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Software Engineering Fundamentals Interview Questions
Practice 9403 coding, system design and machine learning questions from 546 companies, sorted by role, topic and interview round. Every question has step-by-step hints, a code runner that supports 8 languages and an AI mentor; members also get the full solution walkthrough.
- 9403
- Questions
- 546
- Companies
- 11
- Topics
- 8
- Languages
Showing 241–270 of 625 results
- Hudson River TradingHardSoftware EngineerC++ Fundamentals: Memory, Compilation, and Containers
Tests deep C++ expertise in zero-allocation data structures, cache-line alignment, manual object lifecycle management via placement new, and the compilation/inlining implications of template-based designs.
Software Engineering FundamentalsTechnical ScreenC++Memory ManagementData Structures - Hudson River TradingMediumSoftware EngineerCompare C++ Pointers and References
Tests in-depth understanding of C++ raw pointers versus references, their language semantics, memory representations, and how to apply them to design safe, idiomatic, zero-cost APIs.
Software Engineering FundamentalsTechnical Screencppsystemsapi-design - Hudson River TradingMediumSoftware EngineerCompare Multithreading and Multiprocessing
This question tests your understanding of concurrency primitives, operating system process models, memory isolation, context switching overheads, and the architectural trade-offs between threads and processes in low-latency systems.
Software Engineering FundamentalsTechnical Screenconcurrencyoperating-systemsmultithreading - Hudson River TradingMediumSite Reliability EngineerCompare Python Generators, Decorators, and Context Managers
Tests understanding of Python's execution timing, protocol methods, and resource cleanup across generators, decorators, and context managers, culminating in a robust lazy stream processor.
Software Engineering FundamentalsTechnical ScreenPythonResource ManagementDecorators - Hudson River TradingMediumSoftware EngineerCount Matrix Cells Whose Row and Column Neighbors Match
This problem tests your ability to efficiently traverse a grid while implementing conditional neighborhood logic and handling boundary constraints.
Software Engineering FundamentalsTechnical ScreenArraysMatrixGrid - Hudson River TradingHardSoftware EngineerDesign an Indexable Deque with O(1) Access
Tests understanding of low-level data structure design, memory layout, and trade-offs required to build a double-ended queue supporting strict O(1) random indexing and amortized O(1) push/pop operations.
Software Engineering FundamentalsTechnical ScreenData StructuresArraysSystem Fundamentals - Hudson River TradingMediumSoftware EngineerDiagnose I/O, Memory, and CPU Constraints
Tests your ability to systematically diagnose, measure, and resolve CPU, memory, and I/O bottlenecks in high-throughput, low-latency systems.
Software Engineering FundamentalsTechnical ScreenSystemsPerformance OptimizationOperating Systems - Hudson River TradingHardSoftware EngineerExplain C++ Inline, Segfaults, Virtual Memory, and std::string Internals
Tests deep understanding of low-level systems and modern C++ fundamentals, focusing on compiler inlining mechanics, virtual memory paging, segmentation fault root causes, and standard library string memory layouts.
Software Engineering FundamentalsTechnical ScreenC++Virtual MemoryOperating Systems - Hudson River TradingHardSoftware EngineerExplain Large Memory Allocation, Swap, and C++ Inline Trade-offs
Tests deep understanding of OS virtual memory management, demand paging and swap mechanics, and low-latency C++ compiler optimizations centered around inlining and instruction cache trade-offs.
Software Engineering FundamentalsTechnical Screenc++operating-systemsvirtual-memory - Hudson River TradingHardSoftware EngineerExplain Python and React performance fundamentals
This question evaluates knowledge of Python resource management (context managers and the with statement), React rendering and optimization concepts (hooks, memoization, and frontend performance), and on-call debugging and incident triage skills.
Software Engineering FundamentalsTechnical Screen - Hudson River TradingMediumSite Reliability EngineerExplain Why du and df Report Different Disk Usage
This question tests your understanding of Linux filesystem internals, specifically how kernel-level storage reporting differs from user-space directory traversal.
Software Engineering FundamentalsTechnical ScreenLinuxFilesystemSRE - Hudson River TradingMediumSoftware EngineerExplain and Diagnose a Segmentation Fault
This question tests your understanding of virtual memory, the lifecycle of a segmentation fault, and your ability to diagnose memory corruption using standard tooling.
Software Engineering FundamentalsTechnical ScreenC++SystemsDebugging - Hudson River TradingHardSoftware EngineerFind a Local Minimum in One and Two Dimensions
Tests divide-and-conquer optimization techniques to locate a local minimum in 1D and 2D arrays in sublinear time, requiring rigorous reasoning about termination and invariants.
Software Engineering FundamentalsTechnical Screenbinary-searchdivide-and-conquerarrays - Hudson River TradingMediumSoftware EngineerFind the Longest Common Digit Prefix Across Two Arrays
Tests candidate's ability to efficiently match string/digit prefixes between two collections of integers using hash sets or a prefix tree (Trie).
Software Engineering FundamentalsTechnical ScreenTrieHash TableString - Hudson River TradingMediumSoftware EngineerLinux Host and Filesystem Fundamentals
Review practical Linux fundamentals: memory and swap interpretation, safe directory enumeration, process-versus-thread trade-offs, filesystem links, and option-safe file deletion. Also explain responsible recovery steps after an accidental recursive delete.
