Level 3 Communications Senior Software Engineer Interview

Interviewed Oct 2009 in Denver, CO (took 3 days)

* Responded to an agency advertisement posted on DICE for a regular full-time position.

*Preliminary phone screening by a contract recruiter who identified the hiring company. (Level 3) Note: this company has many open advertisements in various channels and also works with a number of staffing agencies.

* Conference-call interview with hiring manager.

*Interview consisted of a 10 minute discussion of the project and department. This was followed by a script of approximately 30 technical questions. A "wrong" answer to any question disqualifies the candidate.

*A successful candidate must be able to respond to questions with answers that very closely match those found in a common text book on UNIX Programming.

Some examples:

  What are the exact steps taken by a server to establish a socket communication?
  What is the purpose of a MUTEX ?
  How does a thread using the PTHREADS API work with a MUTEX?
  How would you use the MMAP function (file memory mapping) in a UNIX system?
  How would you define a virtual base class in C++? [describe exact syntax of such a class]
  What is the difference between "public", "protected", and "private" methods of a class?
  How can you access "private" methods in a class (from other classes)?