20 QUESTIONS · 5 TOPICS · TEST-PYRAMID BUILDER · ABOUT 12 MINUTES

Writing code is the easy part. Keeping it working is the job.

Software engineering is everything that turns code into a product a team can change safely for years. Twenty questions, each explained, then balance a test suite. No sign-up, nothing saved.

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A DAY IN GIT
a1f3c9eAdd password reset flow7be21d4Fix flaky checkout testc09a7e2Refactor payment cliente44b0f1Merge pull request #21252d8aa3Bump version to 2.4.0
QUESTION 1 / 20 · PROCESS & METHODSEasy

In Scrum, a short fixed-length cycle of work is called a…

TEST-PYRAMID BUILDER

You have 200 tests. How do you split them?

Unit tests are fast and stable but check small pieces. End-to-end tests check the whole product but are slow and flaky. Move the sliders and watch the trade-off.

End-to-end · 20
Integration · 40
Unit · 140
Pyramid: healthy shape
Total: 200 / 200
10.7 minsuite run time
39%chance a run fails for no reason
100%rough confidence the app works
rarelyhow often devs will run it
A healthy pyramid: fast feedback from many unit tests, a layer of integration tests, and a few end-to-end checks on the critical journeys.Illustrative figures: 10 ms per unit test, 1 s per integration test, 30 s per end-to-end test; flaky failure rates of 0.01%, 0.2% and 2% per run.

What this software engineering test covers, in short

Twenty multiple-choice questions at introductory undergraduate level, four on each of five topics: development processes, requirements and design, testing, version control, and code quality and maintenance. They test how teams build software that keeps working as it grows.

Questions are language-neutral; Git commands refer to standard Git. The test is our own and not normed.

By What's Your IQ · Reviewed 5 Oct 2026
Format
20 multiple-choice questions
Level
Introductory undergraduate
Bonus
Test-pyramid trade-off builder
Term coined
1968, NATO Software Engineering Conference

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