Important GIT Interview Questions You’re Sure to Hear

If you’ve worked in software development, you’ve almost certainly used GIT. GIT is a powerful tool that allows project collaboration. If you’re looking to land a developer gig, you’re bound to engage in tons of GIT interview questions and answers, and you’d better have some quick responses on tap to remain a viable candidate. If you can answer confidently about GIT, you’ll attract attention and will be able to move on to whiteboard questions and stand a much better chance of winning the job.

Fret not, because we’re here to give you the details you need. We’ve put together this article to give you an idea of the sorts of questions on GIT you’ll see in your next interview. We give you questions that range from general and easy, to specific and involved so you can prepare, and walk into your next interview with confidence. With our help, you’ll be more prepared to ace your interview and score the sweet developer position you crave.

Explain GIT Bisect

Whether you’re a seasoned developer who wants to move on to the next challenge, or a brand-new programmer looking for a way to establish some credentials, you can plan on lots of knowledge-based questions in your next interview. Knowledge questions are an excellent method for hiring managers to filter applicants so that they don’t waste valuable time on someone without the required skills. You’ll get plenty of GIT questions, including a few that deal with Bisect and how it works.

If your program has a bug, you need to pinpoint the cause, which is where GIT Bisect comes in. GIT Bisect allows you to run an algorithm to determine which commit has caused the bug. Running GIT Bisect establishes endpoints and examines the commits within those points to find the bug. It runs until it definitively identifies the bug. GIT Bisect is a powerful and handy tool that you’ll use all the time in your development work.

GIT Fetch vs. GIT Pull

As you build your coder skills, you’ll wind up working with fetch and pull to whip your programs into shape. The two commands aren’t interchangeable, though, and hiring managers know that the ability to distinguish between the two is the mark of an experienced coder. That’s why you’re likely to get an interview question that asks you to explain how the two work and what separates one from the other. Have an answer on the tip of your tongue to impress your future boss.

Let’s begin with pull. GIT pull allows you to download remote repository data and merge it with your local files. If you haven’t approved local changes, using pull can result in a conflict within the app. GIT fetch works a bit differently. When you use fetch, you download new data only from the remote repository and don’t incorporate it into the local files. In essence, pull implements remote data while fetch merely views it.

What is Branching, and Why is it Used?

Branching is an important aspect of working with GIT, and you’re sure to get a few questions about it lobbed at you during your interview. If you’ve spent time working with GIT, you’ve used branches, but newbies might not be clear on what they do and how to use them. No worries, newbies. We’ve got an explanation for branching you can throw back at your hiring manager that will blow them away.

Look at branching as a means of separating tasks and issues within a program. If you have a live program that folks use all the time, the last thing you want is to implement changes within that framework and risk bugs that crash your app. Instead, you can use branching to create parallel programs that allow you to make your changes within a test environment. Make as many branches as you need for the task at hand.

Let’s Talk GIT Conflict

GIT is an amazing version control system that gives you all kinds of flexibility and power, but it’s not always going to go smoothly. Occasionally, you’re going to find yourself with an issue in which a commit requires changes that also has changes in the current commit. This situation creates a conflict, and it’s up to you to resolve it. You’re likely to be asked to answer a whiteboard question or thought experiment on conflict during your interview.

To resolve a conflict, you’ll have to wade in and get your hands dirty. Edit the files that contain the changes that conflict, and then add those files with GIT add. After you’ve done the repair, you’re still not quite done—you’ve got to commit the repair to fully fix the situation. GIT commit is all you need here; once you use the commit command, GIT pinpoints the position and creates the proper parent commit settings. 

And there you go, friends and neighbors. There are tons of great developer jobs for folks who understand how to work and collaborate using GIT, and there are lots of hiring managers ready to test you on your GIT knowledge. Our guide provides you with some of the standard GIT interview questions and answers and gets you ready to take on your next interview with poise and confidence.