With over 43,000 jobs currently listed on Glassdoor, there’s no question that programmers are in high demand.
Even though there are many different kinds of jobs for programmers, there are some basic ideas that you will almost certainly be asked about during an interview for a new position.
That’s why all programmers, no matter what language they use, need to know about data structures and be able to explain them.
Here are the best ways to get ready for a job search and be ready for different types of data structure interview questions.
Getting an interview at Udacity is a great opportunity to potentially join one of the leading online education companies With their innovative nanodegree programs and commitment to making education accessible, Udacity has been a pioneer in the online learning space
However, like any top tech company, Udacity’s interview process can be quite rigorous. You’ll likely need to showcase both your technical abilities and your passion for their mission
To help you put your best foot forward, here is an overview of some commonly asked Udacity interview questions along with suggestions on how to nail your answers:
About Udacity
Udacity was founded in 2011 by Sebastian Thrun, David Stavens, and Mike Sokolsky with the goal of democratizing education. They offer nanodegree programs in fields like artificial intelligence, data science, and self-driving cars.
The company has raised more than $160 million and has more than 10 million users who have signed up to use their platform. Well-known investors include Andreessen Horowitz, Charles River Ventures, and Drive Capital.
Some key facts about Udacity:
- Headquarters are in Mountain View, California
- Currently have over 400 employees
- CEO is Gabe Dalporto
- Used by companies like BMW, Google, IBM for employee recruitment and training
Common Udacity Interview Questions and Answers
Here are some typical questions asked during Udacity interviews with tips on how to thoughtfully respond:
Tell me about yourself and why you want to work for Udacity.
This is often an ice breaker question to kick off the interview. Make sure to highlight your relevant background and passion for education technology.
- Talk about your educational background and prior work experience
- Share why you find online education and Udacity’s mission compelling
- Demonstrate knowledge of Udacity’s programs and products
- Convey enthusiasm for helping shape the future of learning
What excites you most about the role you are interviewing for?
Share what specifically appeals to you about the open position and team:
- Note 1-2 key responsibilities of the role that match your skills and interests
- Reference something that impresses you about the team or department
- Share why you are drawn to work for an education startup like Udacity
How do you stay up-to-date on the online education industry and Udacity’s new offerings?
Demonstrate you are truly passionate about this space:
- Follow Udacity blogs, social media, news articles, and rankings
- Take Udacity courses to experience their platform firsthand
- Attend events and conferences related to edtech and online learning
- Have colleagues or classmates who have completed Udacity nanodegrees
Why do you want to work for an education startup versus a more established company?
Convey your appetite for a growth environment:
- Excited by the rapidly evolving landscape of online education
- Motivated by being able to make an impact on learners at scale
- Attracted to the innovative culture and latest technologies
- Value being part of shaping future of learning and workforce development
What do you know about our new Career Services and Jobs Report offerings?
Show you’ve done your research on their latest offerings:
- Career Services matches grads with employer partners for interviews and job placement
- Jobs Report shares hiring data like salary insights and demand for nanodegree graduates
- This showcases Udacity’s commitment to student outcomes beyond just course completion
Tell me about a time you had to learn something completely new in a short period of time. How did you approach it?
Recount a time you were scrappy and resourceful when acquiring new skills:
- Set a measurable goal and timeline for acquiring baseline proficiency
- Immersed yourself fully by practicing skills through hands-on projects
- Identified mentors who could offer guidance on best approaches
- Learned from trial-and-error but also tapped into available resources when stuck
- Assessed progress frequently and adjusted approach as needed
Describe a time you had to give constructive feedback to someone. How did you handle it?
Emphasize you can give direct feedback while remaining empathetic:
- Set up 1:1 time to discuss issue impacting performance in a private setting
- Established some common ground before addressing the gaps observed
- Clearly explained your perspective and welcome their point of view
- Focused on actionable steps forward instead of placing blame
- Followed up to confirm changes were implemented and offer support
Tell me about a time you had to collaborate with difficult team members. What tactics did you use?
Highlight emotional intelligence and conflict resolution skills:
- Proactively met with teammates to establish shared norms and expectations
- When tensions surfaced, suggested taking a break to reset before discussing
- Actively listened and tried to understand all viewpoints in a nonjudgmental manner
- Identified areas of agreement and kept discussion focused on shared goals
- Suggested bringing in a neutral third-party to mediate when needed
How would you identify technical training gaps and upskill employees?
