33 Zendesk software engineer interview questions

Are you looking for an easy way to hire a software engineer who has experience with Zendesk?

Are you unsure how to structure the hiring process? Do you struggle with picking the right questions for the interview stage?

The key to making the right hiring decision is accurately assessing your candidates’ abilities.

To evaluate your applicants’ technical Zendesk skills, as well as their other qualities, we recommend first using skills tests and then interviewing your best candidates to get an in-depth understanding of their knowledge and skills. 

But building your list of interview questions can be tricky.

So, if you need inspiration for the right Zendesk interview questions to ask software engineers, look at the 33 questions below to hire successfully. And be sure to read until the end to find out why skill testing is a vital part of the hiring process.

14 general Zendesk software engineer interview questions

Ask your interviewees these 14 general Zendesk interview questions to assess their knowledge, motivation, and skills.

1. What is Zendesk, and what does it do?

2. Explain what CRM software is.

3. What do you hope to have achieved in five years?

4. Which skills are needed to work as a Zendesk software engineer?

5. What values are important to you and why?

6. What made you consider a software engineering career?

7. Which soft skills are needed to work as a Zendesk software engineer?

8. Which improvements would you implement if hired as a Zendesk software engineer?

9. Describe your preferred team culture.

10. Which approaches are useful when learning new programming languages?

11. What is your best achievement in your software engineer career?

12. What do you hope to have achieved in two years as a Zendesk software engineer?

13. Describe your most innovative software engineering idea and how you implemented it.

14. Which skills did you learn from a previous role that will help you as a Zendesk software engineer?

5 general Zendesk software engineer interview questions and answers

Use these answers to five of the general Zendesk interview questions to assess your candidates’ responses.

1. Which skills are needed to work as a Zendesk software engineer?

Are your applicants aware that they will need many web programming languages to work as a software engineer with Zendesk, such as Java, Python, and Ruby?

Do they also know that NodeJS and React skills are important for software engineers and that troubleshooting abilities are also vital?

2. What made you consider a software engineering career?

Applicants may have many motivations for wanting to pursue a software engineering career. They may have a particular interest in SaaS products and data engineering. They may want to serve a customer base that is constantly growing.

You may consider applicants whose goals align best with your company values or your team.

3. Which skills did you learn from a previous role that will help you as a Zendesk software engineer?

Your applicants may have developed knowledge of a programming language such as C# or C in their previous role. They may have worked on their soft skills, such as problem-solving abilities. Look for applicants whose skills align with your role and consider candidates constantly looking to develop new skills.

4. Which soft skills are needed to work as a Zendesk software engineer?

A few important soft skills required to work as a Zendesk software engineer include excellent communication (written and verbal), interpersonal, and critical-thinking skills.

5. What is Zendesk, and what does it do?

Applicants who have applied to your vacancy should know that Zendesk is a SaaS customer support and sales platform that functions as a helpdesk solution for businesses.

They should also know that the main focus of the Zendesk platform is to empower customers and improve customer engagement.

11 situational Zendesk software engineer interview questions

Ask candidates these eleven situational Zendesk software engineer interview questions to assess how they handle complex situations at the workplace.

1. Have you ever disagreed with a senior engineer? How did you resolve the issue?

2. Describe a time you made a mistake.

3. Describe a time you led a team.

4. Describe some challenging projects you have completed.

5. How would you explain what a database is to a child?

6. Have you ever found it difficult to meet a deadline? What did you learn from this experience?

7. Have you ever taken an important risk as a software engineer? What was the risk, and did it pay off?

8. Have you ever changed tactics when working as a software engineer?

9. Have you ever mentored junior software engineers?

10. Are there any aspects that frustrate you when working with other engineers? 

11. How would you earn your team’s trust if you were to be hired for the role?

5 situational Zendesk software engineer interview questions and answers

Here are the answers to five of the situational Zendesk software engineer interview questions above to help you assess your candidates’ preparedness for the role.

1. How would you explain what a database is to a child?

Applicants should be able to explain what a database is in simple terms. They might say, for example, that databases are like libraries of information or data. They should be able to explain that the data is organized efficiently in the database and stored in a computer system.

2. How would you earn your team’s trust if you were to be hired for the role?

Can your applicants explain that earning a team’s trust is best achieved by following through on actions they promised to complete, being honest and reliable, and sharing valuable ideas? Look for applicants whose answers best reflect your organization’s values. 

3. Have you ever mentored junior software engineers?

Candidates who have mentored junior software engineers should be comfortable talking about their experience with this. If the role requires it, you should consider applicants who have completed code submission reviews and code pairing work, as well as those who are eager to share their knowledge and assist junior engineers by helping them remove obstacles.

4. Which skills have helped you to meet deadlines in previous engineering roles?

Applicants should know that good communication skills can help teams stay on track. They should also know that time-management skills and good attention to detail can help them manage projects and avoid mistakes to meet deadlines successfully.