Software Engineering FundamentalsTechnical Screen - Hudson River TradingMediumSoftware EngineerMinimize Array Amplitude After Removing a Contiguous Block
Tests array manipulation and prefix/suffix extremum tracking to minimize the spread (max - min) of an array after removing a contiguous subarray of length k.
Software Engineering FundamentalsTechnical Screenarraysprefix-suffixsliding-window - Hudson River TradingMediumSoftware EngineerPython Language and Runtime Fundamentals
Review core Python semantics through decorators, dictionary hashing, generators, unpacking syntax, and memory management. Distinguish language guarantees from CPython behavior while connecting edge cases to API design, debugging, and safe resource cleanup.
Software Engineering FundamentalsTechnical Screen - Hudson River TradingMediumSoftware EngineerQuery Order and Batch Lifetimes from Event Files
Design an event-driven tracker to query lifetimes for individual orders or order batches, correctly handling open orders and aggregate start/end timestamps.
Software Engineering FundamentalsTechnical Screenhash-tablesystem-fundamentalsdata-structures - Hudson River TradingHardSoftware EngineerReason About C++ Inlining, Allocation, and Polymorphism
Tests deep C++ systems knowledge regarding the runtime and compiler-level impacts of dynamic dispatch, heap allocations, and function inlining within latency-sensitive pipelines.
Software Engineering FundamentalsTechnical Screencppsystems-programmingmemory-management - Hudson River TradingMediumSite Reliability EngineerReason About Unix Signals, Zombies, and Process Reaping
Assess understanding of Unix process lifecycles, signal handling mechanics, zombie state accumulation, and process reaping responsibilities in parent processes and PID 1.
Software Engineering FundamentalsTechnical Screenunixlinux-kernelsystems - Hudson River TradingMediumSoftware EngineerSplit a Message into Length-Limited Parts with Numbered Suffixes
This problem tests your ability to handle string manipulation, edge-case arithmetic, and iterative construction while adhering to dynamic length constraints imposed by mandatory metadata.
Software Engineering FundamentalsTechnical ScreenStringsGreedySimulation - Hudson River TradingMediumSite Reliability EngineerTroubleshoot a Host That Rejects SSH Connections
Tests systematic Linux systems and networking troubleshooting methodology by designing an evidence-based diagnostic path for an unreachable or rejecting SSH service.
Software Engineering FundamentalsTechnical Screenlinuxnetworkingtroubleshooting - Hudson River TradingHardSoftware EngineerWrap a Fixed-Chunk Stream Reader with Arbitrary-Length Reads
Implement an arbitrary-length stream reader on top of an underlying reader that only yields data in fixed-size chunks, managing internal buffering and end-of-stream state across successive calls.
Software Engineering FundamentalsTechnical ScreenStreamsBufferingSystems Programming - IXL LearningEasySoftware EngineerDebug Kubernetes crashes and review Python ingestion script
This question evaluates operational debugging and system reliability skills — specifically Kubernetes pod/container troubleshooting, health-probe configuration, and practical Python ETL code review, focusing on observability, dependency management, and production-readiness.
Software Engineering FundamentalsTechnical Screen - ImcMediumSoftware EngineerAnalyze time complexity and threading trade-offs
This question evaluates understanding of worst-case time complexity for common data structure operations and the performance trade-offs between multithreading and single-threading, testing knowledge in the Software Engineering Fundamentals domain.
Software Engineering FundamentalsTechnical Screen - ImcHardQuantitative TraderCompute the Probability for Two Uniform Variables
This question evaluates understanding of continuous probability, joint distributions, and order statistics for independent uniform variables, focusing on comparing transformations of random variables.
Software Engineering FundamentalsTechnical Screen - ImcEasyData ScientistFind valid range of q for outcome probabilities
This question tests the ability to solve a system of linear inequalities derived from probability constraints, requiring an understanding of basic arbitrage-free pricing principles.
Software Engineering FundamentalsTechnical ScreenProbabilityInequalitiesFinance - IndeedMediumSoftware EngineerCompare Arrays and Linked Lists for Indexed Operations
Compare arrays, linked lists, and unrolled lists across indexed access, insertion, allocation, cache locality, and position-search costs.
Software Engineering FundamentalsTechnical Screen - InstacartMediumSoftware EngineerDesign a task system with assignments
This question tests your ability to design a flexible data model for a task-assignment system, focusing on efficient lookups and state management in an in-memory environment.
Software Engineering FundamentalsTechnical ScreenSystem DesignData StructuresAPI Design - InstacartMediumSoftware EngineerEvaluate a Target Variable from Assignments with Plus, Minus, Cycles and Conflicts
A three-part coding exercise that computes a target variable's value from a list of assignment equations. It starts with right-hand sides that are numbers or other variables, adds addition and subtraction with cross-references, and finally requires an empty string for cycles, undefined variables and conflicting assignments.
Software Engineering FundamentalsTechnical Screen
Hudson River Trading
IXL Learning
Imc
Indeed
Instacart