Demonstrate experience championing learning:
- Survey managers on priority skills needed for projects on the horizon
- Assess current team capabilities relative to those target skills
- Outline curriculum tailored to closing observed gaps
- Promote mix of self-paced courses as well as peer coaching/sharing
- Benchmark progress and solicit feedback on the learning experience
What techniques do you use for prioritizing tasks when everything feels urgent?
Share your time management approach:
- Maintain running task list with due dates and effort estimates
- Block calendar for focused work time on priority projects
- Set aside time daily/weekly for planning to align on most vital initiatives
- Establish cadence for stakeholder check-ins to reassess priorities
- Ask for support delegating lower-impact tasks as needed
- Say no to non-essential meetings and requests weighing you down
How would you explain a complex technical concept or analysis to a non-technical audience?
Highlight communication and simplification skills:
- Use relatable analogies and metaphors to make it less abstract
- Visualize data through simple charts or diagrams
- Summarize key takeaways and conclusions up front
- Break down complicated concepts into bite-sized explanations
- Check frequently for understanding and encourage questions
- Provide concrete examples of how it applies to their goals
Where do you see yourself in 5 years? What are your long-term career goals?
Share aspirations that align with growing leadership at Udacity:
- Progressing to manage a full team of data scientists or course developers
- Overseeing a portfolio of nanodegree programs from concept to launch
- Collaborating cross-functionally to improve student outcomes and completion
- Evangelizing Udacity offerings at conferences and with strategic partners
- Positively shaping the future of online education and workforce readiness
Questions to Ask at a Udacity Interview
You’ll likely have a chance to ask questions during the interview. Prepare thoughtful queries that demonstrate your understanding of Udacity’s mission and culture:
- How do you balance innovation vs. enhancing existing offerings?
- What is the mix of soft skills versus hard skills you look for in candidates?
- How has Covid impacted your product roadmap and priorities?
- What challenges does Udacity face as more companies enter the online education space?
- What trends are you most excited about in the edtech industry long-term?
- What opportunities are there for employees to give feedback, volunteer, join ERGs?
- How has the culture changed over the years as you have rapid growth?
With preparation and practice, you can nail the interview process at Udacity. Showcase both your passion for online education and relevant background. Ask thoughtful questions.
If you do receive an offer, carefully consider alignment with your skills, interests and values. Discuss compensation, work-life balance, growth opportunities, and onboarding/training. Don’t be afraid to negotiate on areas important to you.
Joining the Udacity team gives you a chance to positively impact millions of learners. With hard work, there is tremendous potential for developing new expertise and advancing your career in the world of education technology.
Data Structure Terminology & Concepts
Like any industry, computer programming has a language all its own. Possible employers want to see that you understand important terms and ideas that will be used in the job, so you should practice explaining all of them.
When mapping out your answers for these questions, consider how you can demonstrate your understanding of the terminology. You should also be ready to talk about how it’s used in real life and highlight specific experiences that show both your knowledge and your ability to put it into practice.
Data structure interview questions may cover terminology and concepts such as:
- What’s a queue?
- What’s a priority queue?
- What does deque mean?
- What’s a binary tree?
- What’s a stack?
- What’s a linked list?
- What’s an ordered list?
- What are multidimensional arrays?
- What’s dynamic memory management?
- What’s merge sort?
- What’s data abstraction?
- What’s a linear search?
- What are FIFO and LIFO?
Highlighting Your Data Structure Skills
When meeting with potential candidates, interviewers want to hear how you put your skills into practice. During this part of the interview, you can answer questions by giving examples of work or projects you’ve done in the past and how you used the ideas.
These questions will be different depending on what level of job you’re applying for (base, middle, or high level).
Possible data structure interview questions you may be asked to showcase your skills include:
- Why should heap be used over a stack?
- How does Huffman’s algorithm work?
- What’s better about a linked list than an array? What’s worse about an array? When would you use each one?
- Can you give an example of a double-linked list?
- Give some examples of dynamic data structures and explain how they are used.
- What’s the benefit of algorithm analysis?
- What functions can be performed on queues?
- What’s the difference between PUSH and POP?
- Where do you use tree data structures?
How To Answer Behavioral Interview Questions | Udacity Career Tip #16
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