Developer Interview Questions at Cognizant

Published July 22, 2026 · Updated July 22, 2026

5 real Developer interview questions asked at Cognizant. Covers Technical rounds. Sourced from engineers who cleared the loop.

5 questions
129 upvotes
Rounds: 1
Top topic: sql

Interview Signals — What Cognizant Asks Developers

Frequently Asked Topics
sql5x
Interview Rounds
Technical5q
Experience Level
2-5 years2q
0-3 years1q
1-4 years1q
2-6 years1q

All Developer Questions Asked at Cognizant

Cognizant Hard Technical round 2-6 yearsSQL

Write a query to find, for each department, the employee with the second-highest salary, using window functions instead of a correlated subquery.

↑ 33 upvotes · 25 engineers asked this · Developer
Cognizant Easy Technical round 0-3 yearsSQL

Explain the difference between INNER JOIN, LEFT JOIN, and FULL OUTER JOIN with a simple example of Orders and Customers tables.

↑ 30 upvotes · 22 engineers asked this · Developer
Cognizant Medium Technical round 2-5 yearsSQL

A SELECT query filtering on a non-indexed column takes 8 seconds on a 10 million row table. Would adding an index always help? What's the trade-off of adding too many indexes?

↑ 26 upvotes · 15 engineers asked this · Developer
Cognizant Medium Technical round 1-4 yearsSQL

What problem does database normalization (1NF, 2NF, 3NF) actually solve? Give an example of an update anomaly in an unnormalized table.

↑ 21 upvotes · 12 engineers asked this · Developer
Cognizant Medium Technical round 2-5 yearsSQL

How would you find out why a specific SQL query is slow before making any changes to it?

↑ 19 upvotes · 8 engineers asked this · Developer

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Frequently asked questions

What topics does Cognizant ask Developers?
Common topics: sql.
What rounds are there in Cognizant Developer interview?
Reported rounds: Technical.
What experience level does Cognizant hire Developers at?
Most reported experience: 2-5 years.