ASP.NET Interview Questions

Factual Questions
1

I know a bit of ASP.NET, such as how to use text boxes and other controls, how to handle events, how to use even a BackgroundWorker or DataGrid. What I don’t know are the behind-the-scenes (i.e., anything that is set up automatically by Visual Studio) things that must happen for a website to work properly. For instance, I was just asked in an interview about the http response and request object, which I don’t have a clue about. So this lead to my question, which is “what are the most important concepts that I should know about and expect to be asked about in an interview?” Any and all replies, no matter how long or short, will be greatly appreciated!

2

It sounds like you’ve got a handle on the UI part of it. Your weaknesses can probably be overcome by understanding the division of responsibilities between the ASP.NET server and the browser, and how they communicate with each other.

  • What makes a .aspx file different from a .html one?
  • .NET is a Windows-only concept. How can these pages work on Mac/Linux/iPad? How does that magic happen?
  • Definitely HTTP Requests and HTTP verbs: what makes PUT and POST different, for example.
  • If it’s an all-Microsoft shop, expect to be asked a lot about the back-end stuff; how do you hook an ASP.NET server up to a database, in particular. Know the rudiments of MSSQL.
  • These days, expect to be asked about HTML5 – and understand that they mean in context with JavaScript and CSS. ASP.NET hides a bunch of that from you, but you should still know how the rest of the world lives.
  • Depending on the job, you might also want to brush up on the intricacies of the domain system: DNS and how domains/subdomains are laid out. It’s not strictly ASP, but it’ll be assumed background knowledge for anyone responsible for building web software infrastructure.
  • Again, a side issue, but if the site is secure, be expected to know a lot about authorization and authentication: how does 2-factor authentication work, what’s public/private encryption (at a high level), what does an SSL cert give you, how do you secure a web site?
3

A couple more:

  • http vs https
  • cookie handling in ASP.NET
  • state handling in general (how do you get information and user info from one page to another?