Interview guides · _VOIS
_VOIS Software Engineer Interview Guide
_VOIS Software Engineer interview guide: reported rounds, questions and how candidates describe the process.
The 60-second brief
As a Software Engineer at _VOIS, you play a crucial role in developing and maintaining software solutions that drive the company's innovative products and services. Your contributions will directly impact the efficiency and effectiveness of the systems that power our operations, making this role integral to our mission of delivering exceptional customer experiences. You'll be involved in exciting projects that leverage cutting-edge technologies, offering you the opportunity to work on complex challenges that require creative problem-solving and technical expertise. At _VOIS, the Software Engineer position is not just about writing code; it's about collaborating with cross-functional teams to design systems that are scalable, reliable, and user-friendly.
This guide is scoped to a Software Engineer candidate at _VOIS.
Focus areas
- OOP (Object-Oriented Programming)
- UI automation tooling (Uipath)
- Design patterns
The _VOIS interview process
_VOIS candidates report 3 rounds over 3-5 weeks. The stages below are what candidates describe, not a published process.
Initial Screening
The process begins with an initial screening to assess basic qualifications and fit.
What to demonstrate
- The process begins with an initial screening to assess basic qualifications and fit
- Depth in OOP (Object-Oriented Programming)
How to prepare
- Be able to walk your CV end to end in two minutes, and say why this company specifically.
- Have your salary expectations, notice period and location constraints ready, and ask for the rest of the loop in writing.
Technical Assessments
Candidates undergo technical assessments to evaluate their programming skills and problem-solving abilities.
What to demonstrate
- Candidates undergo technical assessments to evaluate their programming skills and problem-solving abilities
- Depth in OOP (Object-Oriented Programming)
How to prepare
- Answer aloud and timed: Describe how you would design a scalable web application.
- Answer aloud and timed: What is the significance of design patterns in software development?
HR Discussions
The process concludes with discussions with HR to cover cultural fit and finalize the candidate's suitability.
What to demonstrate
- The process concludes with discussions with HR to cover cultural fit and finalize the candidate's suitability
- Depth in OOP (Object-Oriented Programming)
How to prepare
- Answer aloud and timed: How do you ensure code quality and maintainability in your projects?
- Answer aloud and timed: How would you approach debugging a complex application?
Where candidates lose points
Know Your Resume
Review and be prepared to discuss everything you have listed, as interviewers will likely base questions on your experiences.
Practice Coding
If your role involves coding, spend time practicing common algorithms and data structures to build confidence.
Stay Calm and Confident
Interviews can be stressful, but remember that it's a two-way conversation. Approach each question as an opportunity to showcase your expertise.
Research the Company
Understand _VOIS's products, mission, and culture to align your responses with their values and goals.
Questions & practice
Write a function to reverse a linked list.
Medium · Coding / Algorithms
Approach
- Restate the input: its shape, its size, and what is guaranteed about it.
- Name the brute-force solution and its complexity before improving on it.
- Choose the data structure from the access pattern, not from familiarity.
- State the target complexity and say which constraint rules the naive version out.
Follow-up
- How does this change if the input no longer fits in memory?
- What is the worst case, and how likely is it on real data?
Given an array of integers, find two numbers that add up to a specific target.
Medium · Coding / Algorithms
Approach
- Restate the input: its shape, its size, and what is guaranteed about it.
- Name the brute-force solution and its complexity before improving on it.
- Choose the data structure from the access pattern, not from familiarity.
- State the target complexity and say which constraint rules the naive version out.
Follow-up
- How does this change if the input no longer fits in memory?
- What is the worst case, and how likely is it on real data?
Implement a binary search algorithm and explain its time complexity.
Medium · Coding / Algorithms
Approach
- Restate the input: its shape, its size, and what is guaranteed about it.
- Name the brute-force solution and its complexity before improving on it.
- Choose the data structure from the access pattern, not from familiarity.
- State the target complexity and say which constraint rules the naive version out.
Follow-up
- How does this change if the input no longer fits in memory?
- What is the worst case, and how likely is it on real data?
How would you handle memory management in your code?
Medium · Coding / Algorithms
Approach
- Say what the runtime actually does before reasoning about the code.
- Name what is shared across threads and what owns each piece of state.
- Identify the window where an invariant is briefly untrue.
- Distinguish a value from a reference to it, and say which one you handed out.
Follow-up
- What happens if two callers reach this at the same time?
- Where could this allocate more than you expect?
Can you demonstrate a sorting algorithm of your choice?
Medium · Coding / Algorithms
Approach
- Restate the input: its shape, its size, and what is guaranteed about it.
- Name the brute-force solution and its complexity before improving on it.
- Choose the data structure from the access pattern, not from familiarity.
- State the target complexity and say which constraint rules the naive version out.
Follow-up
- How does this change if the input no longer fits in memory?
- What is the worst case, and how likely is it on real data?
Given a dataset, explain how you would optimize a query for performance.
Medium · Problem-Solving / Case Studies
Approach
- Name the grain you start from and join outward from it.
- Check whether any join is one-to-many before aggregating, or the sums inflate.
