SharePoint Developer Interview Questions

Responsibilities

 SharePoint developer responsibilities may include:

• Structuring data and implement information models
• Integrating SharePoint with external CMS
• Compiling information into reports
• Creating custom work flows
• Performing cross-functional implementation and integration

Skills

SharePoint is a great way to streamline hosting platforms. In order to integrate different platforms and languages seamlessly, skilled SharePoint developers will:

• Communicate effectively with other developers on their team
• Possess an eye for detail to identify weak points within business data stores
• Utilize creative thinking to automate processes as needed
• Utilize critical thinking in order to solve integration problems
• Maintain a solid work ethic to provide the best product possible

Qualifications

Many entry-level positions require that applicants possess a bachelor’s degree in computer science or a related field. However, it is not uncommon to find self-taught developers with little to no formal education. There are many courses and certifications outside of formal education that candidates can utilize to make themselves more attractive to employers such as Microsoft’s SharePoint Certification course.

If you’re getting ready to interview for a position as a SharePoint developer, you can prepare by researching the company as much as possible. Learn about the 9 things you should research before an interview.

Salary

Salaries for Sharepoint developers range between $81K and $128K with the median being $103K. 

Factors impacting the salary you receive as a Sharepoint developer include:

• Degrees (associate's or the equivalent certificate, bachelor's, BS, master's, MS, doctoral)
• Years of Experience
• Location
• Reporting Structure (seniority of the manager you report to, number of direct reports such as junior developers or technicians)
• Level of Performance - exceeding expectations

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Sharepoint Developer Interview Questions

Question: Can you tell me the key features of SharePoint?

Explanation: This is an opening or general question. The interviewer will ask this type of question early in the interview to break the ice, get you talking, and learn a little bit about your qualifications for the position. It provides you the opportunity to start guiding the interview in a direction in which you feel comfortable. 

Example: “There are four key features of SharePoint which are communities, content, search, and insights. Communities enable collaboration between users. Content is the information the users store and exchange within the application. Search allows users to find both content and other users. Insights help users find the specific information they are searching for. Insight is also known as Performance Point Services. Combined, all of these features enable users to make better, more informed decisions.”

Question: What are the minimum hardware requirements for SharePoint?

Explanation: This is another general question which the interviewer is using to dig deeper into your knowledge of SharePoint. Interviews usually start with open-ended general questions and then evolve to more specific operational and technical questions.

Example: “Like most applications, SharePoint has very specific minimum hardware requirements to run effectively. The basic hardware requirements are a 64-bit processor with four cores and 2.5 GHz minimum per core, 4 GB of RAM for developer or evaluation use and 8 GB for a single server, and multiple server farm installation for production use. The hard disk needs to have at least 80 GB for installation.”

Question: What are Windows SharePoint Services?

Explanation: This is your first technical question. It’s asking you to define a component of SharePoint. When answering technical questions, you should first answer the question directly with the definition the interviewer is requesting. Follow this up with a brief example of the features or how the technology is used.

Example: “This is an extension of SharePoint that enables the creation of websites for information sharing. It will also allow for document collaboration. Windows SharePoint Services provide additional functionality for the MS Office system and other desktop applications. Finally, it serves as a platform for the development of applications.”

Question: What is the Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server, and what features does it have?

Explanation: This is another technical question in which you are being asked to define a component of SharePoint and its features. As a SharePoint developer, you can anticipate that most of the interview questions will be either operational or technical in nature. Knowing this, you can use these sample questions to both practice your answers and refresh your knowledge.

Example: “The Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server is an integrated suite from the server side which helps improve organizational effectiveness. Some of the key features include comprehensive content management, enterprise search, accelerated shared business processes, and information sharing across SharePoint boundaries. Summarized, it is a platform that provides server administration, application extensibility, and interoperability.”

Question: How is SharePoint Portal Server different from Site Server?

Explanation: This technical question asking you to compare two versions of SharePoint. It assumes that you’ve worked with both of these or at least have knowledge of them. If you don’t, it is okay to state this, followed by an explanation of how you would determine the differences.

Example: “The key differences between SharePoint Portal Server and Site Server is that SharePoint Portal Server uses services for information sharing and document collaboration. It also extends the functionality to the MS Office system applications. Site Server is an application that manages websites with multiple technologies. Content management, product management, and order processing are just some of the functionalities of Site Server.”

Question:  What are the advantages of service applications over security support provider (SSP)?

Explanation: As you may have noted, as the interview progresses, the technical questions become more complex. This is a natural progression; it indicates the interviewer is gaining confidence in your technical capabilities. They are now starting to ask about more detailed topics that are probably germane to the type of work you will be doing in this role.

Example: “The main limitation of security support provider, or SSP, is that the architecture was configured by using a set of services. This means the web applications associated with SSP bore the overhead of all the services, even if they weren’t being used. The service application architecture allows a set of services to be associated with a specific web application, reducing the overhead. Also, websites can be configured to use only the services that are needed rather than the entire bank of services.”

Question: What is new in SharePoint 2019?

Explanation: This is still a technical question, even though it talks about new features in the product versus how the product is used. As a SharePoint developer, you should be up to date on any updates or new features of the software. You may eventually be asked about how you maintain your knowledge of SharePoint and stay up to date on new developments.

Example: “The main elements and upgrades built into SharePoint 2019 can be grouped into three categories: user experience, content engagement across all devices, and scaling and security compliance capabilities. While many other features have been added in SharePoint 2019, including list and libraries, site pages, and an updated search experience, the three I mentioned earlier are what people are most excited about.”

Question: Why should a company migrate to SharePoint 2019 from either 2016 or 2013?

Explanation: This is more of an operational question that asks you to provide the rationale for an upgrade to a new version of SharePoint which will cost the company money. The interviewer will probably ask this only if they have recently upgraded or are considering the upgrade. This, in fact, may be the reason they are interviewing you for this role.

Example: “I’d recommend an upgrade to SharePoint 2019 because Microsoft has added some incredible features to this new version. I mentioned a few of the new features in my answer to the last question. Most of the features are geared toward improving SharePoint’s performance and enhancing web content management capabilities. These upgrades should benefit all of your users as well as the support staff, making all of them more productive and thereby saving the company money which will offset the cost of the upgrade.”

Question: Can you explain how zones are used in SharePoint?

Explanation: By now, you recognize this as a technical question which asks for a specific piece of information related to your work. As a reminder, a technical question should be answered succinctly and directly with little embellishment.

Example: Within SharePoint, zones are different logical paths or URLs which are used to gain access to the same SharePoint web application. There are five types of zones in SharePoint. They are the internet, intranet, default, extranet, and custom zones. The name for each of these defines which path the zone uses to access the applications.”

Question: What is LINQ? How is it used in SharePoint?

Explanation: This is a very specific and advanced technical question. Only very qualified SharePoint developers will be familiar with this and able to answer the question accurately. You may want to provide a little more information with this question than you would for other technical questions because it is very specific and has been asked later in the interview. This indicates that it’s a strong topic of interest for the interviewer.

Example: “LINQ is a feature of programming languages which allows a user to submit a query in an object-oriented way. This feature supports compile-time check and gives users IntelliSense support in Visual Studio. It also defines a unified, SQL-like syntax to query data sources. LINQ can be used to query any data source, providing developers with a single query syntax. It is commonly used to query objects, collections, XML, and SQL server data sources.”

• What are the five zones? How can objects be allocated on the heap?

• Can you tell me your experience in architecting SharePoint websites?

• How is a SharePoint Portal Server different from a Site Server?

• What is the difference between a publishing portal and a collaboration portal?

• What is a trigger?