Java and Spring Boot Screen

What they ask

Software hires go through two technical interviews and one HR interview. The technical rounds mix Java, Spring Boot and SQL questions with behavioral ones, and lean on your past projects.

Questions in this area, for example:

• Java: HashMap internals and why equals and hashCode must agree; checked vs unchecked exceptions; final, immutability and thread safety; what synchronized actually locks.
• Spring Boot: how dependency injection resolves a bean and what happens with two candidates; @Transactional propagation and where it silently does nothing (self-invocation); building a REST controller with validation; JPA lazy vs eager loading and the N+1 problem.
• SQL: write a query returning the top 3 subscribers by monthly usage per plan; explain a plan that ignores your index; difference between WHERE and HAVING.
• Behavioral: a production issue you owned, and how you handle conflicting priorities from two managers.

What they look for

• Depth on whatever you claim on your CV; they pick the framework you list and go three questions deep.
• Practical answers ("I would check the transaction boundary first") over definitions.
• Reasonable SQL fluency without an IDE; they may hand you a pen.