100+ technical interview questions
Data Structures & Algorithms (DSA)
1. What is the difference between an array and a linked list?
2. How does a hash table work?
3. Implement a stack using queues.
4. Implement a queue using stacks.
5. What is a binary search tree?
6. Write a function to check if a binary tree is balanced.
7. Implement in-order, pre-order, and post-order traversal of a binary tree.
8. Detect a cycle in a linked list.
9. Find the longest substring without repeating characters.
10.Explain quicksort and implement it.
11.Explain mergesort and implement it.
12.What is the time complexity of binary search?
13.Find the first non-repeating character in a string.
14.Reverse a linked list.
15.Implement a LRU cache.
16.What are the different types of trees?
17.What is a trie and where is it used?
18.What is dynamic programming? Give an example.
19.Solve the coin change problem.
20.Solve the 0/1 knapsack problem.
21.Find all permutations of a string.
22.Generate all combinations of balanced parentheses.
23.Explain time and space complexity.
24.Compare BFS and DFS.
25.Find the lowest common ancestor in a binary tree.
Programming Languages (Language-Specific)
C/C++
26.What are pointers and how do they work?
27.What is the difference between malloc and calloc?
28.What is the difference between stack and heap memory?
29.Explain undefined behavior in C++.
30.What are constructors and destructors?
Java
31.What is the difference between == and .equals()?
32.Explain JVM, JRE, and JDK.
33.What is garbage collection in Java?
34.What are checked and unchecked exceptions?
35.What is multithreading in Java?
Python
36.What are Python decorators?
37.What are list comprehensions?
38.What is the difference between is and ==?
39.What is a generator? How is it different from an iterator?
40.How does Python manage memory?
JavaScript
41.What is the event loop?
42.What are closures?
43.What is the difference between var, let, and const?
44.What is hoisting?
45.What is asynchronous programming in JS?
System Design (High-Level Thinking)
46.Design a URL shortening service (like Bit.ly).
47.How would you design a messaging app like WhatsApp?
48.Explain CAP theorem.
49.What is sharding and why is it useful?
50.How would you scale a web application?
51.Explain load balancing and its strategies.
52.Design a cache system.
53.What is a CDN and how does it work?
54.How do you ensure high availability in a system?
55.What are microservices?
Databases (SQL & NoSQL)
56.What is normalization? Explain its types.
57.What are joins? List and explain different types.
58.What is the difference between SQL and NoSQL?
59.Write a query to find the second highest salary in a table.
60.What is indexing and how does it improve performance?
61.Explain ACID properties.
62.What is the difference between DELETE, TRUNCATE, and DROP?
63.What are transactions in SQL?
64.What are some common types of NoSQL databases?
65.When would you use a relational vs. non-relational database?
Operating Systems
66.What is a process and how is it different from a thread?
67.What is deadlock? How do you prevent it?
68.What are system calls?
69.Explain virtual memory.
70.What is paging and segmentation?
71.What is context switching?
72.How does multithreading work at OS level?
73.What is a race condition?
74.What are mutexes and semaphores?
Networking & Web Technologies
75.What is the OSI model?
76.What is the difference between HTTP and HTTPS?
77.What are TCP and UDP?
78.What is DNS and how does it work?
79.What is a REST API?
80.What is a socket?
81.What is a firewall?
82.Explain SSL/TLS.
83.What is CORS?
84.What are WebSockets?
Security Concepts
85.What is SQL Injection?
86.What is XSS (Cross-site scripting)?
87.What is CSRF and how to prevent it?
88.How do you store passwords securely?
89.What is two-factor authentication?
90.What is hashing vs encryption?
Cloud, DevOps, and Deployment
91.What is Docker?
92.What is Kubernetes?
93.What is CI/CD?
94.What is Infrastructure as Code?
95.What are common AWS services used in app deployment?
96.What is a reverse proxy?
97.How do you monitor a production app?
98.What is auto-scaling?
Tools, Practices, and Miscellaneous
99.What is Git and how does version control work?
100. What is the difference between a branch and a tag in Git?
101. What is TDD (Test-Driven Development)?
102. What are unit tests, integration tests, and end-to-end tests?
103. What is code smell?
104. How do you debug a program?
105. What is agile methodology?
106. Explain the difference between continuous delivery and continuous deployment.
Main topics
1. Core Programming Concepts
● Variables, data types, operators
● Conditional statements (if/else, switch)
● Loops (for, while)
● Functions (parameters, return types, recursion)
● OOP principles (classes, objects, inheritance, polymorphism, encapsulation, abstraction)
● Exception handling & debugging
● Memory management (stack vs heap, garbage collection basics)
● Multithreading basics (threads, synchronization)
2. Data Structures
(Apart from DSA-heavy problems, focus on practical understanding)
● Arrays & Strings (operations, searching, sorting)
● Linked Lists (singly, doubly)
● Stacks & Queues (usage in problems)
● HashMaps & Sets (real-life use cases)
● Trees & Graphs (basic traversal — DFS, BFS)
● Priority Queues/Heaps (basic usage)
3. Database & System Design
● Database:
○ SQL queries (SELECT, JOIN, GROUP BY, HAVING, ORDER BY)
○ Subqueries, views, indexes, triggers
○ Transactions & ACID properties
○ Basics of NoSQL (key-value stores, MongoDB concepts)
● System Design (Basics):
○ REST APIs & HTTP methods (GET, POST, etc.)
○ How a client-server model works
○ Caching (why & where)
○ Load balancing (basic idea)
○ Microservices vs Monolith
○ High-level design for a simple app (e.g., chat app, e-commerce)
4. Role-Specific Knowledge
(This depends on the job you’re interviewing for — usually one of these)
● For Backend Developers:
○ Web frameworks (Django, Flask, Spring Boot, etc.)
○ Authentication (JWT, OAuth)
○ APIs (REST, sometimes GraphQL)
○ Cloud basics (AWS S3, EC2, Lambda)
○ Docker fundamentals
● For Frontend Developers:
○ HTML, CSS, JavaScript (ES6+ features)
○ React/Angular basics (components, state, props)
○ APIs integration
○ Responsive design
● For Data/ML Roles:
○ Python libraries (pandas, numpy, scikit-learn)
○ SQL for analytics
○ Data cleaning & preprocessing
○ ML basics (supervised vs unsupervised)
● For DevOps Roles:
○ Linux commands
○ Git & CI/CD pipelines
○ Containers (Docker)
○ Cloud deployment (AWS/GCP basics)
