The Software Engineer role at Medical Science & Computing (MSC) is pivotal in driving innovation in the field of medical research and healthcare. As a Software Engineer, you will be involved in developing and maintaining software solutions that support critical research initiatives, particularly for clients like the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Your work will directly impact the efficiency of biomedical research, improve patient outcomes, and support the overall mission of advancing medical science through technology. This position is characterized by its complexity and the significant scale at which you will operate. You will engage with advanced technologies and methodologies, contributing to projects that may involve data analysis, algorithm development, and software architecture tailored to the unique needs of healthcare and research environments. Expect to work collaboratively with researchers, data scientists, and other engineers, making this role not only technically challenging but also strategically influential within the organization.
Initial Screening
reportedThe process begins with an initial screening conducted by a recruiter to assess candidate fit.
What to demonstrate
- The process begins with an initial screening conducted by a recruiter to assess candidate fit
- Depth in Java
How to prepare
- Be able to walk your CV end to end in two minutes, and say why this company specifically.
- Have your salary expectations, notice period and location constraints ready, and ask for the rest of the loop in writing.
Technical Assessments
reportedCandidates undergo technical assessments that may include coding challenges and technical questions.
What to demonstrate
- Candidates undergo technical assessments that may include coding challenges and technical questions
- Depth in Java
How to prepare
- Answer aloud and timed: Describe how you would optimize a SQL query for better performance.
- Answer aloud and timed: Can you explain how garbage collection works in Java?
Interviews with Team Members
reportedCandidates participate in interviews with team members to discuss their experiences and technical skills.
What to demonstrate
- Candidates participate in interviews with team members to discuss their experiences and technical skills
- Depth in Java
How to prepare
- Answer aloud and timed: What is the significance of version control systems in software development?
- Answer aloud and timed: Describe a challenging bug you encountered in a project and how you resolved it.
Interviews with Management
reportedFinal interviews are conducted with management to evaluate overall fit and alignment with organizational values.
What to demonstrate
- Final interviews are conducted with management to evaluate overall fit and alignment with organizational values
- Depth in Java
How to prepare
- Answer aloud and timed: How would you approach designing a system to handle large datasets in healthcare?
- Answer aloud and timed: Provide an example of how you have improved a software application’s performance.
PracHub editorial advice for the preparation topics above.
Prepare for Technical Assessments
Focus on practicing coding problems and algorithms, as these are fundamental to the interview process.
Understand the Company’s Mission
Familiarize yourself with MSC's goals and projects, as demonstrating alignment with their mission can make a positive impression.
Be Ready for Behavioral Questions
Reflect on your past experiences and how they relate to the role, as behavioral questions will play a significant part in the interviews.
Practice Communication Skills
Articulate your thought process clearly during interviews, especially when discussing technical concepts or problem-solving approaches.
Choose a category, try a prompt, then open its approach, worked solution or follow-up when you need it.
Can you explain how garbage collection works in Java?
Can you explain how garbage collection works in Java?
Approach
- Say what the runtime actually does before reasoning about the code.
- Name what is shared across threads and what owns each piece of state.
- Identify the window where an invariant is briefly untrue.
- Distinguish a value from a reference to it, and say which one you handed out.
Follow-up
- What happens if two callers reach this at the same time?
- Where could this allocate more than you expect?
Write a function in Java to reverse a linked list.
Write a function in Java to reverse a linked list.
Approach
- Restate the input: its shape, its size, and what is guaranteed about it.
- Name the brute-force solution and its complexity before improving on it.
- Choose the data structure from the access pattern, not from familiarity.
- State the target complexity and say which constraint rules the naive version out.
Follow-up
- How does this change if the input no longer fits in memory?
- What is the worst case, and how likely is it on real data?
Implement a sorting algorithm and explain the time complexity.
Implement a sorting algorithm and explain the time complexity.
Approach
- Restate the input: its shape, its size, and what is guaranteed about it.
- Name the brute-force solution and its complexity before improving on it.
- Choose the data structure from the access pattern, not from familiarity.
- State the target complexity and say which constraint rules the naive version out.
