Software Engineer Backend Interview Questions

2,349 software engineer backend interview questions shared by candidates

for the strange IQ quizzes I can remember: 1. give you two ropes that burns out in one hour, how do you get 45 min precisely from burning them? 2. two gates two guards, one telling truth, one telling lies, how to ask one guard one question so that it leads to treasure; 3. zebra puzzle (they basically have an identical problem listed in the wiki of zebra puzzle but with details changed); 4. 10 piles candies, 9 piles weigh 1 g each, one pile weigh 2 g, how to use scale to find out which one weighs 2 g, and two more upgraded question like x piles weigh 1 g, y piles weigh 2 g, x + y = 10, how do you find 1 g piles.
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Backend Software Engineer

Interviewed at D3 Security Management Systems

3.3
Aug 2, 2024

for the strange IQ quizzes I can remember: 1. give you two ropes that burns out in one hour, how do you get 45 min precisely from burning them? 2. two gates two guards, one telling truth, one telling lies, how to ask one guard one question so that it leads to treasure; 3. zebra puzzle (they basically have an identical problem listed in the wiki of zebra puzzle but with details changed); 4. 10 piles candies, 9 piles weigh 1 g each, one pile weigh 2 g, how to use scale to find out which one weighs 2 g, and two more upgraded question like x piles weigh 1 g, y piles weigh 2 g, x + y = 10, how do you find 1 g piles.

- Implement a function to filter data. I liked that it was not a basic leet code problem. - Basic leet code problem string compression/decompression exercise. - System's design problem related to a potential feature used at Affirm. - Standard behavioral interview questions.
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Sr. Software Engineer (Backend)

Interviewed at Affirm

3.9
Jun 6, 2024

- Implement a function to filter data. I liked that it was not a basic leet code problem. - Basic leet code problem string compression/decompression exercise. - System's design problem related to a potential feature used at Affirm. - Standard behavioral interview questions.

Round 1 Difference between equals() and == in java? Questions on java streams. How to design springboot application - explain layered architecture Eager and Lazy loading question in springboot and react Pagination and sorting JPA repo related questions Round 2 Coding question - Insert, delete, get random, minimum element within constant time. Use List (linked list implementation) and Map. System design question - design a live dashboard which shows data coming in key value pairs metrics from cell towers and detect and notify incase of any anomalies. Also get recent data based on timelines - Use Cassandra DB for key value pairs data storage, async processing for anomalies detection, apache spark DB for retrieving data based on timestamps.
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Backend Software Developer

Interviewed at Nokia

4
Dec 9, 2025

Round 1 Difference between equals() and == in java? Questions on java streams. How to design springboot application - explain layered architecture Eager and Lazy loading question in springboot and react Pagination and sorting JPA repo related questions Round 2 Coding question - Insert, delete, get random, minimum element within constant time. Use List (linked list implementation) and Map. System design question - design a live dashboard which shows data coming in key value pairs metrics from cell towers and detect and notify incase of any anomalies. Also get recent data based on timelines - Use Cassandra DB for key value pairs data storage, async processing for anomalies detection, apache spark DB for retrieving data based on timestamps.

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