Interview Prep Resources

Your interview process with tech companies will comprise of two main components:

Below you can find lots of resources to help you prepare for both components.

Technical Interview Prep Resources

Start Here

Practice

Other Resources

Behavioral Interview Prep Resources

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Bank of Common Questions

Storytelling, Experience, and Career Goals Questions:

  • Tell me about yourself. Why do you want to be a software developer?
  • Tell me about your journey into tech. How did you get interested in coding, and why was software development a good fit for you? How is that applicable to our _____ role or company goals?
  • What made you switch from your prior career into programming?
  • Describe your background. How did you get to where you are now? What was your previous career field? What did you like about it? What didn’t you like about it? Why coding?
  • Describe your coding experience and why you wish to continue.
  • What are you looking for in a company? Why would you want to work here?
  • Describe your time at Turing. How did it prepare you for this career?
  • What is your 100% ideal role for your first web development job?
  • Have you ever worked directly with clients or have been in a customer-facing role in the past? If not, would you like to?
  • Talk about your preferred development environment.
  • How are you keeping up with the latest developments in web development?
  • What is something that your hobbies or interests tell me about you that your resume cannot?

Project, Problem-Solving, & Team Contribution Questions:

  • Describe a successful idea or project you worked on. What are some of the challenges you had to overcome? What made it a success?
  • Describe a project that failed, a project you had to give up on, or a time you worked really hard on a project and it just didn’t pan out as expected. What happened? How did you make the decisions that you made?
  • When have you solved a problem that didn’t involve you coding?
  • Please describe to me the difference between waterfall and agile approaches to software.
  • How have you implemented or adapted agile practices in your projects?
  • What is your approach to working on a team?
  • A lot of this job will be full-stack. Your experience is largely __ (Back End, Front End). How do you feel like you’d be able to contribute to the team with only that experience? How comfortable are you with getting uncomfortable with a new language?
  • Describe an example of how you have handled a stressful situation.
  • In what types of environments/projects is it best to use pair programming? Why? In what cases would you not use pair programming? Why?
  • Describe your teamwork experience in a coding environment. How big of a team did you work with?
  • Have you ever had to switch gears in the middle of a project to get something fixed immediately? How did you react?
  • What project of yours are you most proud of and why?
  • You can’t work out how to solve a coding problem. What do you do to find the answer?
  • Tell me about a challenge or conflict you’ve faced at work and how you dealt with it.
  • How do you approach testing? And what do you think about this? How would you improve QA?
  • When have you exercised leadership and what was the result?
  • Describe a time when you took a risk that paid off for you. What was your process for pushing yourself further? How did you assess risk and try something new?
  • Tell me about a time you had competing priorities or worked on multiple projects at once. How did you manage to make or miss the deadlines? What did you learn from that experience?
  • Sometimes it’s just not possible to get everything on your to-do list done. Tell me about a time your responsibilities got a little overwhelming. What did you do?
  • Give me an example of a time you were able to be creative with your work. What was exciting or difficult about it?
  • Describe a long-term project that you managed. How did you keep everything moving along in a timely manner?
  • Describe a time when you saw a problem and took the initiative to correct it rather than waiting for someone else to do it.
  • Tell me about a time when you worked under close supervision or extremely loose supervision. How did you handle that?
  • When you’re working with a large number of customers, it’s tricky to deliver excellent service to them all. How do you go about prioritizing your customers’ needs?
  • Tell me about a time you were under a lot of pressure. What was going on, and how did you get through it?
  • Tell me about a time you had to be very strategic in order to meet all your top priorities.
  • Give me an example of a time when you had to think on your feet in order to delicately extricate yourself from a difficult or awkward situation.

Communication & Feedback Questions:

  • Describe to me the steps you would take to build out a product.
  • Tell me how you solve a problem.
  • Explain one of the most difficult code problems you’ve had to solve, either on your own authored code, or in contributing to someone else’s.
  • Tell me about a time you had a disagreement with a colleague and how you resolved it.
  • Give me an example of a time you faced a conflict while working on a team. How did you handle that?
  • Describe a time when you received feedback that you were surprised by. What did you do with that feedback?
  • When you disagree with a decision your team makes, how do you handle it?
  • Tell me about a time when you had to rely on written communication to get your ideas across to your team.
  • Tell me about a successful presentation you gave and why you think it was a hit.
  • Tell me about a time you needed to get information from someone who wasn’t very responsive. What did you do?
  • Tell me about a time when you had to work closely with someone whose personality was very different from yours.
  • We all make mistakes we wish we could take back. Tell me about a time you wish you’d handled a situation differently with a colleague.
  • Describe a time when you had to interact with a difficult client. What was the situation, and how did you handle it?

Personal Growth & Self-Awareness Questions:

  • What is an area of growth for you?
  • Tell me about a time you set a goal for yourself. How did you go about ensuring that you would meet your objective?
  • What’s hard about programming?
  • How do you deal with change?
  • What are some of your best professional/soft skills?
  • Describe your strengths. How have you seen these in practice as a developer?
  • Tell me about a time you failed. How did you deal with the situation?
  • What is your biggest weakness?
  • What is your greatest professional achievement so far? Why?
  • Where do you see yourself in 5 years?
  • How would your former boss/current classmates/instructors describe you?
  • When have you taken accountability for something even when it could have proven detrimental for you?
  • Describe a time when your team or company was undergoing some change. How did that impact you, and how did you adapt?
  • Tell me about the first job you’ve ever had. What did you do to learn the ropes?

Practice

Reach out to a member of the Career Development Team if you’d like to set up a mock interview.

Questions to Ask the Interview & Other Resources