API Design Interview Questions for Freshers
Preparing for your first API Design interviews? This set is curated for freshers and early-career developers (0–2 years): the 27 questions that come up most for entry-level roles, each with a clear answer, example code and follow-ups.
27 API Design questions
- 1Explain Content Negotiation (Accept headers).Intermediate
- 2What is a Webhook?Intermediate
- 3Designing Error Responses in APIs.Intermediate
- 4What is HATEOAS?Intermediate
- 5How to design a Paginated API?Intermediate
- 6What is Rate Limiting and why is it necessary?Intermediate
- 7Explain OAuth2 and JWT for API security.Intermediate
- 8What is Idempotency in APIs?Intermediate
- 9How to handle API Versioning?Intermediate
- 10REST vs. GraphQL: When to use which?Intermediate
- 11Difference between Public and Private APIs?Beginner
- 12What is an API Key?Beginner
- 13What is Statelessness in REST?Beginner
- 14What is API Documentation?Beginner
- 15Explain the difference between Query Parameters and Path Parameters.Beginner
- 16What is an API Endpoint?Beginner
- 17What is JSON and why is it used in APIs?Beginner
- 18What are HTTP Status Codes?Beginner
- 19Explain the common HTTP Methods.Beginner
- 20What is a RESTful API?Beginner
- 21API Design Interview Question 1 (Free)Beginner
- 22API Design Interview Question 5 (Free)Intermediate
- 23API Design Interview Question 4 (Free)Beginner
- 24API Design Interview Question 2 (Free)Intermediate
- 25API Design Advanced Interview Question 10Beginner
- 26API Design Advanced Interview Question 8Intermediate
- 27API Design Advanced Interview Question 7Beginner
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Frequently asked questions
Which API Design questions do freshers (0–2 years) get asked?
This page collects 27 API Design interview questions aligned with freshers (0–2 years), ranging across the difficulty levels that match that experience band.
How do I prepare for a API Design interview with my experience level?
Work through these questions in order, make sure you can explain each answer out loud, and pay attention to the real-world examples and follow-ups — interviewers at this level care as much about reasoning as the final answer.
Do the answers include code and examples?
Yes — answers include explanations, code examples where relevant, common mistakes to avoid and follow-up questions so you are ready for the full interview conversation.