Backend Engineer Interview Questions

Review this list of 12 backend engineer interview questions and answers verified by hiring managers and candidates.
  • Amazon logoAsked at Amazon 
    Video answer for 'Tell me about a time you made a mistake.'
    +87

    "Let me tell you about a time where a website I managed suddenly showed slow performance and the mistake on our side was it was unnoticed until a user reported the issue to management. As a PM for that project, I took full responsibility of the situation and worked with the engineering team to quickly resolve it. This mistake taught me the importance of focusing and monitoring non functional requirements as well in addition to new feature development /adoption where I was mostly spending my time"

    Sreenisha S. - "Let me tell you about a time where a website I managed suddenly showed slow performance and the mistake on our side was it was unnoticed until a user reported the issue to management. As a PM for that project, I took full responsibility of the situation and worked with the engineering team to quickly resolve it. This mistake taught me the importance of focusing and monitoring non functional requirements as well in addition to new feature development /adoption where I was mostly spending my time"See full answer

    Backend Engineer
    Behavioral
    +6 more
  • +8

    "Designing a system to deny services to requests from banned IPs involves integrating real-time IP checking with your service architecture. Here’s a detailed outline of how you can design such a system: System Design Overview The goal is to ensure that your service can efficiently check incoming requests against a list of banned IPs and deny access when necessary. The system will leverage an external API, security.gov.x, to determine if an IP address is blocked or allowed. **Key Compone"

    Palak A. - "Designing a system to deny services to requests from banned IPs involves integrating real-time IP checking with your service architecture. Here’s a detailed outline of how you can design such a system: System Design Overview The goal is to ensure that your service can efficiently check incoming requests against a list of banned IPs and deny access when necessary. The system will leverage an external API, security.gov.x, to determine if an IP address is blocked or allowed. **Key Compone"See full answer

    Backend Engineer
    System Design
    +2 more
  • Amazon logoAsked at Amazon 
    +4

    "Authentication verifies "Who you are." Authorization determines "What you can do." Authentication establishes identity, while authorization specifies the actions or resources a user or entity is allowed to access or perform."

    Surbhi A. - "Authentication verifies "Who you are." Authorization determines "What you can do." Authentication establishes identity, while authorization specifies the actions or resources a user or entity is allowed to access or perform."See full answer

    Backend Engineer
    Technical
    +1 more
  • Adobe logoAsked at Adobe 
    +15

    "We can use dictionary to store cache items so that our read / write operations will be O(1). Each time we read or update an existing record, we have to ensure the item is moved to the back of the cache. This will allow us to evict the first item in the cache whenever the cache is full and we need to add new records also making our eviction O(1) Instead of normal dictionary, we will use ordered dictionary to store cache items. This will allow us to efficiently move items to back of the cache a"

    Alfred O. - "We can use dictionary to store cache items so that our read / write operations will be O(1). Each time we read or update an existing record, we have to ensure the item is moved to the back of the cache. This will allow us to evict the first item in the cache whenever the cache is full and we need to add new records also making our eviction O(1) Instead of normal dictionary, we will use ordered dictionary to store cache items. This will allow us to efficiently move items to back of the cache a"See full answer

    Backend Engineer
    Data Structures & Algorithms
    +5 more
  • Booking.com logoAsked at Booking.com 
    Video answer for 'Design a metrics and logging service.'

    "For somebody who needs accessibility accommodation, this doesn't have a transcript so it is not useful to me."

    Shivastuti K. - "For somebody who needs accessibility accommodation, this doesn't have a transcript so it is not useful to me."See full answer

    Backend Engineer
    System Design
    +2 more
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  • "solving to find a cycle in directed graph"

    XponentShift32 - "solving to find a cycle in directed graph"See full answer

    Backend Engineer
    Coding
    +1 more
  • Paytm logoAsked at Paytm 
    Backend Engineer
    System Design
    +1 more
  • Canva logoAsked at Canva 
    Video answer for 'Design a key-value store.'

    "Simple file system ( Hash Map , LSM trees), and consistent hashing. I failed to discuss about conflicts ( Versioning)"

    V V. - "Simple file system ( Hash Map , LSM trees), and consistent hashing. I failed to discuss about conflicts ( Versioning)"See full answer

    Backend Engineer
    System Design
    +2 more
  • Databricks logoAsked at Databricks 
    Video answer for 'What is your leadership style?'
    +7

    "My leadership style is flexible and adaptive, it varies depending on the team members and the needs of the company. My leadership goal is to empower the team and inspire and grow leaders. In order to achieve that, I combine transformational, democratic and coaching leadership styles. Usually when we are facing a new type of challenge, or at the early stage of a project, I like to adapt the transformational leadership which allows me to listen to all the suggestions from the team members and sta"

    onering2ruleall - "My leadership style is flexible and adaptive, it varies depending on the team members and the needs of the company. My leadership goal is to empower the team and inspire and grow leaders. In order to achieve that, I combine transformational, democratic and coaching leadership styles. Usually when we are facing a new type of challenge, or at the early stage of a project, I like to adapt the transformational leadership which allows me to listen to all the suggestions from the team members and sta"See full answer

    Backend Engineer
    Behavioral
    +4 more
  • Backend Engineer
    Data Structures & Algorithms
    +1 more
  • Apple logoAsked at Apple 

    Coin Change

    IDE
    Medium
    +6

    "The example given is wrong. The 2nd test case should have answer 3, as we can get to 6 by using 3 coins of denomination 2."

    Anmol R. - "The example given is wrong. The 2nd test case should have answer 3, as we can get to 6 by using 3 coins of denomination 2."See full answer

    Backend Engineer
    Coding
    +3 more
  • Microsoft logoAsked at Microsoft 

    "voice"

    Ravi K. - "voice"See full answer

    Backend Engineer
    Product Design
    +2 more
Showing 1-12 of 12