Software Engineering

Interview Questions

A list of frequently asked Software

Engineering Interview Questions and
Answers are given below.

What is Software Engineering?

Software engineering is defined as the function of the
systematic, disciplined, quantified approach to the
development, operations, and maintenance of software.

What are the elements to be considered in the System Model

Construction?
Elements to be considered in the System Model
Construction are:
Assumption o Simplification o Limitation o Constraints o
Preferences

What does a System Engineering Model accomplish?

System Engineering Model accomplishes the following:

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Define Processes that serve needs of view o Represent
behavior of process and assumption o Explicitly define
Exogenous and Endogenous Input o It represents all
Linkages that enable an engineer to understand aspect
better.

Define Framework.
A framework is the Code Skeleton that can be fleshed out
with particular classes or functionality and designed to
address the specific problem at hand.

5) What are the characteristics of the software?

Characteristics of the software are:
Software is engineered, not manufactured. o Software
does not wear out.
Most software is custom-built rather than being
assembled from components.

6) What are the various categories of software?

The various categories of software are:
System software Application.
Software Engineering / Scientific. o Software Embedded
software.
Web Applications. o Artificial Intelligence software.

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7) What are the challenges in software?
The challenges in the software are:
Copying with legacy systems.
Heterogeneity challenge.
Delivery times challenge.

8) Define Software process.

A software process is defined as the structured set of
activities that are required to develop the software
system.

9) What are the internal milestones?

They are the significant and quantifiable attributes of
progress. They are the standard methods in the project
which provide that we are on the right track. They are
under the authority of the project manager.

10) What is the limitation of RAD Model?

Limitation of RAD Model are:
It requires a sufficient number of Human Resources to
create enough number of teams.
Developers and Users are not committed,the system fails.
It is not Properly Modularized building component may be
Problematic.
It is not applicable when there is more possibility for
Technical Risk.

11) What are the disadvantages of classic life cycle model?

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Disadvantages of the classic life cycle model are: o Real
projects rarely follow the sequential flow. Iteration
always occurs and creates a problem.
Challenging for the customer to state all requirements. o
The working version of the program is not available. So
the customer must have patience.

12) What are the merits of the incremental model?

The merits of the incremental model are:
The incremental model can be accepted when there is less
number of people include in the project.
Technical risks can be handle with each increment.
For a minimal period, at least the core product can be
delivered to the user.

13) What is the disadvantage of the spiral model?

The disadvantage of the spiral model are:
It is based on user communication. If the interface is not
proper, then the software product which gets created will
not be the up to the mark.
It demands a vast risk assessment. If the risk assessment
is completed correctly, then only the successful product
can be obtained.

14) Name the Evolutionary process Models.

Evolutionary powers models are:
Incremental model o Spiral model o WIN-WIN spiral model
o Concurrent Development

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15) Define Software Prototyping.
Software prototyping is represented as rapid software
development for validating the requirements.

16) What are the benefits of prototyping?

The benefits of prototyping are:
Prototype services as a basis for developing system
specification.
Design quality can be revised. o The system can be
managed easily.
Development efforts may get decreased. o System
usability can be upgraded.

17) What are the prototyping methods in software process?

The prototyping methods in the software process are:
Evolutionary prototyping: In this method of system
development, the initial prototype is arranged, and it is
then precise through the number of phases to the final
stage.
Throw-away prototyping: Using this method, a rough
practical implementation of the system is produced. The
requirement issues can be identified from this
implementation. It is then rejected. System is then
developed using some various engineering paradigm.

18) What are the advantages of evolutionary prototyping?

The advantages of evolutionary prototyping are:
Fast delivery of the working system.

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User is contained while developing the system. o The more
useful system can be delivered.
Specification, design and implementation work in
equivalent manner.

19) What are the various Rapid prototyping techniques?

The various rapid prototyping techniques are:
Dynamic high-level language development.
Database programming. o Component and application
assembly.

20) What are the uses of User-Interface Prototyping?

