Senior Software Engineer Mock Interview
Practice 47 Senior Software Engineer interview questions covering system design, architecture decisions, and technical leadership.
Question 6 of 47
What methodologies do you use to ensure that your program will scale?
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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.
Creating programs that scale is a critical skill in today's fast-changing business environment. Businesses need appropriate applications for their current size and activity level but that can also grow as the business grows. Developing scalable programs saves the business money during the initial development cycle. Also, it prevents them from reprogramming the applications or adopting new ones when the business activity increases beyond the capability of the current program.
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.
"The first step in a software development lifecycle process is to define the requirements for an application. During this phase, I inquire about the possibility of the operation related to the program expanding or growing and the need for the program to scale. Once I confirm this need, I'd then go about developing a program with scalable features. The methodologies I use to accomplish this include using microservices instead of a monolithic architecture, assigning the appropriate caching, queues, and databases, and selecting the appropriate development language and deployment platform. Languages I prefer for scalable programs include Ruby and Django if it is a web application. I'm also more inclined to develop the application to run on a cloud platform which provides the greatest flexibility and scaling."
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.
Your answer to this question should discuss the specific techniques and methodologies you use to accomplish the objective of ensuring that the program will scale. The more detailed you are, the better your answer will be perceived, and you will be more likely to be considered a viable candidate for this position. As with any question, be prepared for a follow-up which the interviewer will use to explore the topic in more detail.
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Scalable applications begin with a mindset that should be shared by the development team. I would talk to my team and discuss the importance of scalability and ensure they understand what scalability is and how it can be achieved. For the methodology, I would design a microservice-based application with scalable communication layers such as message queuing services and a database capable of horizontal scaling. NoSQL databases such as Mongo offer excellent built-in sharding capabilities and are easily scaled into clusters. Amazon RDS can also be utilized to horizontally scale-out relational databases if SQL or some other relational database is a better fit for the application. Once the microservice design fits the requirements to be horizontally scaled, database operations would need to be determined if they must follow ACID transactions to avoid a conflict with another process. Finally, I would highly recommend the application be hosted on a cloud service since most major cloud providers offer the ability to auto-scale applications based on pre-defined thresholds.
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Excellent! You've explained the various steps you take and aspects you consider to ensure that an application is scalable. You can enhance your answer further by confirming that you've used these methodologies across a variety of projects or industries to help meet business needs. If possible, share an example that shows you've done work that's similar to what you'd be doing in the role you're applying to. This helps further emphasize that you're a great fit for the position.
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