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10 senior Python developer

interview questions and
answers
by Armin Felahatpisheh 8 min read

Python is one of the most in-demand programming languages nowadays, so

senior Python developer interview questions are among the most frequently
asked when applying for remote Python developer jobs. Python is easy to
learn, has a great community of developers, and is practiced in many fields
such as software engineering, automated testing, machine learning, back-
end engineering, and web scraping.
Below you can find some of the most important and frequently asked senior
Python developer interview questions and answers. Please remember that
these questions are for Python Core and don’t consider other application
development aspects, issues, or skills (you can check out these in our guide
to senior software engineer interview questions).
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1. What can be the keys of

a dictionary in Python?
When answering this interview question, a junior Python developer
candidate may answer None, strings, or numbers. A mid-level developer
may mention booleans, tuples, or any immutable object. However, a senior
Python developer is expected to answer that any hashable object can be
the key of a dictionary.
Any hashable object is immutable. As an example, the code below is correct
as this tuple and all of its elements are hashable. Please be aware that sets,
dictionaries, and lists are not hashable, therefore cannot be the keys of a
dictionary.

my_d = {
(12, "job", (1, 2, 3)): 123
}

2. What is CPython?
Python is an interpreted language. Its code is first interpreted by another
program (interpreter) and then compiled into something called bytecode.
Bytecode is made out of bytes that represent the machine’s instructions.
CPython is the implementation of Python whose bytecode is in the C
programming language.
On the other hand, we have Jython which bytecode is in Java or other
Python implementations.
We also have something called Cython, which is the compiled language
used to create CPython extensions. The Cython language is a superset of
Python that supports several C programming language features.

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3. What is LEGB in Python? jobs 1225 events hire d

This is an example of sr Python developer interview questions related to
scoping. When the Python interpreter is trying to look up a name, it uses the
LEGB rule to resolve the names (variable, function, and other object names).
It first checks for the existence of names in L, E, G, and B scopes in the order
below:
01. Local Scope: The area within a function body or a lambda expression.
02. Enclosing Scope: Assume we have a function called outer which has a
nested function. Enclosing scope (or nonlocal scope) is the area within
the body of outer function.
03. Global Scope: The names in this scope are visible to all code in one
Python script (in one file having a .py extension).
04. Built-in Scope: The names that exist in this scope are loaded when we
run a Python shell/script. Keywords such as in, and, or, def, class and
expressions like __main__, __file__ are some examples.

4. What are the usages of

nonlocal and global
keywords in Python?
This interview question has a direct relationship with the previous one. The
code sample below illustrates the usage of these two keywords:

variable = "hello 1" # This variable is declared in the Global scope

def fun():
global variable # Without this we would not be able to change the va
variable = "hello 2"

fun()
print(variable) # "hello 2"
………………………………………………………………..
def outer():
variable = "hello 1" # This variable is declared in a Local scope
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1. What can bePolicy
the
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2. What is CPython? show more

3. What is LEGB in jobs 1225 events hire d
Python?
4. What are the
usages of nonlocal
and global keywords

5. What is GIL and why is

in Python?
5. What is GIL and
why is it important?
6. How does Python
handle memory
management?
7. Where should we
it important?
use Python's GIL is one of the most controversial and important features of the CPython-
multithreading, based implementation of Python. GIL, or Global Interpreter Lock, is a
multiprocessing, and
asyncio libraries? construct/tool that makes sure that only one thread at a time can execute a
8. How does importing Python program. In other words, this lock belongs to the Python interpreter
in Python work? and it uses it to lock a thread.
9. What is a closure in
Python? For example, thread T1 acquires GIL and does its job. While the Python
10. How do you write interpreter is using GIL to lock T1, all other threads have to wait. After T1
scalable code in finishes, it releases GIL and passes it to another thread T2 that needs it. The
Python?
reason for the GIL presence is to make CPython thread-safe and not allow
Conclusion some threads to interfere with one another.
SHARE LINKS

