Software Engineer Interview Questions to Know (Entry Level) — Conclusion
And, there you have it! We’ve looked at 13 questions that are excellent to know inside and out for any software engineer interview. Although we’ve only listed 13 questions, we have actually covered about 45 questions including all the variants. Knowing these questions can provide you with the necessary background to answer questions confidently and correctly.
In the introduction, I claimed there is really only one interview question — “Why should we hire you?”. When an interviewer asks you to validate a binary search tree, they don’t necessarily care about the result. You probably will never have to validate a BST in your entire professional career. They are asking this question to test your problem solving, your background, and your intelligence. They are asking you this question to see if they should hire you.
This is great for us interviewees though. Let’s say we are asked to explain the difference between method overriding and method overloading. But we totally forget. If we can explain (1) the OOP concept of polymorphism, (2) how variables and methods can be polymorphic, and (3) how this is beneficial to software development, we have a strong answer. Sure, our answer is not correct. But we have shown we know something about the topic and we can explain it. When asked a question you don’t know, just focus on giving your interviewer reasons to hire you.
There’s no better way to practice than by actually interviewing. If you are in your first or second year of undergrad, apply for internships and interview. You may be way over your head. You may miss every question. But you’ll gain experience. And you’ll be well on your way to getting an amazing job in software.
Thanks for reading! I hope you’ve enjoyed this series.
Questions? Comments? Send me an email at andrew.oliver.medium@gmail.com! I’d love to hear from you.
