Questions that have appeared at meta for a Software Engineer (Technical) interview.

1. System Design

Question: How would you design a system for uploading and sharing photos?

Question: Can you explain how you would design a geo-distributed micro-services architecture?

Question: How would you design a service that could handle a sudden spike in traffic?

2. Algorithms and Data Structures

Question: Could you describe how a Breadth-First Search algorithm works?

Question: How would you design a data structure that supports insert, delete and get random element in constant time?

Question: What is the difference between quicksort and mergesort, and where might each be most useful?

3. Databases

Question: Can you explain the differences between SQL and NoSQL databases?

Question: What is a database index and why is it important?

Question: Describe a situation where you would use an SQL trigger and why it would be the best solution.

4. Networking

Question: Can you describe how the TCP/IP model works?

Question: What is the difference between HTTP and HTTPS?

Question: Explain how a DNS lookup works.

5. Operating Systems

Question: What is the difference between a process and a thread?

Question: Can you explain what a system call is?

Question: Could you describe how a deadlock can occur in an operating system?

6. Scalability and Performance

Question: How would you design a system to handle millions of users?

Question: What are some strategies you would use to optimize latency in a distributed system?

Question: What steps would you take to diagnose and fix a performance issue in a large software system?

7. Security

Question: How would you protect a website against SQL injection attacks?

Question: Can you explain how cross-site scripting (XSS) works and how to prevent it?

Question: What is two-factor authentication and why is it important?

8. Software Development Lifecycles

Question: Describe the differences between waterfall and agile development methodologies.

Question: What is continuous integration and why is it important?

Question: How would you handle a situation where a critical bug is found just before release?

9. Testing

Question: What is the difference between unit testing and integration testing?

Question: How would you design a system for automated testing?

Question: What are some strategies you would use to test a system for scalability?

10. Project Management

Question: How do you prioritize tasks when you have multiple projects with the same deadline?

Question: Describe a time when you had to make a difficult decision about a project.

Question: How would you handle a disagreement with a colleague about a project direction?