Need to practice your Software Engineering skills for an upcoming job interview? Try solving these Software Engineering interview questions that test knowledge of OOP, data structures, design patterns, and other skills. We’ll provide feedback on your answers, and you can use a hint if you get stuck.
These Software Engineering interview questions are examples of real tasks used by employers to screen job candidates such as software engineers, web developers, mobile developers, and others that need to understand how software systems work together, how to optimize them, and how to design systems to avoid potential issues.
1. HTTP Request
Software Engineering
HTTP life cycle
Web development
Public
Software Engineering
When developing software systems, implementing theory and design, and performing maintenance, software engineers use an array of skills to produce high quality software.
HTTP life cycle
Each request for a web-page has its own lifecycle. Knowing the order in which functions are called as a page is created or destroyed is important for a front-end developer.
Web development
Web development is the process of developing websites or web applications, which can be hosted on a public network (Internet) or a private one (intranet).
Public
Public questions (free account) are common interview questions. They are great for practicing, or if you want to filter candidates using the classic problems.
Easy
Easy
A user types www.testdome.com into their browser's address bar for the first time, presses enter, the webpage loads, and renders successfully.
Select the statements that are correct.
(Select all acceptable answers.)
The browser, being unable to locate www.testdome.com in the local cache, contacts a DNS resolver to find the servers IP address.
The browser opens a TCP connection to the server.
The server sends the browser a GET request containing the request parameters.
The browser sends the server a request with the status code 200, indicating that it has successfully connected.
The servers response contains the web page, encoded in the format specified by the Content-Encoding attribute.
2. Web App Architecture
Software Engineering
Software architecture
Solution architecture
Public
Software Engineering
When developing software systems, implementing theory and design, and performing maintenance, software engineers use an array of skills to produce high quality software.
Software architecture
Software architecture refers to the fundamental structures of a software system and the discipline of creating such structures and systems. Software architecture is about making fundamental structural choices that are costly to change once implemented.
Solution architecture
Solution architecture is the practice of designing, describing, and managing the solution engineering in relation to specific business problems. Well defined solution architecture at the start can save a lot of time later and be the difference between a successful and a failed project.
Public
Public questions (free account) are common interview questions. They are great for practicing, or if you want to filter candidates using the classic problems.
Easy
Easy
During a discussion about architecture for a new web app the following sketchup was made:
The authors of the sketchup forgot to write the descriptions for three components marked with red numbers.
Select the best choice, regarding the context, for the description that should define each component.
Component 1.
Component 2.
Component 3.
3. Big O Notation
Software Engineering
Complexity
Public
Software Engineering
When developing software systems, implementing theory and design, and performing maintenance, software engineers use an array of skills to produce high quality software.
Complexity
A good programmer should be able to analyze and plan for the performance of an algorithm.
Public
Public questions (free account) are common interview questions. They are great for practicing, or if you want to filter candidates using the classic problems.
Easy
Easy
For the following pseudocode functions, choose the big O notation that accurately describes its worst-case complexity.
function GetFirstElement(elements : array) : integer
return elements[0]
end function
function DisplayPairsFromList(elements : array)
integer i = 0
integer size = elements->Count()
loop (while i < size)
integer j = 0
loop (while j < size)
Display(elements[i] + ", " + elements[j])
j = j + 1
end loop
i = i + 1
end loop
end function
function Recursive(number : integer) : integer
if (number <= 1)
return number
return Recursive(number - 4) + Recursive(number - 2)
end function
4. Serialize Cart
Software Engineering
Inheritance
OOP
New
Public
Software Engineering
When developing software systems, implementing theory and design, and performing maintenance, software engineers use an array of skills to produce high quality software.
Inheritance
In object-oriented programming, inheritance is the mechanism of basing a class upon another class, retaining similar implementation. Inheritance allows programmers to reuse code and is a must know topic for every programmer who works with OOP languages.
OOP
Object-oriented programming is a paradigm based on encapsulating logic and data into objects, which may then contain fields and procedures. Many of the most widely used programming languages are based on OOP, making it a very important concept in modern programming.
New
This is a new addition to our question library.
Public
Public questions (free account) are common interview questions. They are great for practicing, or if you want to filter candidates using the classic problems.
Easy
Easy
In a language that supports OOP paradigm, we have the following code that serializes the content of a shopping cart to JSON format:
class ShoppingCart
private content : Dictionary<int, string>
public function serialize() : string
return new JsonSerializer().serialize(content.clone())
end function
end class
class JsonSerializer
public function serialize(value : Dictionary<int, string>) : string
' Code that serializes dictionary to JSON format and returns it as string
end function
end class
A client wants to have the possibility of allowing loosely coupled plugins to be able to serialize the shopping cart content to their own formats (e.g., XML). Select lines of code that, together, would extend the code above to allow this.
