Python Gotchas You’ll Almost Certainly Be Asked About in a Technical Interview (Part 2)

My name is Evgeny Bartenev. I’m the author of the Python Developer course at TripleTen and an active software developer. Over the years, I’ve interviewed hundreds of candidates and have also spent plenty of time in the interview seat myself, so I have a good sense of what companies actually test for and where candidates most often stumble. And it’s not just junior developers. Even experienced engineers get tripped up by Python’s less obvious behavior.

The first part of this article sparked a lot of discussion. In the comments, readers shared their own interview experiences, pointed out subtle Python behaviors I hadn’t covered, and asked some great follow-up questions.

In this second part, I’ll keep going through the Python quirks that junior candidates most often run into during technical interviews. In my experience, these are exactly the kinds of topics that cause people to freeze up. As before, I’m not focusing on generic interview questions. I’m focusing on the language features behind those questions, the ones interviewers love turning into tricky little puzzles.