Interview Preparation Questions

Core Java & Object-Oriented Programming

●​ final keyword: Explain the usage of the final keyword for variables, methods, and
classes.
●​ String Concepts: What are the two ways to create a String? What is the difference
between them? Given the code String a = "Tata"; String b = a; a = "Birla";, what is the
final value of b and why?
●​ Method Overloading vs. Overriding: Explain the difference between method
overloading and method overriding.
●​ Pass by Value or Reference: Does Java work as "Pass by Value" or "Pass by
Reference"? Justify your answer.
●​ Inheritance & Polymorphism:
○​ Explain the difference between an abstract class and an interface.
○​ Explain the use of default methods in interfaces.
●​ Immutability: What is Java immutability? Explain how to design an immutable class.
How can you ensure a List field within an immutable class cannot be mutated from the
outside?
●​ Exception Handling: Explain the use of the finally block and "try-with-resources."
●​ Cloning: Explain the difference between deep cloning and shallow cloning.

Advanced Java & Frameworks

Java Versions & Features
●​ Java 8+ Features: What new features were introduced in Java versions after Java 8?
●​ Functional Interfaces: What is a functional interface? Is the @FunctionalInterface
annotation mandatory?
●​ Stream API:
○​ Explain the Stream API, including the difference between intermediate and
terminal operations.
○​ What is the difference between a Stream and a Parallel Stream? Explain the
internal working of a Parallel Stream.
○​ When should you choose a regular Stream over a Parallel Stream?
●​ map() vs. flatMap(): What is the difference between the map() and flatMap() methods?
●​ Optional class: What is the purpose of the Optional class?
●​ Virtual Threads: What are virtual threads, and how are they used in Java?
Multithreading & Concurrency
●​ Deadlock: What is a deadlock, and how can you avoid it?
●​ Future vs. CompletableFuture:
○​ How is CompletableFuture different from the Future object?
○​ Be prepared to write service layer code using CompletableFuture and
demonstrate how to handle exceptions.
●​ Garbage Collection:
○​ What are some garbage collector methods?
○​ Can you manually call the garbage collector?

Object-Oriented Programming (OOP)

●​ Abstract Class vs. Interface:
○​ Explain the difference between an abstract class and an interface.
○​ When should you choose to use an interface versus an abstract class?
●​ finally vs. finalize(): What is the difference between the finally block and the finalize()
method?

Collections
●​ Sorted Maps: How can you maintain the keys of a Map in sorted order in Java?

Coding Questions (Java 8 Streams)

●​ Write a Java 8 program to find the sum of even numbers from a list of integers.
●​ Write code using streams to print the employee who works in the "Product Team" and is
located in "Bangalore".

●​ Multithreading & Concurrency:

○​ What are the different ways to create a thread? What is the best approach?
○​ Explain the volatile keyword.
○​ What is an ExecutorService? Name some types of thread pools.
○​ Explain the difference between CountDownLatch and CyclicBarrier.
○​ What is a ConcurrentModificationException?
○​ Explain CompletableFuture and the Future object.
○​ Explain the Double-Checked Locking pattern and why a null check is important
before a synchronized block.
●​ Collections & Hashing:
○​ Explain the internal working of a HashMap, including how it achieves O(1)
complexity, and scenarios where it degrades to O(n).
 ○​ Explain the contract between the equals() and hashCode() methods. What
happens if you override only equals()?
○​ Explain the difference between Comparable and Comparator.
○​ Explain the internal workings of LinkedHashMap and ConcurrentHashMap.
●​ Database & Design Patterns:
○​ What is a database connection pool? What are its advantages?
○​ How would you implement a connection pool class as a Singleton?
●​ Testing: How do you test a method that throws an exception and assert its message
using JUnit 5's assertThrows()?
●​

Multithreading & Concurrency

●​ How did you use threads in your project? (Interviewer expects CompletableFuture).
●​ What is the difference between Future and CompletableFuture?
●​ What is ExecutorService?
●​ What are the types of ExecutorService (e.g., Single thread, Fixed thread pool,
Scheduled)?
●​ Coding:
○​ Implement a fixed thread pool with 2 threads and print outputs.
○​ How do you make tasks run alternately between threads?
●​ What is inter-thread communication?
●​ Explain the use of wait(), notify(), and notifyAll().
●​ What are locks? Explain types of locks like ReentrantLock and ReadWriteLock.
●​ Explain the purpose of the .join() method. Why does further code wait for a thread to
execute after .join() when multithreading is for parallel processing?
●​ What is your experience with synchronization and thread management?
●​ How do you handle a scenario where an API call fails and needs to be rolled back in a
distributed system (e.g., using @transactional and its propagation levels)?

