GitHub Software Engineer Interview Questions

I would think about permissions, review flow, notifications, audit history, and how to keep the experience clear for contributors. The system should make it easy to understand what changed and who approved it. A strong design balances collaboration with repository safety.

I would use two pointers moving at different speeds so that if a cycle exists, they eventually meet. That approach uses constant extra space and is efficient. I would also mention a simpler visited-set method if clarity matters more than memory.

I would first decide what identity to rate limit on, such as user, token, IP, or organization. Then I would choose a strategy like token bucket or sliding window based on the burst behavior I want to allow. The implementation should be accurate, observable, and hard to bypass.

I would check logs, metrics, and recent deploys to see whether the issue is tied to saturation, timeouts, or a bad release. Then I would reproduce the issue if possible and narrow it down to the failing dependency or resource bottleneck. A strong answer shows you can debug systematically under pressure.

I would avoid loading the full file into memory unless I truly need to. Instead, I would use streaming, chunked transfers, or object storage depending on access patterns and scale. Good design keeps latency reasonable without wasting memory.