This prototyping is used to pre-specify the looks and
effectively feel of customer interface.

21) What is the principle of the prototype model?

A prototype is built to quickly determine to the user what
the product would look like. The only minimal
functionality of the actual product is supported during the
prototyping phase.

Define System Context Diagram (SCD)?

System Context Diagram (SCD):
o Establishdata boundary between System being
implemented and Environment in which system operates.
o Describes all external producers, external consumers,
and entities that communicate through the customer
interface.

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Define Quality Function Deployment (QFD)?
Quality Function Deployment (QFD) is a method that
translates the needs of the user into a technical
requirement. It concentrates on maximizing user
satisfaction from the software engineering process.

What is Requirement Engineering?

Requirement engineering is the process of establishing
services which the user required from the system and
constraint under which it operates and is developed.

What is ERD?
Entity Relationship Diagram is the graphical description of
the object relationship pair. It is primarily used in the
database application.

What is DFD?
Data Flow Diagram depicts the data flow and the
transforms which are applied to the data as it moves from
input to output.

27) What is a state transition diagram?

State transition diagram is a collection of states and
events. The events cause the operation to change its
state. It also describes what actions are to be taken on
the occurrence of particular events.
What is Software Quality Assurance?

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Software Quality Assurance is a set of auditing and
documenting functions that assess the effectiveness and
completeness of quality control activities.

What is the use of CMM?

Software Quality means Conformance to state functional
explicitly and performance requirements, explicitly
documented development standards, inherent
characteristics expected for professionally developed
software.

30) What is coupling?

Coupling is the significant measure of the degree to which
classes are linked to one another. Coupling should be kept
as low as possible.

31) What is cohesion?

Cohesion is the indication of the relative functional
strength of a module. It is a natural extension of
Information Hiding and Performs a single task, requiring
little integration with other components.

32) Define Refactoring.

Refactoring means changing a software system in a way
that does not alter the external behavior of code.

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33) What is Software Architecture?
Software Architecture means the overall structure of the
software and how that software provides conceptual
integrity for the system.

34) Define Stamp coupling.

When a portion of the data structure is passed via the
module interface, then it is called as stamp coupling.

35) Define common coupling.

When several modules reference a global data area, then
the coupling is called common coupling.

36) Define temporal cohesion.

When a module contains tasks that are related by the fact
that all must be executed within the same period, then it
is termed as temporal cohesion.

37) Define metrics.

Metrics are defined as the degree to which a system
component or process possesses a given attribute.

38) What is COCOMO model?

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Constructive Cost Model is a cost model, which gives the
estimate of several staff-months it will take to develop the
software product.

39) What is the purpose of the timeline chart?

The objective of the timeline chart is to emphasize the
scope of the individual task. Hence set of functions are
given as input to the timeline chart.

40) Define Smoke Testing?

Smoke testing is Integration Testing and frequently used
when software products are being developed.

41) What are the benefits of Smoke Testing?

Benefits of doing Smoke Testing are:
Integration Risk is minimized.
Quality of end-product is improved.
Error diagnosis and Correction are simplified. o Progress is
easy to assess.

42) What is Equivalence Partition?

Equivalence Partitions Derives an input domain of a
program into classes of data from which test cases are
derived. It is a Set of Objects have linked by relationships
as Symmetric, Transitive, and Reflexive an equivalence
class is present.

43) What are the steps followed in testing?

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The steps followed in testing are:
Unit testing: The individual elements are tested in this type
of testing.
Module testing: Related group of independent items is
tested. o Sub-system testing: This is a type of integration
testing. Different modules are integrated into a sub-
system, and the entire subsystem is tested.
System testing: The entire system is tested in this system.
Acceptance testing: This type of testing contains testing of
the system with user data if the system behaves as per
client need, then it is accepted.

44) Distinguish between Alpha and Beta testing.

