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2,034 senior backend engineer interview questions shared by candidates

Different ways to implement and manage threads in Java? Pros and cons of each approach. Why a thread pool size shouldn't be too large or too small? Different way of distributing/batching work across threads. Scaling with queues and databases. How would you implement a distributed rate limiter? (Hint: learn the rate-limiting algorithms). Pros and cons for every question asked.
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Senior Backend Engineer

Interviewed at Monzo Bank

3.9★
Feb 12, 2026

Different ways to implement and manage threads in Java? Pros and cons of each approach. Why a thread pool size shouldn't be too large or too small? Different way of distributing/batching work across threads. Scaling with queues and databases. How would you implement a distributed rate limiter? (Hint: learn the rate-limiting algorithms). Pros and cons for every question asked.

1-) Codility questions even one question leads people differently. We spoke it in the third interview and the guy told me yes you are right he had to change the question but the result seems fine. 2-) The position is Senior Backend Engineer but it's not correct it should have been Senior Devops BackEnd Engineer. Because they asked many Operations questions such like Kubernetes. 3-) I was expecting some technical questions such like what are design patterns or what are the difference between java versions but it was completely different. They asked more operations rather than development. If I studied Kubernetes better, I guess the solution would be better but it won't show if you are a good developer or not.
avatar

Senior Backend Engineer

Interviewed at Zalando

3.6★
Feb 2, 2020

1-) Codility questions even one question leads people differently. We spoke it in the third interview and the guy told me yes you are right he had to change the question but the result seems fine. 2-) The position is Senior Backend Engineer but it's not correct it should have been Senior Devops BackEnd Engineer. Because they asked many Operations questions such like Kubernetes. 3-) I was expecting some technical questions such like what are design patterns or what are the difference between java versions but it was completely different. They asked more operations rather than development. If I studied Kubernetes better, I guess the solution would be better but it won't show if you are a good developer or not.

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