Senior Software Engineer Mock Interview
Practice 47 Senior Software Engineer interview questions covering system design, architecture decisions, and technical leadership.
Question 12 of 47
What is harding and how is it used in the programs you create?
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William Swansen has worked in the employment assistance realm since 2007. He is an author, job search strategist, and career advisor who helps individuals worldwide and in various professions to find their ideal careers.
Interviewers will ask you about sharding for two reasons. The first is to confirm that you understand the technology and how it is used. The second is to determine how analytical you are and your approach to problem-solving. Keep both of these in mind when responding to the interviewer.
William Swansen has worked in the employment assistance realm since 2007. He is an author, job search strategist, and career advisor who helps individuals worldwide and in various professions to find their ideal careers.
"Sharding involves dividing large tables into smaller ones, which are called shards. A shard is structured as a horizontal data partition that contains a subset of the total data set, which can then serve a portion of the overall workload. The shards are then spread across multiple servers. This makes it possible to store an extensive data set and, in turn, increases the database's performance when the programs do lookups. Sharding is different than partitioning in that it distributes the individual datasets across multiple servers whereas partitioning divides the datasets but keeps them on the same server."
William Swansen has worked in the employment assistance realm since 2007. He is an author, job search strategist, and career advisor who helps individuals worldwide and in various professions to find their ideal careers.
Since this is a technical question, you should keep your answer brief and to the point. Make sure to use non-technical, easy-to-understand language and always anticipate a follow-up question. Following these guidelines for any technical question you are asked will help you to respond appropriately and perform well during the interview.
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Anonymous Answer
Sharding is a horizontal scaling method for databases. The term "sharding" means taking a large dataset from a database and dividing it into smaller subsets of data called "shards". The shards are then distributed across multiple servers which helps reduce database operation times and makes the data more manageable.
Amanda's Feedback
You've done a great job explaining sharing in a way that anyone could understand. Consider further emphasizing your ability to use it by explaining what kind of database projects you've used it with in the past. This shows the interviewer that you've used it beneficially in real-life scenarios.
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