Developer English guide
Coding Interview Questions Every Developer Should Know
April 30, 2026
A practical guide to the most common questions in each type of developer interview: recruiter screen, coding challenge, system design, and cultural fit. With tips on how to answer them in English.
1. Recruiter screen
The recruiter call is usually 20 to 30 minutes. The goal is to confirm you're a realistic candidate before looping in the technical team. These questions are almost always asked.
“Tell me about yourself.”
Keep it under two minutes. Focus on your current role, relevant experience, and why you're looking for a new opportunity.
“Why are you looking for a new opportunity?”
Be honest but professional. Focus on growth, new challenges, or a change of direction — not complaints about your current employer.
“What is your expected salary?”
Research the market rate before the call. It's fine to give a range or ask what budget they have in mind first.
“Are you currently interviewing elsewhere?”
You can say yes — it signals you're in demand. Mention you're being selective about the right fit.
“What is your notice period?”
Give the exact number of weeks or months. If it's negotiable, say so.
“Are you open to remote work / relocation?”
Be clear about your preferences upfront to avoid misaligned expectations later.
“Can you walk me through your background?”
Similar to 'tell me about yourself' but often expects more technical detail. Mention your stack, team size, and types of projects.
“Why do you want to work here?”
Show you've done your research. Reference the company's product, mission, or tech stack specifically.
2. Coding challenge
These are the algorithm and data structure problems you'll face in a live coding interview or take-home challenge. The questions themselves matter less than how clearly you explain your reasoning.
“Reverse a string or a linked list.”
A classic warm-up. For strings, clarify whether you can use built-in methods. For linked lists, think about pointer manipulation.
“Find two numbers in an array that sum to a target (Two Sum).”
The naive solution is O(n²). The optimal one uses a hash map and runs in O(n). Always mention the trade-off.
“Check whether a string is a palindrome.”
Clarify edge cases: spaces, punctuation, case sensitivity. A two-pointer approach is clean and efficient.
“Find the maximum subarray sum (Kadane's algorithm).”
Walk through your reasoning before coding. Interviewers want to see how you think, not just the final answer.
“Implement binary search.”
Off-by-one errors are common. Be precise about when you use < vs <=, and always confirm the input is sorted.
“Detect a cycle in a linked list.”
Floyd's cycle detection algorithm (fast and slow pointers) is the expected answer here.
“Given a tree, check whether it is balanced.”
A recursive DFS approach that returns height and a balanced flag in one pass is the most efficient solution.
“FizzBuzz: print numbers 1 to 100, replacing multiples of 3 with 'Fizz', multiples of 5 with 'Buzz', and multiples of both with 'FizzBuzz'.”
It sounds trivial but reveals how you structure conditionals. Order your if-else checks carefully.
3. System design
System design interviews are open-ended. There's no single correct answer. What the interviewer is evaluating is your ability to reason about trade-offs and communicate your decisions clearly.
“Design a URL shortener (like bit.ly).”
Cover the API design, hash generation, database schema, and read/write scalability. Mention caching for high-traffic URLs.
“Design a rate limiter.”
Discuss token bucket vs sliding window algorithms. Where the state lives (in-memory vs Redis) matters a lot here.
“Design a real-time chat system (like Slack or WhatsApp).”
Think about WebSockets for real-time delivery, message persistence, and how you handle offline users.
“Design a social media news feed (like Twitter or Instagram).”
Fan-out on write vs fan-out on read is the core trade-off. Discuss how you'd handle celebrities with millions of followers.
“Design a notification system.”
Cover delivery channels (push, email, SMS), retry logic, deduplication, and user preferences.
“How would you scale a relational database?”
Talk about read replicas, connection pooling, sharding strategies, and when to move to a NoSQL solution.
“Design a distributed cache.”
Cover cache invalidation strategies, eviction policies (LRU, LFU), and consistency trade-offs with the source of truth.
“How would you design the backend API for a product like Uber?”
Start with requirements: riders, drivers, matching, pricing. Then break it into services and discuss the data model.
4. Cultural fit
Also called the behavioural interview. These questions assess how you work with others, handle conflict, and respond to pressure. Use specific examples from your experience rather than generic answers.
“Tell me about a time you disagreed with a teammate. How did you resolve it?”
Use the STAR method: Situation, Task, Action, Result. Show that you can disagree respectfully and reach a decision together.
“What is your biggest professional failure, and what did you learn from it?”
Be specific and honest. Interviewers are looking for self-awareness and the ability to learn from mistakes, not perfection.
“How do you handle tight deadlines or high-pressure situations?”
Give a real example. Mention how you prioritise, communicate with stakeholders, and avoid cutting corners on quality.
“How do you give and receive feedback?”
Show that feedback is a two-way process for you. Mention specific techniques, like asking clarifying questions or focusing on behaviour rather than the person.
“How do you prioritise tasks when everything feels urgent?”
Mention frameworks you use (like impact vs effort, or talking to stakeholders to align on true priority) rather than just saying 'I make a list'.
“Describe your ideal work environment.”
Be genuine but also show flexibility. Mention things like autonomy, clear ownership, or async-first communication if they apply to you.
“Where do you see yourself in five years?”
You don't need a perfect answer, but show ambition and direction. Align it with the kind of role you're applying for.
“How do you stay up to date with technology?”
Mention specific resources: blogs, newsletters, open-source projects, conferences, or side projects. Avoid vague answers like 'I Google things'.
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Written by
Roxana LafuenteLingua-e's founder
Roxana Lafuente is a software engineer with 8+ years of experience. At the beginning of her career, even though she had already passed the First Certificate in English, she still froze every time she had to speak up in the daily standup. That was a gap nobody was fixing. After 2,000+ standups, she figured out what actually builds fluency: practice that looks like your real work. She built Lingua-e so other developers wouldn't have to take the long road to feel confident working in an international development environment.