, demonstrating passion and an ongoing willingness to learn.
Question 3

Question #3: Have you collaborated with engineers and designers?

How to answer
How to answer: You may work with others towards a common goal, so teamwork is vital. Consider sharing an anecdote about a time when you collaborated successfully to resolve an issue with a product. Focus on your ability to manage stress, clearly communicate complex issues, and listen to others.

6,906 embedded software engineer interview questions shared by candidates

Brain Teasers: questions are not hard if you are calm. Engineers are not familiar with your resume, so one of the engineer asked me what do you think I should question you (like what do you believe is your strength and where should he start this interview.)
avatar

Embedded Software Engineer

Interviewed at Qualcomm

3.8★
Jul 15, 2013

Brain Teasers: questions are not hard if you are calm. Engineers are not familiar with your resume, so one of the engineer asked me what do you think I should question you (like what do you believe is your strength and where should he start this interview.)

Phone Screen- Basic new grad level Embedded questions on C, memory, components of a microcontroller, bit manipulation, etc. and some general high-level questions on experience. No interactive coding. Onsite - HR - several (unnecessary) behavioral questions and discussion about company and benefits. HR didn't seem to care about my responses or my salary expectation (which he had asked for). And then four technical rounds(Engineers and one with hiring manager) plus an additional round at the end (was not in the schedule) with a director. Questions included - Lot of finding the bug or output of C code snippet questions (questions repeated by some interviewers). Some of these were good (and easy) but many of these questions required you to be familiar with some C peculiarities that you would never use in real life. Find an issue with how mutex is used in a C code snippet Write a given C function in Assembly (you can come up with your own instructions) A debugging question related to DMA and cache coherency How would you debug a memory leak? RTOS vs General-purpose OS. How to implement a mutex? Mutex vs Semaphore How would you assign task priorities to a producer and consumer task in your system? Add two numbers whose individual digits are represented in two distinct linked lists (function heading was in C++) Implement cache-alligned version of malloc Knowledge based questions of Interrupt vector table, interrupt priorities and ISR. In-depth questions on how SPI and I2C bus works (since on my resume) Some interviewers (the experienced ones) and their questions were good and emphasized on thought process and gave feedback to my responses but some were condescending. One interviewer was scrolling on his phone while asking me to write output of C functions he chose randomly and one after the other from a list of questions he had printed out in a bunch of papers.
avatar

Staff Embedded Software Engineer

Interviewed at Qualcomm

3.8★
Dec 11, 2019

Phone Screen- Basic new grad level Embedded questions on C, memory, components of a microcontroller, bit manipulation, etc. and some general high-level questions on experience. No interactive coding. Onsite - HR - several (unnecessary) behavioral questions and discussion about company and benefits. HR didn't seem to care about my responses or my salary expectation (which he had asked for). And then four technical rounds(Engineers and one with hiring manager) plus an additional round at the end (was not in the schedule) with a director. Questions included - Lot of finding the bug or output of C code snippet questions (questions repeated by some interviewers). Some of these were good (and easy) but many of these questions required you to be familiar with some C peculiarities that you would never use in real life. Find an issue with how mutex is used in a C code snippet Write a given C function in Assembly (you can come up with your own instructions) A debugging question related to DMA and cache coherency How would you debug a memory leak? RTOS vs General-purpose OS. How to implement a mutex? Mutex vs Semaphore How would you assign task priorities to a producer and consumer task in your system? Add two numbers whose individual digits are represented in two distinct linked lists (function heading was in C++) Implement cache-alligned version of malloc Knowledge based questions of Interrupt vector table, interrupt priorities and ISR. In-depth questions on how SPI and I2C bus works (since on my resume) Some interviewers (the experienced ones) and their questions were good and emphasized on thought process and gave feedback to my responses but some were condescending. One interviewer was scrolling on his phone while asking me to write output of C functions he chose randomly and one after the other from a list of questions he had printed out in a bunch of papers.

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