Working Through Shivprasad Koirala Sql Server Interview Questions
I ran into his materials about three years ago when I was preparing a junior developer for a migration project. The guy puts together a pretty thorough set of SQL Server interview questions that cover everything from basic T-SQL to execution plans and locking behavior. His site is straightforward — no fluff, just questions organized by topic and difficulty level. Here is how I actually use these when prepping someone, and what you should know before you waste time on them.
What Shivprasad Koirala Sql Server Interview Questions Actually Covers
The question bank runs somewhere around 300 to 400 items across his different posts and videos. The topics break down roughly like this: indexing strategies and when to use them, query optimization, locking and isolation levels, stored procedures and transactions, common table expressions, window functions, and database design fundamentals. He also touches on some newer stuff like query store and Always Encrypted in later updates. The questions are presented in a simple Q-and-A format. Each one includes an answer, sometimes with a code example. It is not structured exactly like a textbook. You scroll through, pick a category, and read. That is basically it.
How to Use These Questions Without Wasting Your Time
Most people I see go through these questions passively. They read the question, glance at the answer, and move on. That approach will not help anyone prepare for a real technical interview. Here is what actually works. Step one: Pick a topic, read the question, and try to answer it out loud before looking at the provided solution. If you are interviewing for a mid-level role, you should be able to give a coherent answer without immediately reaching for the solution text. Step two: After reading his answer, compare it to what you said. Note where your explanation was incomplete or wrong. Write down the gap. This is where the learning actually happens — not in the initial read-through.
Get the Full Details
Step three: For the technical questions that involve code — and about sixty percent of them do — actually type the example and run it. Shivprasad's examples usually work, but occasionally his sample scripts assume a specific database state. When they do not run as expected, trace through the logic yourself and fix it. I spent twenty minutes once debugging a CTE example that returned zero rows because the base table was empty in my local instance, not because the CTE logic was wrong. Running his examples fresh on a clean database avoids most of that headache. Step four: Group the questions by frequency. Some topics show up in almost every interview. Indexing, normalization, joins, and execution plans are nearly guaranteed. Spending extra time on those areas gives you better returns than going through the entire list linearly.
Where These Questions Fall Short
I need to be blunt about the limitations. The question set is solid for early to mid-career SQL Server roles, but it does not cover everything you will face in a senior-level interview. For one, the depth on distributed systems is thin. There is barely anything on partitioning strategies beyond the basics, and query store gets a mention but not a deep dive. If you are interviewing for an architecture or lead role, you will need supplemental material. Another gap is the handling of edge cases. Several answers present the ideal scenario without discussing what happens when statistics are stale or when parameter sniffing kicks in. I had a candidate once who confidently explained query plan caching using Shivprasad's framework, then froze when I asked about recompilation thresholds under high-write workloads. The original material does not really address this.
The questions also tend to favor Microsoft SQL Server specifically rather than the broader RDBMS landscape. If your target company uses a mixed environment or is considering moving off SQL Server, you will need additional practice with PostgreSQL or MySQL equivalents of these topics. Finally, the quality is consistent but not exceptional. Some answers are concise and accurate. Others are a paragraph too long and bury the key point under unnecessary detail. I usually skim the longer ones and verify the core claim against the official Microsoft documentation before accepting it as correct.
Practical Tips for Actually Retaining This Material
Reading through 300 questions in a single sitting does not stick. The brain drops most of it within forty-eight hours. Spread your study across separate days, maybe two to three topics per session, and come back to the ones you missed a week later. I also recommend pairing these questions with actual exam-style practice. Microsoft's own certification practice tests for the DP-300 or the older 70-761 have a similar difficulty range and cover overlapping topics. Doing a few of those after working through a topic in Shivprasad's questions will show you whether you actually understand the material or just memorized the phrasing. If you are short on time, focus on these question clusters first: query optimization and execution plans, indexing (clustered versus non-clustered, covering indexes, include columns), concurrency and isolation levels, and stored procedure best practices. These four areas account for roughly half of what most interviewers ask.
Where to Find the Questions
The questions are hosted on Shivprasad Koirala's personal website and on his YouTube channel. You can find them by searching for his name along with "SQL Server interview questions." The website organizes them by category, which makes navigation easier than digging through video descriptions. I usually pull up the web versions rather than watching the video walkthroughs because scrolling back and forth is faster during active study. He updates the list periodically. The latest version I checked had additions around SQL Server 2019 features like intelligent query processing. If you are using an older version of SQL Server in your work, just be aware that some answers may reference features your environment does not support.
Shivprasad Koirala Sql Server Interview Questions — My Honest Take
It is a useful resource. Not perfect, not comprehensive enough for senior roles, but practical and generally accurate. I would use it as a foundation, not as the sole study material. Pair it with hands-on practice and official Microsoft docs, and it will serve you well. Reading it passively and expecting results will not work. That is the part most people skip.