Design Patterns
●​ General Concepts:
○​ What is a design pattern, and why do we use them in software projects?
○​ Be prepared for scenario-based questions where you have to identify and justify
which design pattern to use. For example: "If you need to implement a method
public List<Flight> sortFlightsByCriteria(String criteria) where criteria can be 'time'
or 'distance', what approach would you take?" (Expected answer: Strategy
Pattern).
○​ Be ready to provide a use case from your own experience where you have
employed a specific design pattern.
 ●​ Common Design Patterns:
○​ Singleton:
■​ Explain the Singleton design pattern.
■​ What is the "double-checked locking" pattern in the context of Singleton?
(This can be a tricky question).
■​ How would you solve the problem if a Singleton object returns another
object and a user modifies that returned object? (This assesses your
understanding of immutability and defensive copying).
○​ Factory vs. Abstract Factory:
■​ Explain the difference between the Factory and Abstract Factory patterns.
■​ What are the disadvantages of the Factory pattern compared to the
Abstract Factory pattern?
○​ Dependency Injection: Which design pattern would you use to inject
dependencies without using a framework like Spring?
○​ Other common patterns to know: Builder, Adapter, Proxy, Delegate.

Object-Oriented Programming (OOP) & Core Principles

●​ Core OOP Concepts: Explain the core principles of OOP (Encapsulation, Inheritance,
Polymorphism, Abstraction).
●​ SOLID Principles: What are the SOLID design principles?
●​ Immutability:
○​ What is immutability?
○​ How do you make a class immutable?
●​ Cloning: What is the Cloneable interface? Explain the difference between a shallow
copy and a deep copy.
●​ Method Overloading vs. Overriding:
○​ Explain the difference between method overloading and method overriding.
○​ Can a static method be overloaded? Why or why not?
●​ Abstract Class vs. Interface:
○​ Explain the difference between an abstract class and an interface.
○​ Can a class be declared as abstract even if it has no abstract methods or
variables? If so, what is its use case?
●​ Access Modifiers: What are the different access modifiers in Java?
●​ Constructors: Can a constructor be private? If yes, what are its use cases?
●​ Inheritance: In the context of inheritance, is the following possible: Class B extends A {};
B objB = new A();? Explain why.
Collections & Data Structures
●​ What is the difference between HashSet and LinkedHashSet?
●​ Explain the internal working of a HashMap, including concepts like buckets, collisions,
load factor, and treeification.
●​ What is the difference between fail-fast and fail-safe iterators?
●​ Explain the internal working of ArrayList.
●​ Explain the internal working of LinkedList.
●​ Explain the contract between the equals() and hashCode() methods.
●​ Can a custom object (e.g., an Employee object) be used as a key in a HashMap? If so,
what are the requirements?

Hashing & Maps

●​ Explain how a HashMap achieves O(1) time complexity for get() and put() operations.
●​ In what scenarios does the time complexity of HashMap operations degrade to O(n)?
How did Java 8 address this issue?
●​ What is the loadFactor in a HashMap and what is its purpose?
●​ Explain the internal working of a LinkedHashMap. What is a practical use case for it,
such as an LRU Cache?
●​ Explain the internal implementation of a ConcurrentHashMap.
●​ What is the difference between a Synchronized HashMap and a ConcurrentHashMap?
○​

Databases (SQL & NoSQL)

