Essential C# Interview Questions You’re Likely to Hear

You’ve gotten your C# chops polished to a high shine and are ready to step out and start interviewing. The interview process can be fraught, though, and it’s essential to know what to expect if you want to land the plum developer jobs. You can expect to get C# interview questions that address all kinds of issues, and the folks who are prepared with answers are the ones who get the gigs.

That’s where we come in. We’ve put this guide together to show you what to expect in the way of C# interview questions and the answers you should have ready to go. We give you some of the most common questions posed to C# professionals when applying for a job, including questions that touch on knowledge and skills. While we can’t predict every question you get in your interviews, you’re bound to see variations of the ones we examine in this article.

Brush Up on Basic Knowledge

You’re going to run across all kinds of questions in your interviews, and many of them will focus on your base knowledge. That shouldn’t come as much of a shock or anything—managers want to know that the person they hire has a depth of knowledge that allows them to perform the tasks for which they’re hired—(Managers are funny like that.) That’s why you should take the time to bone up on the basics of C# before you step into your next interview.

You’ll get all kinds of questions that deal with C# knowledge. You might be challenged to explain the difference between Python and C#, or the manager might want you to talk about the difference between public, static, and void. Perhaps you’ll get questions that require you to describe objects and their function within C#. You can ace this section, fortunately. All you have to do is spend an hour a night refamiliarizing yourself with the basics of C#.

Explain Serialization

As a C# developer, you can plan on dealing with some tasks common across all sorts of C# gigs in different fields. After clearing up any confusion the manager might have on how the varieties of C language differ, you’re bound to get questions designed to gauge your level of knowledge and experience with these tasks. For example, you’re likely to get questions that will require some background with serialization. You’d better be ready to delve into them.

The easiest way to explain serialization is to think of how to move an object from here to there. Much like a Star Trek transporter, the object must first go through serialization: the conversion into a byte stream. You use the ISerialize interface to accomplish this within C#. When the byte stream reaches its destination, it undergoes deserialization to allow its reconstruction into an object once more. You can then shake your fist and yell, “Khan!” to complete the experience.

Explain the Difference Between Interface and Abstract Classes

As with serialization, you can expect to get hammered with a few questions that allow the interviewer to get a feel for your knowledge about interface and abstract classes. You’ll work with these elements regularly, and it’s crucial that you have them down cold and know the differences between the two. Folks who want to use C# to get into game development should plan on seeing plenty of questions relating to abstract and interface.

You can boil the difference between abstract and interface down to a few key factors. To begin with, abstract classes have some concrete methods, while interface classes don’t have definition but do have declaration. Public vs. private also comes into play with these classes—abstract can have private methods, while all interface methods are public. Remember these differences, and you’ll be ready for your interview.

Struct or Class?

So you know how to tell differences within a class, huh? That’s just the beginning. You’ll have to take a more macro view when going through the interview process and be ready to give a “big picture” overview of C#. When giving a 30,000-foot view of the language, you’re likely to get questions about structs and classes. The quicker and more confident you are with an answer, the better.

Structs and classes are both variables, and the difference between them lies in the variable type. Classes are reference types, while structs are value types, for one thing. Structs aren’t inherited like classes can be, but they’re perfect for quick retrieval on the stack at the cost of high overhead. You’ll use both variables as a developer.

And that’s the long and short of it, folks. You can plan on getting questions across the spectrum when you sit for an interview for a C# position, and it pays to prepare ahead of time. Our guide gives you an idea of the most common C# interview questions so you can do a little legwork and shine during your next job interview.