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Interview Questions Every Senior Engineer Should Know
Software Development Process & Leadership Questions
These questions are designed for senior engineers and tech leads who are expected to go beyond coding and demonstrate their ability to manage software development processes effectively. They don’t test your programming depth or technical knowledge directly but instead assess how well you handle team workflows, decision-making, code quality, and delivery processes in a real-world engineering environment.
1. Version Control & Branching Strategy
Question: Can you walk me through how you would set up a branching strategy for a large team working on the same codebase?
Follow-up: How do you handle hotfixes, release branches, and feature branches?
Why It Matters: Reveals whether a candidate knows practical Git workflows (e.g., Git Flow, trunk-based development) and how they manage parallel workstreams in a production environment.
Potential Approach
A good candidate might:
- Mention Git Flow or a trunk-based strategy, depending on team size and release frequency.
- Highlight how feature branches are merged into a main branch only after code review.
