Advanced Java Interview Study Guide for 5+ Years Experience
Quick Reference Table
Category Question Count
Core Java 15
Spring Boot 15
Microservices 15
Docker 15
Kubernetes 15
SQL 15
Core Java
1. How do you debug OutOfMemoryError in production?
2. Explain JVM tuning parameters for high-throughput systems.
3. How do you design a custom ClassLoader and why?
4. What is false sharing and how does it affect performance?
5. How do you implement lock-free data structures in Java?
6. Explain ForkJoinPool internals and use cases.
7. How do you detect and resolve thread contention bottlenecks?
8. Compare biased, lightweight, and heavy locking in JVM.
9. How do you implement zero-copy file transfer in Java?
10. Explain Java Memory Model (JMM) and volatile semantics.
11. How do you use Unsafe API and what are the risks?
12. What are the implications of using reflection in high-performance systems?
13. How do you manage memory leaks in long-running Java applications?
14. Explain the role of Soft, Weak, and Phantom references.
15. How do you profile and optimize Java applications in production?
Spring Boot
1. How does Spring Boot auto-configuration work internally?
2. How do you create and use custom Spring Boot starters?
3. Explain Spring Boot Actuator internals and extensions.
4. How do you manage distributed transactions in Spring Boot microservices?
5. What are the implications of using @Transactional with proxies?
6. How do you implement multi-tenancy in Spring Boot?
7. How do you secure Spring Boot apps with OAuth2 and JWT?
8. How do you optimize Spring Boot startup time?
9. Explain reactive programming with Spring WebFlux.
10. How do you integrate Spring Boot with Kafka for event-driven systems?
11. How do you handle configuration management across environments?
12. What are best practices for exception handling in Spring Boot?
13. How do you implement feature toggles in Spring Boot?
14. How do you monitor and trace Spring Boot applications?
15. How do you deploy Spring Boot apps in Kubernetes or cloud environments?
Microservices
1. How do you design idempotent APIs in microservices?
2. Explain Saga pattern vs 2PC for distributed transactions.
3. How do you implement service discovery with Consul/Eureka?
4. What is the role of API Gateway in resilience and throttling?
5. How do you handle eventual consistency in microservices?
6. Explain CQRS and Event Sourcing in microservices.
7. How do you implement distributed tracing with OpenTelemetry?
8. What is service orchestration vs choreography?
9. How do you handle rate limiting in microservices?
10. How do you manage API versioning and backward compatibility?
11. How do you secure inter-service communication?
12. What are common anti-patterns in microservices?
13. How do you test microservices in isolation?
14. How do you manage centralized logging and monitoring?
15. How do you scale microservices effectively?
Docker
1. How do you design multi-stage Docker builds for optimization?
2. Explain Docker networking internals.
3. How do you secure Docker containers against privilege escalation?
4. What is the difference between bind mounts and volumes?
5. How do you implement zero-downtime deployments with Docker?
6. How do you debug resource leaks inside containers?
7. Explain Docker overlay networks.
8. How do you optimize Docker image size for production?
9. How do you handle secrets management in Docker?
10. How do you monitor Docker containers at scale?
11. What are best practices for writing Dockerfiles?
12. How do you manage environment variables securely in Docker?
13. What is the role of Docker Compose in microservices?
14. How do you handle persistent storage in Docker?
15. How do you clean up unused Docker resources?
Kubernetes
1. Explain Kubernetes control plane components and their roles.
2. How do you design multi-cluster Kubernetes deployments?
3. What is the role of etcd and how do you secure it?
4. How do you implement Pod Disruption Budgets?
5. Compare StatefulSets vs Deployments.
6. How do you manage persistent storage in Kubernetes?
7. What is the role of Ingress controllers?
8. How do you implement RBAC in Kubernetes?
9. How do you troubleshoot failing pods using kubectl?
10. Explain service mesh integration with Kubernetes (Istio/Linkerd).
11. How do you perform rolling updates and rollbacks?
12. What are Kubernetes Operators and how are they used?
13. How do you manage secrets and config maps securely?
14. How do you monitor Kubernetes clusters?
15. What are best practices for securing Kubernetes clusters?
SQL
1. How do you design partitioning strategies for large tables?
2. Explain query execution plans and how to optimize them.
3. How do you detect and resolve deadlocks in SQL?
4. Compare clustered vs non-clustered indexes.
5. How do you implement sharding in SQL databases?
6. Explain window functions with practical use cases.
7. How do you design audit logging in SQL databases?
8. What is optimistic vs pessimistic locking?
9. How do you implement materialized views for performance?
10. How do you design highly available SQL clusters?
11. How do you enforce data integrity in distributed databases?
12. What are common performance tuning techniques in SQL?
13. How do you implement full-text search in SQL?
14. How do you handle schema migrations in production?
15. What are the trade-offs of NoSQL vs SQL in microservices?