- Say which index the query would use, and what makes it unusable.
- Handle the rows that do not match: that is usually the actual question.
Follow-up
- How does the query change if that join becomes one-to-many?
- What happens to this when the table is ten times larger?
Find version gaps and relay lag with window functions
Medium · window functions · event tables · frame semantics
outbox_event holds event_id, aggregate_type, aggregate_id, aggregate_version, event_type, payload, status ('pending','published','dead'), attempts, created_at, published_at. A projection is missing rows and you must decide whether the relay skipped events or the consumer dropped them. Write three queries over the last seven days: one listing every aggregate_id whose published aggregate_version sequence has a hole, one giving per-day counts with a running total, and one returning the newest published event per aggregate. For each, say where the window function is evaluated relative to WHERE and LIMIT. PostgreSQL 16.
Approach
- Gaps: compute lead(aggregate_version) OVER (PARTITION BY aggregate_id ORDER BY aggregate_version) in a subquery, then filter next_version <> aggregate_version + 1 in the outer query. Window functions are evaluated after WHERE, GROUP BY and HAVING and before the outer ORDER BY and LIMIT, so the predicate cannot sit in the same WHERE clause and PostgreSQL 16 has no QUALIFY.
- Say what the seven-day filter does to the answer: it truncates every partition, so the first row per aggregate has no predecessor inside the window and a hole spanning the boundary is invisible. Widen the window, or join to resource.version as the authority for the true maximum.
- Running total: SELECT date_trunc('day', created_at) AS d, count() AS n, sum(count()) OVER (ORDER BY date_trunc('day', created_at) ROWS UNBOUNDED PRECEDING). An aggregate inside a window call is legal because grouping runs before windowing. The grouping key is unique per row here so ROWS and RANGE agree, but write the frame anyway — over ungrouped rows with tied timestamps the default RANGE frame pulls in every peer row and the total jumps.
- Newest per aggregate: DISTINCT ON (aggregate_id) ... ORDER BY aggregate_id, aggregate_version DESC is the cheap PostgreSQL-only form when an index matches that order; row_number() OVER (PARTITION BY aggregate_id ORDER BY aggregate_version DESC) = 1 is the portable form and needs a subquery for the same evaluation-order reason as the gap query.
Follow-up
- Relay failover redelivers events. Does a duplicate break the gap query, and how would you detect one from this table alone?
- Turn the gap check into a continuous monitor rather than a query someone runs after an incident. What does it watch?
What are the core principles of Object-Oriented Programming (OOP)?
Medium · Technical / Domain Questions
Approach
- Clarify what is being asked and what a complete answer contains.
- State your assumptions explicitly before working the problem.
- Say what you would check first and why it is the highest-information step.
- Work from the requirement backwards to the design.
Follow-up
- What assumption would you test first?
- How would you know your answer was wrong?
Can you explain the difference between a stack and a queue?
Medium · Technical / Domain Questions
Approach
- Clarify what is being asked and what a complete answer contains.
- State your assumptions explicitly before working the problem.
- Say what you would check first and why it is the highest-information step.
- Work from the requirement backwards to the design.
Follow-up
- What assumption would you test first?
- How would you know your answer was wrong?
Describe how you would design a scalable web application.
Medium · Technical / Domain Questions
Approach
- Fix the scope first: who calls this, how often, and what they do when it fails.
- Name the read and write paths separately; they rarely have the same bottleneck.
- Choose a partition key and say what query it makes expensive.
- State the consistency you need, and where you are willing to be stale.
Follow-up
- What breaks first when traffic grows ten times?
- How does this behave when that dependency is down for an hour?
What is the significance of design patterns in software development?
Medium · Technical / Domain Questions
Approach
- Clarify what is being asked and what a complete answer contains.
- State your assumptions explicitly before working the problem.
- Say what you would check first and why it is the highest-information step.
- Work from the requirement backwards to the design.
Follow-up
- What assumption would you test first?
- How would you know your answer was wrong?
How do you ensure code quality and maintainability in your projects?
Medium · Technical / Domain Questions
Approach
- Clarify what is being asked and what a complete answer contains.
- State your assumptions explicitly before working the problem.
- Say what you would check first and why it is the highest-information step.
- Work from the requirement backwards to the design.
Follow-up
- What assumption would you test first?
- How would you know your answer was wrong?
Describe a challenging technical problem you solved in a previous project.
Medium · Problem-Solving / Case Studies
Approach
- Clarify what is being asked and what a complete answer contains.
- State your assumptions explicitly before working the problem.
- Say what you would check first and why it is the highest-information step.
- Work from the requirement backwards to the design.
Follow-up
- What assumption would you test first?
- How would you know your answer was wrong?
How do you prioritize tasks when working under tight deadlines?
Medium · Problem-Solving / Case Studies
Approach
- Clarify what is being asked and what a complete answer contains.
- State your assumptions explicitly before working the problem.
- Say what you would check first and why it is the highest-information step.
- Work from the requirement backwards to the design.
Follow-up
- What assumption would you test first?