Databases: SQL & NoSQL
●​ SQL & NoSQL Differences: What are the key differences between SQL and NoSQL
databases? Can a relational schema be stored in a NoSQL database?
●​ Indexing: What is indexing, and what are its different types (e.g., Primary Index)?
●​ Joins:
○​ Explain the difference between an INNER JOIN and an OUTER JOIN.
○​ What is a LEFT OUTER JOIN?
○​ What is a SELF JOIN? Provide a use case.
●​ SQL Queries:
○​ Write a query to return the employee's name and department's name from two
tables (Employee and Department).
○​ Write a query to return the employee's name and department's name, including
employees who have not yet been assigned to a department.
○​ Find the 2nd and 3rd highest salary from an Employee table.
○​ Find the employee with the maximum salary in each department.
○​ Find the employee who is working on more than one project.
○​ Find all employees who have a birthday in the current month.
○​ Return the department name, max, min, and average salary for each department.
 ○​ Write a query to find the department with more than 3 employees.
○​ How can you calculate the average salary of employees grouped by their
department while also filtering out departments with less than five employees?
●​ Aggregate Functions: What are aggregate functions (SUM, MAX, COUNT, AVG)?
●​ ER Diagram: What is an ER (Entity-Relationship) diagram?

JPA & ORM

●​ JPA & Hibernate Relationship: Explain the relationship between JPA and Hibernate.
●​ JPA Relationships:
○​ Explain the @OneToOne, @OneToMany, @ManyToOne, and @ManyToMany
JPA relationships.
○​ How would you implement a @OneToMany relationship in JPA?
●​ Composite Keys:
○​ What is a composite key?
○​ How do you use a composite key in JPA?

Concurrency
●​ Synchronized Maps: When using a synchronized map, which object is locked?
●​ Database Isolation Levels: Discuss the different database isolation levels, explaining
the scenarios in which each one should be used.
●​ .
Microservices & Monoliths
●​ Microservices vs. Monoliths:
○​ What are the key differences between a microservices architecture and a
monolithic architecture?
○​ Provide practical examples of when to choose a microservices approach versus
a monolithic one.
●​ Database in Microservices: Is having a shared database among microservices a good
or workable practice? Justify your answer.

Scalability & Performance

●​ Scaling:
○​ How do you scale a database?
○​ How do you scale a microservice?
●​ AWS & Cloud Infrastructure:
○​ Explain how AWS Auto Scaling works. Be prepared for scenario-based
questions.
○​ What are Elastic Load Balancers? Explain their use and working.
○​ Can you explain the concepts of VPC (Virtual Private Cloud) and DNS in AWS?
What are their roles in cloud infrastructure?
○​ What strategies would you use to test a third-party service located outside of a
VPC?
●​ Optimization:
○​ How would you optimize a Java application's performance? (Hint: Caching,
Cron-Jobs/Scheduling).
●​ Troubleshooting: What would you do if a microservice becomes slow, and how would
you remediate it?