Alpha and Beta testings are the two types of acceptance
testing.
Alpha test: The alpha testing is attesting in which the
customer tests the version of complete software under the
supervision of the developer. This testing is implement at
the developer's site.
Beta test: The beta testing is a testing in which the
customer tests the version of the software without the
developer being present. This testing is performed at the
customer's site.

45) What are the types of Static Testing tools?

There are the three types of static testing tools.
Code-based testing tools: These tools take source code as
input and generate test cases.

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Specialized testing tools: Using this language, the detailed
test specification can be written for each test case.
Requirement-based testing tools: These tools help in
designing as per user requirements.

46) Define maintenance.

Maintenance is described as the process in which changes
are implemented by either modifying the existing system?s
architecture or by adding new components to the

47) What are the types of software maintenance?

Types of software maintenance are:
Corrective Maintenance: It means the maintenance for
correcting the software faults.
Adaptive maintenance: It means maintenance for adapting
the change in environment.
Perfective maintenance: It means modifying or enhancing
the system to meet the new requirements.
Preventive maintenance: It means changes made to
improve future maintainability.

What is CASE Tools?

CASE Tools stands for Computer-Aided Software
Engineering. It is system software that provides automated
support for software process activities. It contains program

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used to support software process operations such as
Requirement Analysis, System Modeling. Debugging and
Testing.

What is Risk management?

Risk management is the phase of anticipating hurdles in
carrying out the original plan and providing alternate
methods so that the impact on the anticipated initially
outcome is minimal.
Q.What is computer software?
A. Computer software is a complete package, which includes software
program, its documentation and user guide on how to use the
software. Q.Can you differentiate computer software and computer
program?
A. A computer program is piece of programming code which performs
a well defined task where as software includes programming code, its
documentation and user guide.
Q.What is software engineering?
A. Software engineering is an engineering branch associated with
software system development.
Q.When you know programming, what is the need to learn software
engineering concepts?
A. A person who knows how to build a wall may not be good at
building an entire house. Likewise, a person who can write programs
may not have knowledge of other concepts of Software Engineering.
The software engineering concepts guide programmers on how to
assess requirements of end user, design the algorithms before actual
coding starts, create programs by coding, testing the code and its
documentation.
Q.What is software process or Software Development Life Cycle
(SDLC)?

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A.Software Development Life Cycle, or software process is the
systematic development of software by following every stage in the
development process namely, Requirement Gathering, System
Analysis, Design, Coding, Testing, Maintenance and Documentation in
that order.
Q.What are SDLC models available?
A. There are several SDLC models available such as Waterfall Model,
Iterative Model, Spiral model, V-model and Big-bang Model etc. Q.What
are various phases of SDLC?
A. The generic phases of SDLC are: Requirement Gathering, System
Analysis and Design, Coding, Testing and implementation. The phases
depend upon the model we choose to develop software. Q.Which
SDLC model is the best?
A. SDLC Models are adopted as per requirements of development
process. It may very software-to-software to ensuring which model is
suitable.
We can select the best SDLC model if following answers are satisfied -
Is SDLC suitable for selected technology to implement the software ?
Is SDLC appropriate for client’s requirements and priorities ?
Is SDLC model suitable for size and complexity of the software ?
Is the SDLC model suitable for type of projects and engineering we do
?
Is the SDLC appropriate for the geographically co-located or dispersed
developers ?
Q.What is software project management?
A. Software project management is process of managing all activities
like time, cost and quality management involved in software
development. Q.Who is software project manager?
A. A software project manager is a person who undertakes the
responsibility of carrying out the software project. Q.What does
software project manager do?