(Select all acceptable answers.)
class JsonSerializer
Should be changed to:
class JsonSerializer inherits ISerializer Add interface definition:
interface ISerializer
public function serialize(Dictionary<int, string>) : string
end interface
Add a definition for enumeration that will be extended as new plugins will be added (e.g., to add XML serialization):
enumeration SerializerType
Json,
Xml
end enumeration Change ShoppingCart's serialize implementation to one like below (e.g., to add XML serialization):
public function serialize(serializer : SerializerType) : string
if(serializer == SerializerType.Json)
return new JsonSerializer().serialize(content.clone())
else if(serializer == SerializerType.Xml)
return new XmlSerializer().serialize(content.clone())
else
throw Error("Not implemented error!");
end if
end function Change ShoppingCart's serialize implementation to:
public function serialize(serializer : ISerializer) : string
return serializer.serialize(content.clone())
end function Change the ShoppingCart's access modifiers of data members from private to public. Like:
private content : Dictionary<int, string>
to:
public content : Dictionary<int, string>
so that plugins can directly manipulate and save the shopping cart.5. Stack vs Queue
Software Engineering
Data structures
Queue
Stack
Public
Software Engineering
When developing software systems, implementing theory and design, and performing maintenance, software engineers use an array of skills to produce high quality software.
Data structures
Choosing the right data structure to solve a problem can have huge implications on the performance of an application. Knowing when to use a specific data structure is one of the most important skills for a programmer.
Queue
A queue is a collection of items that are maintained in a sequence and can be modified by the addition of entities at one end of the sequence and removal from the other end of the sequence. It is the collection to be used when first-in-first-out (FIFO) collection is needed.
Stack
A stack is dynamic data container that follows the Last In First Out (LIFO) principle. Developers should use stack when the last item to be inserted into a container is the first one to be deleted from it.
Public
Public questions (free account) are common interview questions. They are great for practicing, or if you want to filter candidates using the classic problems.
Easy
Easy
Answer the questions below regarding correct usage of data structures.
Given an empty object stackOfNumbers of type Stack, review the sequence of function calls:
stackOfNumbers->Push(10)
stackOfNumbers->Push(12)
stackOfNumbers->Push(13)
stackOfNumbers->Peek()
stackOfNumbers->Push(8)
stackOfNumbers->Pop()
stackOfNumbers->Push(9)
stackOfNumbers->Peek()
If Pop() were called again, it would return:
Given an empty object queueOfNumbers of type Queue, review the sequence of function calls:
queueOfNumbers->Enqueue(10)
queueOfNumbers->Enqueue(12)
queueOfNumbers->Enqueue(13)
queueOfNumbers->Peek()
queueOfNumbers->Enqueue(8)
queueOfNumbers->Dequeue()
queueOfNumbers->Enqueue(9)
queueOfNumbers->Peek()
If Dequeue() were called again, it would return:
In which one of these scenarios might you use a Queue instead of a Stack?
6. RESTful Web Services
Software Engineering
HTTP
REST
Web development
Public
Software Engineering
When developing software systems, implementing theory and design, and performing maintenance, software engineers use an array of skills to produce high quality software.
HTTP
The Hypertext Transfer Protocol is the foundation of data communication on the World Wide Web. As such, it's important for all developers who work on internet applications and websites to understand this.
REST
Representational State Transfer (REST) is a style of software architecture that defines a set of constraints to be used for creating Web services. As it is one of the most commonly used architectures, knowledge of REST is important for back-end developers.
Web development
Web development is the process of developing websites or web applications, which can be hosted on a public network (Internet) or a private one (intranet).
Public
Public questions (free account) are common interview questions. They are great for practicing, or if you want to filter candidates using the classic problems.
Hard
Hard
Select the statements about RESTful web services that are correct.
(Select all acceptable answers.)
In HTTP/1.1, both the PUT and POST methods requests can be used to create and update resources.
A RESTful web service stores the client state as a session on the server.
In HTTP/1.1 it is mandatory that all POST requests create a new resource.
REST extends the SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) by allowing HTML requests and multiple data formats.
The Accept header field can be used to tell a RESTful web service to respond in a specific format.
7. Font Formatting
Software Engineering
Design patterns
OOP
Structural patterns
New
Public
Software Engineering
When developing software systems, implementing theory and design, and performing maintenance, software engineers use an array of skills to produce high quality software.
Design patterns
A software design pattern is a general, reusable solution to a commonly occurring problem within a given context in software design. Design patterns can speed up the development process by providing tested and proven development paradigms.
OOP
Object-oriented programming is a paradigm based on encapsulating logic and data into objects, which may then contain fields and procedures. Many of the most widely used programming languages are based on OOP, making it a very important concept in modern programming.
Structural patterns
Structural design patterns ease the design by identifying a simple way to realize relationships among entities.
New
This is a new addition to our question library.
Public
Public questions (free account) are common interview questions. They are great for practicing, or if you want to filter candidates using the classic problems.
Hard
Hard
A word processor uses the following code for defining font format:
class FontFormat inherits Object
private fontName : string
private fontSize : int
public constructor(name : string, size : int)
fontName = name
fontSize = size
end constructor
public function getFontName : string
return fontName
end function
public function getFontSize : int
return fontSize
end function
override public function equals(obj : object) : bool
if(!(obj instanceof FontFormat))
return false
end if
FontFormat f = (FontFormat)obj
return f.getFontName() == fontName && f.getFontSize() == fontSize
end function
override public function getHashCode() : int
return fontName.getHashCode() ^ fontSize.getHashCode()
end function
end class
Analysis shows that even the largest documents use fewer than a hundred different combinations of font name and size. The same analysis shows that the application sometimes uses thousands of FontFormat objects, most of which share the same font name and size.
(Fill in the blank with the software design pattern that solves the issue.)
The software design pattern can be used to minimize the memory footprint by sharing FontFormat objects.
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