Spring & Spring Boot

●​ Framework Differences:
○​ What is the difference between the Spring and Spring Boot frameworks?
○​ When would you choose one over the other?
○​ What are the disadvantages of Spring Boot?
●​ Spring Boot Internals:
○​ Explain how Spring Boot's auto-configuration works.
○​ What is the role of spring.factories and starter POMs?
○​ Explain the difference between @ConditionalOnClass and @ConditionalOnBean.
○​ Describe what happens when a Spring Boot application starts. What is the
default embedded server, and how does it handle web traffic?
●​ Dependency Injection (DI) & IoC Container:
○​ Explain the IoC (Inversion of Control) container.
 ○​ What is a Spring Bean, and what are the different bean scopes?
○​ Explain how DI works with beans.
○​ Compare Field Injection and Constructor Injection. Which is preferred, and why?
1
○​ Explain the difference between @Autowired and @Qualifier.
●​ Configuration Management:
○​ How do you handle multiple configurations for different environments (e.g., dev,
test, prod)?
○​ Explain the role of the @Profile annotation.
○​ What is a Spring Cloud Config Server and how is it used to centralize
configurations for microservices?
●​ Data Access:
○​ How do you connect to a database in Spring Boot?
○​ How can you return a result set from a query?
○​ What is the difference between Spring Data JPA and Hibernate?
●​ Other Concepts:
○​ What is AOP (Aspect-Oriented Programming) in Spring, and can you provide an
example?
○​ Explain caching and its use.
○​ What is the Bean lifecycle?
2
○​ Explain the difference between @Component and @Configuration.
○​ What happens if a Spring Boot application has two main classes?
○​
●​ What is the purpose of the @Primary annotation in Spring Boot?
●​ What is the purpose of the @Qualifier annotation in Spring Boot?
●​ What is the difference between @Primary and @Qualifier?
●​ How do @Primary and @Qualifier work together in Spring Boot?
●​ How do you create a custom exception in Spring Boot?
●​ How do you handle exceptions globally in Spring Boot using @ControllerAdvice?
●​ How can you run methods asynchronously in Spring Boot? (Hint: @Async)
Microservices & REST APIs
●​ API Design & Principles:
○​ Explain the different HTTP methods (verbs) and their purposes. What is the
difference between PUT and POST?
○​ Explain the role of HTTP status/response codes.
○​ What are the different approaches to API versioning?
○​ How do you secure REST APIs (e.g., Basic Auth, JWT)?
○​ What is the difference between OAuth and JWT?
○​ Explain the mechanism for token exchange in token-based authentication and its
security considerations.
●​ API Implementation:
○​ How does a controller accept a request in Spring Boot? (Explain the internal
working).
○​ Explain the difference between @Controller and @RestController. What happens
if you use @Controller in a service layer class?
○​ Why would you use ResponseEntity?
○​ How do you use interceptors with RestTemplate?
●​ Microservices Design Patterns:
○​ API Gateway: Explain what an API Gateway is and how it differs from a Load
Balancer.
○​ Service Discovery: What is a Service Registry, and can you name some
implementations (e.g., Eureka)?
○​ Inter-Service Communication: What is the Saga pattern? Why and when would
you use it? Provide an example. What are the advantages of using a Feign
Client?
○​ Resilience Patterns: Explain the Circuit Breaker pattern. How would you
implement it using a library like Resilience4j or Hystrix? Explain the concept of a
fallback method.
○​ Centralized Logging & Tracing: How would you implement a centralized
logging mechanism (e.g., using the ELK Stack)? How do you use Spring Cloud
Sleuth and Zipkin?
●​ End-to-End Flow: Be prepared to design an end-to-end REST API flow, from the
controller to the database, including exception handling. For example, design an order
placement microservice.
●​ Exception Handling:
○​ How do you handle exceptions in a Spring Boot application?
○​ What is the difference between a checked and an unchecked exception?
●​ Cloud & Messaging:
○​ What is your experience with AWS messaging services like SQS and SNS? How
did you implement them?
○​ Explain the concept of a fallback method for a service that is down.
Other Concepts
●​ TLS vs. mTLS: What are the key differences between TLS and mTLS, and when would
you use each?

Apache Kafka
●​ Core Concepts:
○​ What are the main features of Kafka?
○​ Explain the overall working flow of Kafka, including the roles of Producers and
Consumers.
○​ Explain the concept of a Consumer Group. How do rebalancing and the
Consumer Group Coordinator work?
○​ Explain the roles of partitions and offsets.
○​ What is the purpose of Zookeeper in a Kafka cluster?
●​ Kafka in Practice:
○​ How have you integrated Kafka into your projects?
○​ Describe a use case for Kafka in your current project.
○​ What configurations do you use in your Kafka setup?
○​ What is the daily message load on your Kafka system?
●​ Performance & Reliability:
○​ What makes Kafka so fast?
○​ How do you handle failure points and errors in a Kafka-based system?
●​ Data Ordering: If a producer is sending messages (A, B, C, D) where A and C belong to
one category and B and D to another, how can you ensure that when consuming, A is
always read before C, and B is always read before D?

Messaging & Event-Driven Systems

●​ General Concepts:
○​ Have you worked with messaging or event-driven solutions?
○​ Explain your understanding of Pub/Sub systems and message brokers.
●​ Kafka vs. Other Brokers:
○​ What is the difference between Kafka and ActiveMQ?
○​ Explain the use cases for RabbitMQ versus Kafka.
○​ Given a scenario, such as processing a 500KB file, which message queue would
you choose and why (Kafka or ActiveMQ)?
Performance & JVM
●​ Explain Garbage Collection (e.g., Young Gen, Old Gen, algorithms like Mark & Sweep).
●​ What is JVM configuration for GC?
●​ Have you used any JVM profilers?
●​ What is your experience with performance tuning and optimization in Java applications?

