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Code Quality and Debugging Practices Questions

Focuses on writing maintainable, readable, and robust code together with practical debugging approaches. Candidates should demonstrate principles of clean code such as meaningful naming, clear function and module boundaries, avoidance of magic numbers, single responsibility and separation of concerns, and sensible organization and commenting. Include practices for catching and preventing bugs: mental and unit testing of edge cases, assertions and input validation, structured error handling, logging for observability, and use of static analysis and linters. Describe debugging workflows for finding and fixing defects in your own code including reproducing failures, minimizing test cases, bisecting changes, using tests and instrumentation, and collaborating with peers through code reviews and pair debugging. Emphasize refactoring, test driven development, and continuous improvements that reduce defect surface and make future debugging easier.

EasyTechnical
0 practiced
Explain the role of assertions in production code. When should assertions be used vs. exceptions vs. input validation? Give examples.
HardTechnical
0 practiced
You're debugging a memory leak in a long-running service. Describe tools and techniques you'd use to detect, localize, and fix the leak. Include language/runtime specific considerations (e.g., JVM, Python, C++).
MediumTechnical
0 practiced
A colleague proposes turning off all lint warnings to reduce CI failures. How would you evaluate and respond? Propose an alternative plan that balances velocity and code quality.
HardTechnical
0 practiced
Describe a debugging workflow for an unknown defect that only appears under heavy load in production. Include steps for gathering data with minimal customer impact, local reproduction strategies, and how you'd use feature flags or traffic shaping to test fixes.
EasyTechnical
0 practiced
List five static analysis or linter checks you consider essential for a backend service repository and explain why each helps prevent common bugs.

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