Application Security Engineer Interview

Comprehensive interview preparation for application security roles, covering secure software development, vulnerability assessment, and DevSecOps practices.

Secure Development

Vulnerability Assessment

DevSecOps

Code Review

Technical Questions

Core technical questions specific to application security and secure development.

Web Application Security

Q: How do you prevent SQL injection?

Prepared statements, input validation, ORM usage

Q: Explain OWASP Top 10 vulnerabilities

Injection, broken auth, sensitive data exposure

Q: How do you implement secure authentication?

Multi-factor auth, session management, password policies

Q: What's your approach to input validation?

Whitelisting, sanitization, encoding strategies

Vulnerability Assessment

Q: How do you conduct security testing?

SAST, DAST, IAST, manual testing, automation

Q: Explain your code review process

Security checklists, automated tools, peer reviews

Q: How do you prioritize vulnerabilities?

CVSS scoring, business impact, exploitability

Q: What's your experience with security tools?

Burp Suite, OWASP ZAP, SonarQube, Snyk

DevSecOps

Q: How do you integrate security into CI/CD?

Automated scanning, security gates, shift-left approach

Q: Explain your approach to container security

Image scanning, runtime protection, base images

Q: How do you manage secrets in applications?

Secret managers, environment variables, encryption

Q: What's your experience with infrastructure as code?

Terraform, CloudFormation, security policies

Code Review & Analysis

Q: How do you review code for security issues?

Checklists, automated tools, manual analysis

Q: What security patterns do you look for?

Input validation, authentication, authorization, encryption

Q: How do you handle third-party dependencies?

Vulnerability scanning, license compliance, updates

Q: What's your approach to API security?

Authentication, rate limiting, input validation, monitoring

Practical Scenarios

Real-world scenarios to test your practical application security skills.

Security Architecture

Scenario: Design secure authentication system

Multi-factor auth, session management, password policies

Scenario: Implement secure API design

Authentication, authorization, rate limiting, validation

Scenario: Secure microservices architecture

Service-to-service auth, API gateways, monitoring

Scenario: Data protection implementation

Encryption, key management, data classification

Security Testing

Scenario: Penetration testing web application

Methodology, tools, reporting, remediation

Scenario: Code review for security issues

Checklists, tools, communication, follow-up

Scenario: Vulnerability assessment process

Scanning, analysis, prioritization, remediation

Scenario: Security incident response

Detection, analysis, containment, recovery

Tools & Technologies

Essential tools and technologies every application security engineer should know.

Static Analysis

• SonarQube
• Snyk
• Checkmarx
• Veracode
• CodeQL

Dynamic Analysis

• Burp Suite
• OWASP ZAP
• Acunetix
• AppScan
• Nikto

DevSecOps

• Jenkins
• GitLab CI
• GitHub Actions
• Docker
• Kubernetes

Application Security Best Practices: Always follow the principle of defense in depth, implement security by design, and maintain continuous security testing. Remember that security should be integrated throughout the entire software development lifecycle.