7 Technical Interview Tips for Software Engineering Internship

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You’ve already submitted both your resume and cover letter and are waiting to be contacted for interview. This article outlines important technical tips related to custom software development, to help you prepare for the pending interview. With regard to this article, we shall look deeper into the technical questions that you expect during the interview.

1. Make a Good First Impression

When presented with an interview, you get an opportunity to market yourself. That’s the reason behind the resumes and cover letters you prepared and sent out. During the interview, ensure to be prompt, be yourself and observe the correct non-verbal communication cues. These include a firm handshake and maintaining eye contact with interviewers throughout the interview. Ensure to be poised and comfortable, and also appear relaxed. A good first impression is usually a precursor to a successful interview.

2. Be Ready for Over the Phone Interview

At this point, the interview is just a warm up and will involve very basic questions. The idea is to weigh your ability to solve basic programming problems. Therefore, it is important to know the interviewers’ expectation at this point. To achieve this, you need to refresh your knowledge on the following.

  • Fizz Buzz
  • 560 . Subarray Sum Equals K
  • Nth Fibonacci

However, if you didn’t get through these three problems in school you need not worry. It is common not to get an internship on your first trial. It takes time to make it and you might find the first few interviews quite challenging.

A to ensure you keep up with the interviewers’ expectation, you could look for someone to help you with mock interviews as you study. These mock interviews sharpen your communication and problem-solving skills. Moreover, it helps in coding interviews that are part of software development. This is because your mock interviewer will guide you assuming they are well versed in coding. Choose an interviewer who is able to redirect you when things go off course. This avoids wasting time elaborating on a solution that is totally off. It is unfortunate if you choose someone who tries to solve the problem themselves, rather than give you a guideline of what would be the expectation in the actual interview.

As a precaution, know that most companies require you to be conversant with algorithms and data structures. These topics form the focus of most interview questions, therefore, analyze which topics are your weak points.

3. Prepare for Questions on Algorithms and Data Structures

There are a number of data structures and algorithm problems to be expected. These can be overwhelming and you may not know the answers to all of them. Therefore, go through them slowly and don’t get stressed out. It’s just part of the process so just think through your solutions slowly and precisely. These expected queries include.

  1. 986. Sum of Even Numbers After Queries
  2. 657. Robot Return to Origin
  3. 961. N- Repeated Element in Size 2N Array
  4. 110. Balanced Binary Tree

The best approach to these problems is to take a piece of paper and try to draw pictures of what you intend to do. Draw it in images to help you figure out what you want to code.

4. Get Ready for System Design Questions

This is an area you should not ignore just because you are an intern. System design is used by interviewers to gauge your level of personal experience. In order to appear unique in a crowded space of interns with skills in software development India, you need to excel in an interview that involves system design. You can improve your knowledge on this issue by watching parking lot video. This gives you a good design interview question as it eliminates complex component that you may be unfamiliar with- putting emphasis on design and focusing on ambiguity.

5. Emphasize Your Accomplishments and Skills

Put emphasis on your skills and accomplishments, including volunteer and co-curricular activities, language and computer literacy skills. In case you have prior internship or work experience, outline them as well as your ability in analytical and problem solving skills.

6. Follow the Interviewers Cue

Avoid spending too much time on one question but ensure to complete any given question before proceeding on to the next. To be safe, you can check with the interview to ensure you have answered the required question and to check whether there was any additional information needed.

When presented with a question, understand it before answering. There is nothing wrong asking for clarification from the interviewer. This will avoid you sounding ambiguous and making your presentation bad.

When asked to list your strengths and weaknesses, ensure to focus more on the positive. Present weakness as those aspects you need to work on and show specific examples of how this will be achieved.

Also, be ready for behavioral interviewing techniques. This kind of an interview will have the interviewer present you with a scenario and ask you to provide solution to a given problem. Having anticipated such questions will find you at ease and you will provide relevant answers when prompted.

If you are in the field of providing software development services, it is helpful to bring samples of your work. This could be derived from your former internships you may have had, and will help to make your skills look more solid.

7. Be Confident when Closing the Interview

The two most important parts of an interview are the opening and the closing. Therefore, have confidence as you conclude your interview. At this point, you can thank the interviewers and probably ask them when to expect further communication. This will further cement your ability to create rapport with other people.

Conclusion

Moreover, follow up the interview with a vote of thanks, and use this opportunity to clarify a topic from the interview to cement your interest in the company and the internship. Thank everyone who participated in interviewing you.

Software engineering interviews can be hard and very exhausting, especially when you don’t know how to anticipate them. Reading the above technical tips and others on general preparedness will make the experience less tasking and more eye opening.

Abhishek Pareek
Abhishek Pareek, Founder & Chief Executive Officer at Cyber Infrastructure Inc. He comes from an extensive technology background and has gained vast experience in the field of Software Technology. Prior to founding Cyber Infrastructure he was associated with one of the Leading IT companies in India and has served various managerial capacities in the IT industry. He has been Managing and Leading International Software development Projects.

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