What are some typical questions in the YIF Telephonic interview?

What sort of questions can one expect in a 1-hour telephonic technical interview for the position of a Software Developer at Yahoo!?

• Since this is a telephonic round and it's hard to convey ideas very clearly, how should I be preparing? Any specific topics I must pay special attention to?

• Answer:

  Remember : The technical interview depends on various parameters, From employer side e.g. job title, responsibility, department, project type, technology type, skills type, years of experience, mind set of interviewer/interviewers, immediate requirements, firm decision for hire-nohire and many more. From candidate side e.g. the way CV (resume) was presented, the way the candidate carried the technical/non-technical discussion and many more ) ------------------------------- Straight Answer : For some engineers, the telephonic interview starts from the basic technical most needed computer science subjects questions (e.g. OS,Networking), and then it move to DS/Algorithims/Open ended questions, Or specifics (e.g Front end technology, server technology) [ as it all depends as said on "Remember" ] (Overall to judge the thought process). [ Please see the detailed General answer] I may not suggest any particular website/or toughest questions to prepare for such/interview preparation,However  most of the questions includes the trick,presence of mind, and how well you understand the most needed concepts of computer science, and most important one is : Algorithms and Data Structures. Questions may be different but all uses the very basics DS/Algo concepts to solve that) Still Sample Questions  (depends SDET or SDE  postion[ If SDET then test cases too)) [+] Given a set S of n real numbers and another real number x, determine whether or not there exist. two elements in S whose sum is exactly x. [+] Given a list of numbers (a fixed list) and another list, write a function which determines whether any element in the second list appears in the fixed list. [+] use a trie data structure to store words. every node contains a list of all letters (pointers to the same node structure) and flags for each letter to indicate the length of the word. Write a method to insert into this kind of data structure. What would you use to store each node? .... Many more....   You may design a approach which best suits to your skills/(and many others) related parameters Example: someone may use  the following approach, for a two months plan - around 250 hours to prepare software engineer/software engineer in test type of interviews for MS/Google/... Actually all these companies e.g. MS, Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple follow an approach on which that measure the thought process of a candidate. And they use different means to evaluate that, but yes most of them uses Algorithms/Data Structures/Open-ended questions(If you have applied for a software engineering job) as one of the approach to evaluate the talent.( As those are the base to develop the technologies). To be accustomed with algos/data structure/coding , you must have understood/practiced the minimum e.g. : (Step-1): You should have practical understanding of the Algorithms (e.g. When to use BackTracking, When to Use Divide and Conquer, Why double hashing required?, Where brute force concept can be applied?) (50 Hours). (Step-2): You should have practical understanding of Data Structures e.g. (Practical use cases related to :when to use circular buffer , or when to use adjacently list or the combination of both or something else to solve the problem ). (50 Hours) (Step-3) : You must practice several coding problems to implement the things which learn from Step-1 , and Step-2 (you may do the following choose any coding language for the choice of yours (C, C++ or Java or Python or PHP or any one else ). (50 Hours) (Step-4): Solving the problem doesn't mean just to solve it, but to understand the best way to solve it e.g. The given technical problem can use various ways to come to solution, and you might want to use the optimal one. (How you connect the given solution with the computing/memory resources e.g. Memory/Processing Power) (50 Hours) However the Most Important One. However other than programming you might need to understand the main concept for the interview is to keep the interview active and this requires some action from your side, such as the following: You need to talk. You need to explain. You need to discuss. You need to express your views. You need to understand clearly the questions given to you. You need to understand the interviewer’s expression and mindset to un- derstand those questions. You might need to ask appropriate questions to understand the question or any other discussion item. (50 Hours) And also : Prepare : "Please tell me about your self" , "Your skills related positive/negative further interest" , Basics for the most needed computer science concepts or anything as you presented on your "CV/Resume". (10 Hours) Above is just a sample plan, you may customize the way you want(e.g. 50 hours to 10 hours or something else) - Click to Amazon, to find the best books you might need (e.g. cormen algorithms) (Here Google doesn't mean the Google, it means any company which is very creative to introduce the computer science related products ). (Assuming you are spending 4 hours everyday )