How Technical Interview Questions Work in Your Hiring Process
You already know that the technical interview plays an important role in hiring software engineers.
The first step might be a briefing on the company, the position, and the interview process. Next might be an HR interview to establish credentials, work experience, aptitude, and career plans. Then, it might be management’s turn to talk about goals, the workplace, and compensation, among other things.
These days, candidates need more than just an impressive resume and cover letter to be considered for a position. You should have technical engineering questions that test their abilities as they pertain to the job—questions designed specifically for your company to spot potential liabilities before someone begins working for you.
You can find thousands of technical questions online. The challenge for HR managers and engineering VPs, however, is to formulate an assessment that identifies engineers with top-tier problem-solving skills, competence in core areas like system architecture, and technical communications ability.
Your company’s current interview process may include these types of technical interview questions:
- Interview questions on technical knowledge
- Interview questions on technical experience
- Situational-based interview questions
- Interview questions about education
All of these are important; they’re a candidate’s self-report on his or her experience and knowledge. In some cases, a scenario is also proposed: E.g., What systems architecture would the candidate choose for software programming to serve a given application?
Unfortunately, these questions do not assess the candidate’s application of his or her technical knowledge (including code writing) to define and solve real-life problems. They aren’t role-specific, either.
Companies are spending hours of engineering time to obtain this objective measurement.
There has to be a better way.
Technical interview questions for freshers 2021
Different roles require different types of interviews.
For example, a “fresher” or entry-level software developer interview often involves an initial screening to address educational qualifications and experience.
Code quizzes are far more appropriate for freshers than senior software engineers. Quizzes usually test a candidate’s understanding of a coding language (like Java or Python, both very widely used) and their skill in using it. They also assess familiarity with technical terms and the ability to explain their application.
Technical interview questions for freshers in Python:
- What is Python?
- What are the benefits of using Python?
- What is a dynamically typed language?
- What is an interpreted language?
- What is PEP 8 and why is it important?
- What is Scope in Python?
Technical interview questions for freshers in Java:
- What are the key differences between C++ and Java?
- Explain the JVM architecture?
- What is the use of Classloader in Java?
- Which class is a superclass of all classes?
- What is the static keyword?
- What are finally and finalize in Java?
More technical interview questions for freshers:
- What is data abstraction? What are the three levels of data abstraction, with examples?
- What is a command-line argument?
- Advantages of a macro over a function?
- What are the different storage classes in C?
- Which header file should you include if you are to develop a function which can accept a variable number of arguments?
- What is cache memory?
These are basic questions that a fresher is expected to know, and if answered correctly, usually lead to in-person or telephone interviews with company executives.
However, this process isn’t the same when interviewing a senior software developer.
Senior software engineer interview questions
Recruiting talented senior software engineers can have a high impact on your company’s competitiveness in technological fields.
Your software development team is the leading edge of new-product development. Innovation, technical execution, costs, and timing depend on having the best team that your company can field.
The interview process may ask in-depth questions about problems solved, workplace conflict resolution, or how a given scenario might be addressed—and perhaps include a coding quiz (though many senior engineers now decline quizzes and whiteboarding).
What’s often missing is the ability to measure the technical performance of a senior software engineer on real-life, role-specific challenges that will be tackled on the job.
Senior technical analyst interview questions:
Here are some difficult senior software engineer interview questions specific to an interview at Infosys. Notice how the interviewer switches between behavioral questions and questions about technical terms:
- What were the challenges in your former job?
- Describe your contribution in your former job.
- What is the difference between an array list and a linked list?
- Write code to connect databases and execute a stored procedure.
- Tell us about your current project.
- What is a WSDL?
- What is the difference between Generalization and Abstraction?
- What is the most complex task you handled for your former job?
These questions test an experienced candidate’s knowledge, communication skills, and technical understanding. And it’s pretty much the same list of questions you would get for any senior software engineering position, with the inevitable addition of specific product questions.
Software engineer interview questions and answers
Looking for a few more examples of effective technical interview questions?
We have a collection of Software Developer Technical Interview Questions in categories like:
- Software Engineering Scenario-Based Questions
- Senior Software Developer Question and Answers
- Entry-Level Software Engineer Questions
- Senior Developer Interview Questions
- Senior Software Engineer Interview Questions
The software development field is demanding and competitive. This helpful guide of software engineer interview questions and answers can help you find engineers that meet your hiring criteria faster and have top-notch technical skills, fit into the company culture, and are ready to handle even the most challenging aspects of the job.
How to answer technical interview questions
Software engineer behavioral interview questions, technical test questions, technical interview questions about engineering: they all have a place when recruiting top talent for your company’s software development team.
Many candidates will respond with easily available answers to technical interview questions. In addition, some will have memorized canned answers for behavioral interview questions.
As a recruiter or hiring manager, you want to know whether a candidate can think on their feet. You want to know if they have the technical knowledge and skills required for the job. But perhaps most importantly—as a leader in your organization—you want to know whether or not a candidate will thrive in your company’s culture.
Hiring for top talent is hard work. Don’t miss out on the best candidates by conducting interviews that don’t reveal the necessary information you need to make your decision.
Conclusion
So, what’s the best way to assess experienced technical professionals in today’s competitive engineering field?
Consider Woven’s technical assessment platform. The benchmark of our assessment is performance—performance on challenges directly related to the role, the team, and your company.
Here’s how it works.
First, we’ll dive into your goals, pressing problems, and long-term expectations.
Then, we’ll create an assessment of the core engineering skills that pertain to the role you’re looking to fill. That includes questions about debugging, technical communication, systems thinking, backend programming, and frontend programming.
Finally, we’ll evaluate the test results. Each candidate’s performance is reviewed by two senior engineers in our network who write up a report and make recommendations. That way, you’ll have an objective, comparative assessment of a candidate’s essential technical skills before your interview process even begins.
See what the Woven can do for you. Start a free trial with us today!