6. How does Python

handle memory
management?
Before answering senior Python interview questions like this one, you must
be aware that we are talking about the CPython implementation. Other
Python implementations may have different rules and requirements for
memory management.
Assume you have a Python script and you want to execute it. When you
execute this file, the Python interpreter occupies some “area” of the RAM.
This “area” itself is divided into two categories: the stack and the private
heap.
Now assume that in this script we have declared a string object a = “hello”.
When we execute this script, the CPython memory management system
creates an object of type string on the private heap. This object contains
three fields:
Type: This is a string (note that Python is a dynamically typed
programming language, so it will understand your object type to store).
Value: This is “hello”.
Reference count: It shows the number of times that a has been
referenced. For now, it is 1.
Now on the stack, the reference to a (that is stored on the private heap) is
stored. There exists a tool called a garbage collector. The garbage
collector’s job is to delete the objects (on the private heap) that are no
By continuing to use thislonger referenced,
site, you agree meaning, it deletes the objects whose reference count
to Cookie Policy reached zero. This way the garbage collector frees up some memory space
for the Python interpreter.
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7. Where should we use jobs 1225 events hire d

Python's multithreading,
multiprocessing, and
asyncio libraries?
To answer this question, we need some background knowledge. We divide
the operations that we want our Python code to do into two categories:
CPU-bound operations such as parsing, image processing, string
manipulation, and algorithms involving heavy calculations. We can use
parallelism for these types of operations. Basically, parallel
programming is when we create different processes to divide a job
among them and they all do the job simultaneously. Each process has
its own GIL, Python interpreter, memory space, and state information.
In Python, we use the multiprocessing library to achieve parallelism.
IO-bound operations such as sending HTTP requests, querying data
from databases, sending emails, and opening a file. We use
concurrency for these operations. In Python, we can handle these
operations using multithreading and asyncio libraries. Note that
parallelism requires more resources than concurrency.

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8. How does importing in

Python work?
To answer this senior Python developer interview question, assume we have
a directory called dir, inside which we have a Python script. When you
import a module in this Python script, the Python interpreter tries to find
your imported module in this order:
01. It searches among other Python scripts inside the dir directory.
02. Then it goes over the list of the directories that are set using the
PYTHONPATH environment variable.
03. Last, it searches through the default directories where Python files were
installed. For example,
'C:\\Users\\user\\AppData\\Local\\Programs\\Python\\Python311\\Li
b'

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9. What is a closure in jobs 1225 events hire d

Python?
A closure is an inner/nested function that keeps the data regarding its
enclosing scope even after the closure is called. To illustrate your answer to
this interview question, you can provide this scenario for using closures for
lazy evaluation:

import math

def multiply():
l = []
def closure(num):
l.append(num)
return math.prod(l)

return closure

current_mult = multiply()
print(current_mult(2)) # 2

show more

10. How do you write

scalable code in Python?
This is one of the most impactful and advanced senior Python interview
questions. Scalability means creating services and microservices that can
handle millions of users (large loads) without going down. This is a
challenge that must be handled properly and writing scalable code is one
way to make our service scalable.
Please be aware that we have to take into account many other components
of creating a scalable project, such as systems design, DBMS, and
infrastructure.
Below you can find some concepts of writing scalable code for Python Core
to include in your answer to this interview question.
Use efficient data structures. For example, the time complexity of in
operator is different depending on what iterable it has been used on.
On list/tuple 🡪 O(n) time complexity.
On dictionary/set 🡪 O(1) is the average case and O(n) is the worst case.
In the examples above, n is the length of the iterable.
Use parallelism. Dividing and running a CPU-bound operation using
different processes can be a solution to boost the speed.
Design a distributed system. In a distributed system there are different
By continuing to use thismachines that communicate with each other to do a job. Using libraries like
site, you agree
to Cookie Policy Apache Spark or Ray can be a good approach for scalability.

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Use caching. Assume there is an image

1225
that requires heavy processing and
this image must be sent to many
jobsusers. To address such requirements, we events hire d
can process this image only once and cache/store the processed version in
a variable. This way whenever we want this processed image, we can just
make use of that variable and avoid processing the image again.

Conclusion
Those were the top ten senior Python developer interview questions and
answers for those looking to advance their career in tech. You can get more
information about frequently asked technical interview questions in our
comprehensive guide for dozens of roles and specializations to help you
secure a job offer. Check it out:

career / job interviews

written by

Armin Felahatpisheh Software Engineer, EPAM Anywhere

published 26 January 2023 updated 14 July 2023

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