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A. Software project manager is engaged with software management
activities. He is responsible for project planning, monitoring the
progress, communication among stakeholders, managing risks and
resources, smooth execution of development and delivering the
project within time, cost and quality contraints.
Q.What is software scope?
A. Software scope is a well-defined boundary, which encompasses all
the activities that are done to develop and deliver the software
product.
The software scope clearly defines all functionalities and artifacts to
be delivered as a part of the software. The scope identifies what the
product will do and what it will not do, what the end product will
contain and what it will not contain.
Q.What is project estimation?
A. It is a process to estimate various aspects of software product in
order to calculate the cost of development in terms of efforts, time and
resources. This estimation can be derived from past experience, by
consulting experts or by using pre-defined formulas.
Q.How can we derive the size of software product?
A. Size of software product can be calculated using either of two
methods
-
Counting the lines of delivered code
Counting delivered function points Q.What are function points?
A. Function points are the various features provided by the software
product. It is considered as a unit of measurement for software size.
Q.What are software project estimation techniques available?
A. There are many estimation techniques available.The most widely
used are -
Decomposition technique (Counting Lines of Code and Function
Points)

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Empirical technique (Putnam and COCOMO). Q.What is baseline?
A. Baseline is a measurement that defines completeness of a phase.
After all activities associated with a particular phase are
accomplished, the phase is complete and acts as a baseline for next
phase. Q.What is Software configuration management?
A. Software Configuration management is a process of tracking and
controlling the changes in software in terms of the requirements,
design, functions and development of the product. Q.What is change
control?
A. Change control is function of configuration management, which
ensures that all changes made to software system are consistent and
made as per organizational rules and regulations.
Q.How can you measure project execution?
A. We can measure project execution by means of Activity Monitoring,
Status Reports and Milestone Checklists.
Q.Mention some project management tools.
A. There are various project management tools used as per the
requirements of software project and organization policies. They
include Gantt Chart, PERT Chart, Resource Histogram, Critical Path
Analysis, Status Reports, Milestone Checklists etc. Q.What are
software requirements?
A. Software requirements are functional description of proposed
software system. Requirements are assumed to be the description of
target system, its functionalities and features. Requirements convey
the expectations of users from the system.
Q.What is feasibility study?
A. It is a measure to assess how practical and beneficial the software
project development will be for an organization. The software analyzer
conducts a thorough study to understand economic, technical and
operational feasibility of the project.

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Economic - Resource transportation, cost for training, cost of
additional utilities and tools and overall estimation of costs and
benefits of the project.
Technical - Is it possible to develop this system ? Assessing suitability
of machine(s) and operating system(s) on which software will execute,
existing developers’ knowledge and skills, training, utilities or tools for
project.
Operational - Can the organization adjust smoothly to the changes
done as per the demand of project ? Is the problem worth solving ?
Q.How can you gather requirements?
A. Requirements can be gathered from users via interviews, surveys,
task analysis, brainstorming, domain analysis, prototyping, studying
existing usable version of software, and by observation. Q.What is
SRS?
A. SRS or Software Requirement Specification is a document
produced at the time of requirement gathering process. It can be also
seen as a process of refining requirements and documenting them.
Q.What are functional requirements?
A. Functional requirements are functional features and specifications
expected by users from the proposed software product. Q.What are
non-functional requirements?
A. Non-functional requirements are implicit and are related to security,
performance, look and feel of user interface, interoperability, cost etc.
Q.What is software measure?
A. Software Measures can be understood as a process of quantifying
and symbolizing various attributes and aspects of software. Q.What is
software metric?
A. Software Metrics provide measures for various aspects of software
process and software product. They are divided into –
Requirement metrics : Length requirements, completeness
Product metrics :Lines of Code, Object oriented metrics, design and
test metrics

