Are you searching for software engineering interview questions? Do you want to strengthen your software engineering fundamentals? Here are 25 frequently asked software engineering questions.
“The systematic application of scientific and technological knowledge, methods, and experience to the design, implementation, testing, and documentation of software”—The Bureau of Labor Statistics—IEEE Systems and software engineering. Source: Wikipedia
1. What do you mean by software engineering?
Software Engineering is the process of developing a software product using a well-defined systematic approach. In other words, it is the development of software through scientific principles, methods, and procedures.
2. What is the need for learning software engineering?
Imagine a person who is good at building a wall. He may not be good at constructing a house. Similarly, a person who can write programs may not know how to develop and implement software through a well-defined systematic approach. Hence, there is a need for programmers to adhere to software engineering concepts such as requirement gathering, planning, development, testing, and documentation to build robust and error-free software.
3. What is SDLC or software development life cycle?
SDLC defines a set of guidelines to be followed while developing a software product. SDLC has different phases: gathering requirements, analysis, planning, development, testing, implementation, maintenance, and documentation. The order of the SDLC phases mentioned may vary depending upon the model chosen.
4. What are the different types of SDLC models?
Many models have been proposed to carry out software implementation efficiently. Some of them include the Waterfall Model, Agile Model, Spiral Model, Iterative Model, and V-Model.
5. What is the role of a software project manager?
Software engineering interview questions also focus on different roles pertaining to the domain. The project manager is responsible for driving the software project in a systematic approach. Some of the key roles and responsibilities of a software project manager include project planning, tracking the progress of the project, risk management, resource management, execution of development activities, and delivering the project while maintaining cost, time, and quality constraints.
6. What is a software project scope?
A scope is used to outline the activities performed to design, develop, and deliver a software product. A scope contains information on the project deliverables and what it does not achieve. The scope also provides details on what the developed software product contains (functional and technical limitations).
7. What is software project estimation?
Software project estimation is a process to calculate the development costs like the efforts, times, and resources required to deliver a project. Project estimations are derived through past project experiences, by roping in consulting experts, or with the help of standard predefined business formulas.
8. What are functional points?
Functional points are used to measure the size of the software product. In some businesses, scenarios play a key role in tracking and estimating project delivery. A Functional point is a unit of measurement to express the amount of business functionality.
9. What is a baseline?
Baselines are used by project managers to track the overall project delivery status. Baselines are usually placed to keep a check on the tasks listed under a phase or stage. They help project managers to track and monitor the overall execution of a project.
10. What is software configuration management?
Software configuration management helps users to track the overall changes made during software product delivery. Updates or changes made to the software are tracked in terms of development and requirement gathering.
11. What is change control?
Change control tracks the changes made in software to ensure consistency and that the updates are incorporated as per the enterprise standards.
12. Mention a few project management tools.
Many project management tools are used as per the enterprise standards. Some of them are Gantt charts, PERT charts, milestone checklists, histograms, MS project, and status reports.
Must Read: Top 10 Essential Software Testing Interview Question
13. What is a software requirement?
Requirements play a key role in providing a detailed description of the software product being developed. Software requirements help the developers and other support teams associated with the project’s delivery to understand the proposed target system and user expectations about the final product.
14. What do you mean by a feasibility study?
A feasibility study is performed to assess the beneficial and practical attributes of software development. A thorough analysis is performed by an organization using a feasibility study to understand the economic, operational, and technical aspects involved in a software project’s delivery.
- Economic: Economic study involves costs related to resource management, training costs, tools utilized, and project estimation costs.
- Technical: Technical study helps the business to analyze the technical aspects involved in software delivery such as machines, operating systems, knowledge, skills of resource allocated, tools utilized, and training.
- Operational: Operational study helps businesses to study change management and the issues that may arise while operating the software product.
15. What are functional and non- functional requirements?
Functional requirements are used to specify the functional features as per the business requirements. For example, adding a payment option to buy content from a website is a functional requirement.
Non- functional requirements provide insights into security, performance, user interface, interoperability costs, etc.
16. What are software metrics?
Metrics are used to guide software product delivery as per the business standards. Metrics can also be used to measure a few features of software product delivery. They are divided into requirement metrics, product metrics, performance metrics, and process metrics.
17. What is modularization?
Modularization divides the software system tasks into multiple components. The components are independent of each other, and the tasks invoked in each module are executed independently.
18. What is concurrency and how is it achieved in software product delivery?
A question on concurrency falls in the list of advanced software engineering interview questions. Concurrency is the process of executing multiple events or tasks simultaneously. Concurrency is achieved with the help of modules, events, and tasks associated with software project delivery.
19. What is cohesion?
Cohesion measures the intra-dependability among various attributes defined in a module.
20. What is coupling?
Coupling measures the inter-dependability of various elements defined in a module.
21. What are some software analysis and design tools?
Some of the key software analysis & design tools are Data flow Diagrams (DFD), Structured Charts, Data Dictionary, UML (Unified Modeling Languages) diagrams, and ER (Entity Relationship) Diagrams.
22. What is DFD Level 0?
DFD (Data Flow Diagrams) Level 0 depicts the entire data flow along with all of the abstract details within a software information system. This type of DFD is also known as Context level DFD.
23. What is Data Dictionary?
A data dictionary is also known as metadata. Data Dictionary is utilized to capture the information related to the naming conventions of objects and files in a software project.
24. What is black box testing and white box testing?
- Black Box Testing: Black box testing is performed to validate the outputs generated for valid inputs. But, it does not test the implementation part of the program.
- White Box Testing: White Box testing is performed to validate the inputs, outputs, and program implementation.
25. What are the various types of software maintenance?
Software maintenance can be corrective, adaptive, perfective, or preventive.
- Corrective: This type of maintenance is used to remove the errors spotted by business users.
- Adaptive: This maintenance activity is performed to check the changes made in the hardware and software environments.
- Perfective: This type of maintenance is used to implement changes in the existing or new user requirements.
- Preventive: This maintenance activity is performed to avoid any issues in future implementations.
Have you appeared for a software engineering interview? Are there other software engineering questions one must know? Let us know in the comments.