- How would you know your answer was wrong?
What strategies do you use to ensure effective collaboration in a team setting?
Medium · Problem-Solving / Case Studies
Approach
- Clarify what is being asked and what a complete answer contains.
- State your assumptions explicitly before working the problem.
- Say what you would check first and why it is the highest-information step.
- Work from the requirement backwards to the design.
Follow-up
- What assumption would you test first?
- How would you know your answer was wrong?
How would you approach debugging a complex application?
Medium · Problem-Solving / Case Studies
Approach
- Establish what changed and when, before forming any theory.
- Pick a bisection that eliminates candidates whichever way it turns out.
- Check the instrumentation before believing the symptom.
- Separate the trigger from the cause; the deploy is rarely the bug.
Follow-up
- What would you look at first, and what would it rule out?
- How would you tell a cause from a coincidence here?
Suggested practice checklist
Built from the rounds and topics _VOIS candidates report.
Day 1 — Map the _VOIS loop
- Write out the reported sequence: Initial Screening, Technical Assessments, HR Discussions.
- For each round, write one sentence on what it is judging, from the description above, and mark the one you are least ready for.
Deliverable: A one-page map of the 3 reported rounds, with the weakest marked.
Day 2 — Work OOP (Object-Oriented Programming)
- Spend the session on OOP (Object-Oriented Programming), which _VOIS candidates report being tested on.
- Write one worked example in OOP (Object-Oriented Programming) and time yourself on it.
Deliverable: One timed worked example in OOP (Object-Oriented Programming).
Day 3 — Work UI automation tooling (Uipath)
- Spend the session on UI automation tooling (Uipath), which _VOIS candidates report being tested on.
- Write one worked example in UI automation tooling (Uipath) and time yourself on it.
Deliverable: One timed worked example in UI automation tooling (Uipath).
Day 4 — Work Design patterns
- Spend the session on Design patterns, which _VOIS candidates report being tested on.
- Write one worked example in Design patterns and time yourself on it.
Deliverable: One timed worked example in Design patterns.
Day 5 — Answer out loud: Technical / Domain Questions
- Answer aloud, timed: What are the core principles of Object-Oriented Programming (OOP)?
- Answer aloud, timed: Can you explain the difference between a stack and a queue?
Deliverable: Spoken answers to 2 reported Technical / Domain Questions question(s), under time.
Day 6 — Answer out loud: Problem-Solving / Case Studies
- Answer aloud, timed: How would you approach debugging a complex application?
- Answer aloud, timed: Given a dataset, explain how you would optimize a query for performance.
Deliverable: Spoken answers to 2 reported Problem-Solving / Case Studies question(s), under time.
Day 7 — Answer out loud: Behavioral / Leadership
- Answer aloud, timed: Tell me about a time you faced a conflict in a team and how you resolved it.
- Answer aloud, timed: How do you handle feedback and criticism regarding your work?
Deliverable: Spoken answers to 2 reported Behavioral / Leadership question(s), under time.
Behavioural preparation
Behavioural rounds judge the decision you made and what it cost.
Tell me about a time you faced a conflict in a team and how you resolved it.
Medium · Behavioral / Leadership
Approach
- Pick a story where you made the decision, not one where you watched it.
- State the situation in two sentences and spend the rest on the reasoning.
- Give the blast radius: what could have broken, and what you measured.
- Name the disagreement and how you resolved it with evidence.
Follow-up
- What would you do differently if you ran that again?
- How did you know your change caused the improvement?
How do you handle feedback and criticism regarding your work?
Medium · Behavioral / Leadership
Approach
- Pick a story where you made the decision, not one where you watched it.
- State the situation in two sentences and spend the rest on the reasoning.
- Give the blast radius: what could have broken, and what you measured.
- Name the disagreement and how you resolved it with evidence.
Follow-up
- What would you do differently if you ran that again?
- How did you know your change caused the improvement?
Describe a situation where you took the lead on a project. What was the outcome?
Medium · Behavioral / Leadership
Approach
- Pick a story where you made the decision, not one where you watched it.
- State the situation in two sentences and spend the rest on the reasoning.
- Give the blast radius: what could have broken, and what you measured.
- Name the disagreement and how you resolved it with evidence.
Follow-up
- What would you do differently if you ran that again?
- How did you know your change caused the improvement?
What motivates you to work in software development?
Medium · Behavioral / Leadership
Approach
- Pick a story where you made the decision, not one where you watched it.
- State the situation in two sentences and spend the rest on the reasoning.
- Give the blast radius: what could have broken, and what you measured.
- Name the disagreement and how you resolved it with evidence.
Follow-up
- What would you do differently if you ran that again?
- How did you know your change caused the improvement?
How do you stay current with industry trends and technologies?
Medium · Behavioral / Leadership
Approach
- Pick a story where you made the decision, not one where you watched it.
- State the situation in two sentences and spend the rest on the reasoning.
- Give the blast radius: what could have broken, and what you measured.
- Name the disagreement and how you resolved it with evidence.
Follow-up
- What would you do differently if you ran that again?
- How did you know your change caused the improvement?