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Process metrics: Evaluate and track budget, schedule, human
resource.
Q.What is modularization?
A. Modularization is a technique to divide a software system into
multiple discreet modules, which are expected to carry out task(s)
independently. Q.What is concurrency and how it is achieved in
software?
A. Concurrency is the tendency of events or actions to happen
simultaneously. In software, when two or more processes execute
simultaneously, they are called concurrent processes.
Example
While you initiate print command and printing starts, you can open a
new application.
Concurrency, is implemented by splitting the software into multiple
independent units of execution namely processes and threads, and
executing them in parallel. Q.What is cohesion?
A. Cohesion is a measure that defines the degree of intra-
dependability among the elements of the module. Q.What is coupling?
A. Coupling is a measure that defines the level of inter-dependability
among modules of a program.
Q.Mentions some software analysis & design tools?
A. These can be: DFDs (Data Flow Diagrams), Structured Charts,
Structured English, Data Dictionary, HIPO (Hierarchical Input Process
Output) diagrams, ER (Entity Relationship) Diagrams and Decision
tables. Q.What is level-0 DFD?
A. Highest abstraction level DFD is known as Level 0 DFD also called a
context level DFD, which depicts the entire information system as one
diagram concealing all the underlying details.
Q.What is the difference between structured English and Pseudo
Code?

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A. Structured English is native English language used to write the
structure of a program module by using programming language
keywords, whereas, Pseudo Code is more close to programming
language and uses native English language words or sentences to
write parts of code. Q.What is data dictionary?
A. Data dictionary is referred to as meta-data. Meaning, it is a
repository of data about data. Data dictionary is used to organize the
names and their references used in system such as objects and files
along with their naming conventions.
Q.What is structured design?
A. Structured design is a conceptualization of problem into several
wellorganized elements of solution. It is concern with the solution
design and based on ‘divide and conquer’ strategy.
Q.What is the difference between function oriented and object oriented
design?
A. Function-oriented design is comprised of many smaller sub-
systems known as functions. Each function is capable of performing
significant task in the system. Object oriented design works around
the real world objects (entities), their classes (categories) and methods
operating on objects (functions).
Q.Briefly define top-down and bottom-up design model.
A. Top-down model starts with generalized view of system and
decomposes it to more specific ones, whereas bottom-up model starts
with most specific and basic components first and keeps composing
the components to get higher level of abstraction.
Q.What is the basis of Halstead’s complexity measure?
A. Halstead’s complexity measure depends up on the actual
implementation of the program and it considers tokens used in the
program as basis of measure.
Q.Mention the formula to calculate Cyclomatic complexity of a
program?
A. Cyclomatic complexity uses graph theory’s formula: V(G) = e – n + 2

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Q.What is functional programming?
A. Functional programming is style of programming language, which
uses the concepts of mathematical function. It provides means of
computation as mathematical functions, which produces results
irrespective of program state.
Q.Differentiate validation and verification?
A. Validation checks if the product is made as per user requirements
whereas verification checks if proper steps are followed to develop the
product.
Validation confirms the right product and verification confirms if the
product is built in a right way.
Q.What is black-box and white-box testing?
A. Black-box testing checks if the desired outputs are produced when
valid input values are given. It does not verify the actual
implementation of the program.
White-box testing not only checks for desired and valid output when
valid input is provided but also it checks if the code is implemented
correctly.
Black Box White Box
Criteria
Testing Testing
Knowledge of software program,
Yes
No design and structure essential
Knowledge of Software
No Yes
Implementation essential
Who conducts this test on Software Testing Software
software Employee Developer

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 Design and
Requirements baseline reference for tester
structure
specifications
details
Q.Quality assurance vs. Quality Control?
A. Quality Assurance monitors to check if proper process is followed
while software developing the software.
Quality Control deals with maintaining the quality of software product.
Q.What are various types of software maintenance?
A. Maintenance types are: corrective, adaptive, perfective and
preventive.
Corrective
Removing errors spotted by users
Adaptive tackling the changes in the hardware and software
environment where the software works
Perfective maintenance implementing changes in existing or new
requirements of user
Preventive maintenance taking appropriate measures to avoid future
problems Q.What is software re-engineering?
A. Software re-engineering is process to upgrade the technology on
which the software is built without changing the functionality of the
software. This is done in order to keep the software tuned with the
latest technology. Q.What are CASE tools?
A. CASE stands for Computer Aided Software Engineering. CASE tools
are set of automated software application programs, which are used to
support, accelerate and smoothen the SDLC activities.

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