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Wednesday, May 30th, 2007

Software Interview Questions

A great set of interview questions developed by staff and friends of createTank over the past few years to get a good feel for the quality of a candidate from a few perspectives (general skills, communications, problem solving, etc.).

General Skill Check

Software Languages

[] Java

    [] JMS

    [] JSP/Servlets

    [] Hibernate (Other ORM)

    [] J2EE

    [] EJB

    [] Libraries

[] Hibernate/ORM

[] Castor/OXM

[] XML

[] Jakarta various

[] Struts

[] Tiles

[] Web Services

[] C

[] C++

[] Perl

[] Python

[] PHP

[] Shell Scripting

    [] Bourne shell (sh)

    [] Almquist shell (ash)

    [] Bourne-Again shell (bash)

    [] Korn shell (ksh)

    [] Z shell (zsh)

    [] C shell (csh)

    [] Tenex C shell (tcsh)

[] Web Services

    [] XML-RPC

    [] SOAP

    [] SOA

    [] REST

[] Internet

[] HTML

[] Javascript

[] XML

[] UML

RDBMS

[] Oracle

[] PostgreSQL

[] MySQL

[] DB2 UDB

[] Informix

Operating Systems

[] Linux

    [] Debian

    [] Ubuntu

    [] Redhat/Fedora

    [] Gentoo

    [] Mandrake

    [] Slackware

[] Unix

    [] BSD

    [] AIX

    [] Solaris

    [] HP-UX

Application Servers/Middleware

[] Websphere

[] WebsphereMQ/MQSeries

[] JBoss

[] Weblogic

[] Geronimo

[] Jakarta Tomcat

[] Sun Application Server

[] Apache ServiceMix

[] Mule

Development and Processing Tools

[] Ant

[] Subversion

[] CVS

[] PVCS

[] Clearcase

[] Version Control (other)

[] IDE

[] Eclipse

[] Netbeans

[] JBuilder

[] Emacs

[] vi/vim

Questions

General Questions

1. Explain how you prepared for this interview.
2. Before we describe the position, what do you want to do?
3. What are your strengths and weaknesses?
4. What motivates you?
5. What are some favorite web sites for technical information?
6. What are some influential books you’ve read?
7. Why do projects fail?
8. What do you like about your current job? What don’t you like?
9. How would you rate your current management?
10. Would you like to be the team leader or team member?
11. What is your ideal team size?
12. Are you familiar with an 4GLs? What are some advantages/disadvantages to 4GL?
13. Would you be comfortable being a team lead or a mentor?
14. Do you have any applicable certifications?
15. Do you hold any clearances?
16. Describe your ideal/dream job.
17. Cowboy’s question — If you were a (fill in the blank) what kind would you be?

General Engineering

1. What design methodologies are you familiar with.
2. What Project Management software are you familiar with?
3. What is a doubly linked list?
4. What is a round-robin linked list?

Process Methodology

1. What are the really important aspects of software development?
2. If given a new programming problem, what is your first step in producing code?
3. Explain Unit tests. When should a Unit test be written?
4. If someone asked you to move an application from environment 1 to environment 2 , what would you do?

Architecture/SOA Questions

1. Are you familiar with SOA?
2. What is SOA?
3. What is a Web Service?
4. What is the difference between SOA and Web Services?
5. What is the difference between Web Services and SOAP?
6. What is the difference between SOAP and SOA?

OO Questions

1. What is Object Oriented Design?
2. Describe an interesting class or interface that you have designed.
3. What is meant by overriding a method?
4. What is meant by overloading a method?
5. Describe polymorphism?

Java Questions

1. What is the difference between public, private, protected, and default modifiers?
2. What is an Abstract Class?
3. What does Static mean?
4. What is the difference between AWT, SWING, and SWT?
5. Define JAR, WAR, and EAR?

C/C++ Question(s)

In the following code, how many times will the loop be executed?

int x = 0;

while(x<10){
    x = x++;
}

Multiple possible answer(s):

1. This is bad code.
2. This code is compiler dependent.
3. Does the candidate mention GCC in his answer?
4. The line within the loop should be replaced with the following:

x++;

The “Roets” Questions

1. Soccer or Baseball?
2. vi or Emacs?
3. Coke or Pepsi?
4. Sweet tea or unsweet tea?
5. Tea or coffee?
6. MAC or PC?
7. Linux or Windows?
8. Unix or Linux?
9. JPEG or PNG?
10. Word, plain text, or Latex?
11. When I say Ballplayer, of which sport am I speaking?

Googlezon Questions (ask one)

[] You are in a boat in a lake. There is an untethered anchor in the boat. You drop the anchor into the lake. Does the water level of the lake go up, down, or remain unchanged?

Answer: Down

[] You are given nine eggs, (one of which is heavier than the other eight), and a balance scale. How might you discover which of the nine eggs is heavier by only using the scale twice?

Answer: Put the eggs into three groups of three. Put two of the groups on the scale. If the scale stays balanced, the egg is in the unweighed group. Put two eggs from the determined heavy group on the balance. If one side drops, the dropped egg is the heavy egg. If the scale stays balanced, the unweighed egg is the heavy egg.

[] You are in a room with no windows and three switches. In another room, there are three light-bulbs, each controlled by one and only one of the switches. You may arrange the the switches in any manner, and change them as many times as you like. Your goal is to determine which switch controls which light-bulb. You may enter the room only one time.

Answer: Use heat as well as light to solve the problem. Turn one switch on and leave it on for a few minutes. Turn that switch off, and then turn on one of the other lights. Enter the room. The warm unlit bulb belongs to the first switch, the lit bulb belongs to the second switch you flipped, and the cool, unlit bulb belongs to the switch you didn’t turn on.

Evaluation

[] Communications

[] Competence

[] Reliability

[] Skillset Fit

[] Humor

These interview questions were compiled by John Joseph Roets and Larry Liberto.