Other Tools & Technologies

●​ What JSON handling libraries do you know (e.g., Jackson, Gson)?
●​ Do you have exposure to frontend technologies (JavaScript, Angular, React)?
●​ Which unit testing frameworks have you used (JUnit, Mockito)?
●​ Are you familiar with Java 11+ features (var, local-variable syntax, new APIs)?
●​ What are the key features of JDK 17 and JDK 21?
●​ How would you migrate a project from JDK 8 to JDK 17?
●​ What is SonarQube?
●​ How do you handle security in your project?
●​ Explain what a JWT (JSON Web Token) is and how you validate a token.
●​ Have you used Azure?
●​ Do you have experience with distributed caching like Redis?

Solution Design & Architecture

●​ Are you able to create high-level and low-level design documents?
●​ What is your experience with architecture principles and decision-making?
●​ Do you understand Non-Functional Requirements (security, compliance)?
●​ Are you familiar with gRPC, Service Mesh, and Polyglot systems?
●​ Explain how to handle communication between microservices.
●​ How do you test your application in the development environment?

Production Support & DevOps

●​ Do you have experience in bug fixing, release management, and troubleshooting?
●​ What is your knowledge of CI/CD pipelines, Docker, Kubernetes, and Cloud
provisioning?
●​ What monitoring and log management tools have you used?
●​ Do you have proficiency in log analysis and managing alerts across layers?
●​ How do you build your application?
●​ How do you deploy your application?
General Questions
●​ Are you serving a notice period?
●​ Are you open to learning full-stack development?
●​ Explain a challenging project you've faced.
●​ What is the difference between Spring and Spring Boot?
●​ Explain memory management in Java.
●​ Scenario-based discussion on asynchronous calls and API latency.
Coding:
String and Array Manipulation

●​ Anagrams: Write a program to find if two strings are anagrams of each other.
●​ Longest Uniform Substring: Given a string, find the longest uniform substring.
●​ First Non-Repeating Character: Write a function that finds the first non-repeating
character in a string.
●​ Merge Two Sorted Arrays: Merge two sorted arrays into a single sorted array without
using built-in sort functionalities.
●​ Find Top Two Elements: Write a code to find the max 2 elements from an array,
ensuring they are not the same in case of duplicates.
●​ Print Non-Duplicate Elements: Print the non-duplicate elements from a list.
●​ Integer Digits: Write a code to print an integer value like 4367 in a format like
4,3,6,7.
●​ Longest Unique Substring: Given a string (e.g., anczabc), find the longest substring
without repeating characters. (Output: ancz).
●​ Rock Collector's Road Trip: Given a grid of numbers, find the optimal path from a
starting point to an endpoint to accumulate the most rocks. You can only travel up or
right.
●​ Stock Buy/Sell Profit: Given a price array, find the maximum profit.
●​ Maximum Profit with Budget: Write a Java program to find the max profit based on a
given budget and a list of stock prices.
●​ Sorting a Map: Write a program to print a HashMap in sorted order of its keys.

Java 8 & Streams

●​ Functional Interface & Lambda: Write a functional interface and implement it with a
Lambda expression.
●​ Longest String with Streams: Given a string array, print the longest string using Java 8
streams.
●​ Most Frequent Number (with adjacency removal): Find the most occurring number in
a list and remove the adjacent of that number using streams only.
Multithreading & Concurrency

●​ Fixed Thread Pool: Implement a fixed thread pool with 2 threads and print outputs.
●​ Alternate Task Execution: How do you make tasks run alternately between threads?
●​ Inter-thread Communication: Write a code example demonstrating the use of wait(),
notify(), and notifyAll() for inter-thread communication.

Data Structures & Algorithms

●​ BFS (Breadth-First Search): Implement a shortestPath(from, to) method to find

the shortest path between two stations on a train map. Explain why BFS is the
appropriate approach.
●​ DFS (Depth-First Search): Implement a simple DFS traversal.
●​ Binary Search: Implement a function to find the first and last positions of a given
element in a sorted array.
●​ Binary Tree Traversals: Implement In-Order, Pre-Order, and Post-Order traversals of a
Binary Tree.
●​ Trapping Rain Water: Implement a solution to the "Trapping Rain Water" problem.
●​ Daily Temperatures: Implement a solution to the "Daily Temperatures" problem.
●​ Heap / Priority Queue:
○​ Implement a min-heap without using PriorityQueue.
○​ Explain the tree structure of a heap.