5. Have you ever found it difficult to meet a deadline? What did you learn from this experience?

Be wary of candidates who have a tendency to miss deadlines and whose lack of punctuality affects their team. Instead, look for candidates who learned how to approach tasks differently to meet deadlines and complete projects within the predefined time frame. Your candidate may explain that they learned to manage their time better, to ask for help, or communicate promptly about obstacles.

8 Zendesk software engineer interview questions about technical experience

Ask interviewees these eight Zendesk software engineer interview questions to determine if their technical experience matches your requirements.

1. Have you ever used NodeJS to make a high scalability system?

2. What is AWS? Describe your experience with AWS.

3. Describe your experience with component-oriented software engineering.

4. What are distributed systems? Describe your experience with distributed systems.

5. Describe your code-review and pull-request-review experience.

6. How would you handle a server outage that has caused complaints by customers?

7. Describe the programming languages you are fluent in.

8. What is software maintenance? Describe your software-maintenance experience.

5 Zendesk software engineer interview questions and answers about technical experience

Use the answers to these five Zendesk software engineer interview questions to assess your candidates’ technical experience. 

1. Describe the programming languages you are fluent in.

Programming language fluency is important for Zendesk software engineers. Applicants may be fluent in Python, Ruby, Go, C#, or Java, for example.

Consider candidates whose programming language skills best match the languages your company uses. You may also consider candidates who are motivated to learn new programming languages required for the role.

2. Describe your code-review and pull-request-review experience.

Consider applicants who have sufficient code and pull-request reviewing experience and can provide examples of past code reviews.

In addition to code-review and pull-request-review experience, candidates may have had pairing sessions in the past, or mentored junior software engineers, which would be an advantage.

3. What are distributed systems? Describe your distributed-systems experience.

Distributed systems experience is crucial for Zendesk software engineers. Consider applicants who can explain what distributed systems are. They should know that such systems have various components on separate machines, which help synchronize actions as if they were executed on a single system. 

Candidates should also know how to craft resilient, reliable, and scalable distributed systems and provide examples of how they’ve done this.

4. What is software maintenance? Describe your software-maintenance experience.

Can your applicants explain that software maintenance involves modifying and improving existing software by implementing updates to accommodate customer requirements? Do they know that software maintenance happens after developers launch the product?

Applicants should have sufficient software maintenance experience, including relevant experience with optimization, error corrections, and the removal of discarded features. 

5. What is AWS? Describe your experience with AWS.

Applicants should know that AWS is short for Amazon Web Services, and that the AWS Global Cloud Infrastructure supports the Zendesk platform.

Candidates should have experience with AWS and have examples of how they have used it in previous roles since Zendesk is a cloud-based platform. 

4 reasons to use skill-testing before the interview to hire Zendesk software engineers

Before you interview applicants, we recommend you use a skill-testing platform to assess their skills. There are four main reasons for this.

1. Skill testing can replace resume screening

Tired of resume screening?

The best replacement for manual resume evaluation is skills testing. You no longer need to go through each resume you receive, which may be hundreds depending on the exact role. Evaluate the technical abilities and soft skills of your software engineers with skills assessments. This way, you limit hiring biases, too.

2. Skill testing is objective and accurate

Worried about making the wrong hire? 

One of the best ways to hire the right candidate is to get your hands on objective and accurate data related to their skills. How do you obtain such data? By asking applicants to complete a skills assessment. 

Skills testing is an objective, accurate, and bias-free option to assess your applicants’ abilities. Avoiding bias helps you hire a more diverse and inclusive workforce, which translates into better business results.

3. Skill testing can help with internal hiring

Hiring internally? You’ve got an easy way to review your existing employees’ skills – use skills testing to help you establish a baseline of your employee’s skills and consider if they’re ready for a promotion. 

Find out which technical skills your software engineers have to improve to progress, and how you can best support them along the way. 

4. Skill testing helps you assess technical and soft skills, as well as culture-add potential

If you’re looking for the best way to assess multiple skills at once, skills testing is ideal. 

You can build an assessment of up to five tests featuring a Zendesk CS skills test, cognitive ability tests, and a Culture Add test to assess multiple skills at once – including cultural alignment.

TestGorilla’s test library features hundreds of skills tests for different roles – and we’re constantly adding more!

Hire top software engineers with the right Zendesk interview questions

Hiring Zendesk software engineers can be difficult. It can be hard to determine if their skills align with your requirements for the open role. But one of the best ways to find this out is with the right Zendesk software engineer interview questions, after having done an initial preselection with the help of a skills assessment.

With TestGorilla, you can build the right skills assessment for the role. Remember to add a Zendesk CS test, along with other skills tests, and invite candidates to complete the assessment before you interview them.

It’s the perfect way to save time and find out if your applicants have the skills you’re looking for.

Go to TestGorilla’s test library to find our wide selection of skills tests.  Get started for free today and start making better hiring decisions, faster and bias-free.