After an initial phone interview, I was called in for an in-person interview with a few of the other developers.

This seemed to go fine for me, and I was able to answer most questions well enough. But when it came time to demonstrating some answers using the whiteboard, I tensed up and fumbled through what I could. I don't do well under that kind of pressure.

Three questions that they required me to show on the whiteboard were:

• How would you model a library checkout system? What variables and methods would you need?
• Using the language of your choice, show how to reverse a string.
• Given the dimensions of an image and the new aspect ratio, show how to calculate the optimum dimensions for the new aspect ratio.

That last question about the dimensions of an image seemed the only one relevant for the position I was interviewing for; the others not so much.

Other questions I was asked were the following:

• What is the largest number that can be represented by an integer? There is more than one way to answer this question, and they didn't seem to like the answer I had given, at which point I began to doubt myself early in the interview.
• Compare removal of data from an array and a linked list. What is the cost?
• What is polymorphism?
• How would you provide a list of phone numbers found on a client's website?
• What is the difference between a left and outer join?

The most interesting question was, 'How would you provide a list of phone numbers found on a client's website?' I had no idea what they were asking. Would I use a screen scraper or an API? It was a very ambiguous question.