Please walk me through the process you use when assigned a programming project, starting with defining the requirements and going through delivery.
An interviewer will be interested in how you approach a software development project. They want to confirm that your approach is well organized, logical, and, most importantly, aligns with the one used by their current software development team. This last criterion will determine your fit for the organization or whether you need to be re-educated on their processes and procedures.
"When assigned a new software development project, I use a very structured approach to manage the software development lifecycle or SDLC from start to finish. I first analyze the requirements to ensure that I understand what the users want to accomplish with the program. I then develop the program's specifications based on its functionality and intended outcomes. Next, I put together a development plan with specific stages, benchmarks, and a budget. The next step is to delegate the development tasks among the team based on their skill sets and experience. Together, we execute the development plan during which I monitor our progress and make any changes necessary to keep the development team on schedule and under budget. Once the programming is complete, we move on to the testing phase, which involves various tests, bug fixes, and sometimes reprogramming. The final stage is deployment, in which we present the program to the end-users to ensure it meets their needs, then put it into production."
When responding to this question, walk the interviewer through your process, starting from the initial requirements analysis and going through development, testing, and product launch. Keep your explanation at a high level with few details. The interviewer will ask a follow-up question if they want to explore your methodology in more detail.
Community answers are written by other candidates practicing this set. Reading how others frame the same question is one of the fastest ways to sharpen your own.
Anonymous Answer
I follow a structured process to coordinate efforts between teams to ensure the clients' needs are delivered on time and on budget. The process begins with a Business Analyst and the Project Owner working with the client to assess their needs and define requirements. I review those requirements and work with the BA and PO to refine any requirements that are not clearly defined or require further input from the client. Once the requirements are refined and finalized, I will estimate the number of hours required for the project for both the development and QA teams. From there, the cost of the project is determined and handed over to the client for them to sign an SOW. Once the SOW is signed, I work with the Project Manager to create any additional epics, stories, and tasks in JIRA for the project. I will then ensure the requirements are defined in the appropriate tickets for each software component and then break out the development and QA estimates across the tickets. From there, the Project Manager and I will break out the work into sprints. Once the tickets are finalized and ready for development, and I will delegate the tasks to the developers based on their experience and abilities. From there, our team has daily standups where we will use our Kanban board to track the progress of the current Sprint and we can address any concerns or problems the developers are encountering so we can address them and ensure we stay within the timelines. Once development finishes, the code is handed over to QA to deploy and test. After testing, I will create a production build and schedule the deployment to production.
Amanda's Feedback
Fantastic! You've clearly outlined your programming project approach from ideation all the way through to delivery of final results. You've laid it out logically and in a way that the interviewer will be able to easily follow your methodology.
Unlock all 47 Senior Software Engineer questions
Unlock expert responses to system design and leadership questions interviewers expect.
Get Started