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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.

419,775 software engineer interview questions shared by candidates

IP Addressing, Routing Protocol Number, OSPF Covergence, OSPF Multicast address, IP Header content and Flag, Program to determine validity of IP address, program to generate 500 IP addresses in a given Network address, Pattern matching using regular expression, version sorting and time complexity.
avatar

Software QA Engineer

Interviewed at Palo Alto Networks

3.8★
May 14, 2020

IP Addressing, Routing Protocol Number, OSPF Covergence, OSPF Multicast address, IP Header content and Flag, Program to determine validity of IP address, program to generate 500 IP addresses in a given Network address, Pattern matching using regular expression, version sorting and time complexity.

Exercise #1: A robot lands on Mars, which happens to be a cartesian grid; assuming that we hand the robot these instructions, such as LFFFRFFFRRFFF, where "L" is a "turn 90 degrees left", "R" is a "turn 90 degrees right", and "F" is "go forward one space, please write control code for the robot such that it ends up at the appropriate-and-correct destination, and include unit tests. Here is an example output with command "FF": [0, 2] Exercise #2: Part 1: Write a program that counts in sequential order when given a start and end value - without using any iterative programing loops, i.e. while, for, do, for-each, etc. You can assume that both the start and end values will always be positive and that the start value will always be less then the end value. There should only be one method with the following signature: void countUp(int start, int end) { // All code exercise code should go here } Here is example output with start=0 and end=5: 0 1 2 3 4 5
avatar

Software Engineer

Interviewed at KAYAK

4.4★
Mar 3, 2016

Exercise #1: A robot lands on Mars, which happens to be a cartesian grid; assuming that we hand the robot these instructions, such as LFFFRFFFRRFFF, where "L" is a "turn 90 degrees left", "R" is a "turn 90 degrees right", and "F" is "go forward one space, please write control code for the robot such that it ends up at the appropriate-and-correct destination, and include unit tests. Here is an example output with command "FF": [0, 2] Exercise #2: Part 1: Write a program that counts in sequential order when given a start and end value - without using any iterative programing loops, i.e. while, for, do, for-each, etc. You can assume that both the start and end values will always be positive and that the start value will always be less then the end value. There should only be one method with the following signature: void countUp(int start, int end) { // All code exercise code should go here } Here is example output with start=0 and end=5: 0 1 2 3 4 5

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