Follow-up
- How does this change if the input no longer fits in memory?
- What is the worst case, and how likely is it on real data?
Solve a problem using dynamic programming techniques.
Solve a problem using dynamic programming techniques.
Approach
- Restate the input: its shape, its size, and what is guaranteed about it.
- Name the brute-force solution and its complexity before improving on it.
- Choose the data structure from the access pattern, not from familiarity.
- State the target complexity and say which constraint rules the naive version out.
Follow-up
- How does this change if the input no longer fits in memory?
- What is the worst case, and how likely is it on real data?
Describe how you would optimize a SQL query for better performance.
Describe how you would optimize a SQL query for better performance.
Approach
- Name the grain you start from and join outward from it.
- Check whether any join is one-to-many before aggregating, or the sums inflate.
- Say which index the query would use, and what makes it unusable.
- Handle the rows that do not match: that is usually the actual question.
Follow-up
- How does the query change if that join becomes one-to-many?
- What happens to this when the table is ten times larger?
Denormalise tenant onto revisions and backfill it live
resource_revision (revision_id, resource_id, version, actor_user_id, change_kind, patch, request_id, created_at) has 400M rows and no tenant column; tenant_id lives only on resource. Two reads need it: a tenant-scoped audit feed ordered by created_at DESC, and an offboarding purge. Both join back to resource today. Justify adding tenant_id to resource_revision against those two reads, name the anomaly the copy introduces and the constraint that prevents it, then give the ordered migration for a live table taking 1.2k writes/second — the lock each step takes, how the backfill is batched, and where each step stops being reversible. PostgreSQL 16.
Approach
- Justify from the access path rather than from taste. Without the column, the audit feed either scans resource_revision by created_at and discards other tenants' rows, or resolves the tenant's resource_ids first and probes with them — both proportional to the tenant's whole history rather than to one page. With (tenant_id, created_at DESC, revision_id DESC) it is a seek that stops at 50 rows, and the purge becomes a ranged delete instead of a join.
- Name the cost exactly: a second copy of a fact can disagree with the first. Make the disagreement unwritable rather than documented — add UNIQUE (resource_id, tenant_id) on resource so it can serve as a foreign-key target, then FOREIGN KEY (resource_id, tenant_id) REFERENCES resource (resource_id, tenant_id) on the revision table. A revision can then only ever carry its parent's tenant.
- Step one, expand: ALTER TABLE resource_revision ADD COLUMN tenant_id BIGINT NULL, with no default, so it is a catalogue change and no rewrite. It still needs ACCESS EXCLUSIVE for an instant, and that instant queues behind the longest open transaction on the table while every later query queues behind it — set lock_timeout to 2s and retry rather than wait.
- Step two, dual-write: deploy the writer that populates tenant_id on every new revision while reads still use the join. Reversible by redeploying the previous build, because nothing reads the column yet.
Follow-up
- The backfill is half finished and a rollback is required. What state is the table in, and what does the previous build do with a half-populated column?
- How do you verify the backfill actually finished, given rows are still being inserted while it runs?
Explain the differences between Java and other programming languages you are familiar with.
Explain the differences between Java and other programming languages you are familiar with.
Approach
- Clarify what is being asked and what a complete answer contains.
- State your assumptions explicitly before working the problem.
- Say what you would check first and why it is the highest-information step.
- Work from the requirement backwards to the design.
Follow-up
- What assumption would you test first?
- How would you know your answer was wrong?
What are the principles of Object-Oriented Programming?
What are the principles of Object-Oriented Programming?
Approach
- Clarify what is being asked and what a complete answer contains.
- State your assumptions explicitly before working the problem.
- Say what you would check first and why it is the highest-information step.
- Work from the requirement backwards to the design.
Follow-up
- What assumption would you test first?
- How would you know your answer was wrong?
What is the significance of version control systems in software development?
What is the significance of version control systems in software development?
Approach
- Clarify what is being asked and what a complete answer contains.
- State your assumptions explicitly before working the problem.
- Say what you would check first and why it is the highest-information step.
- Work from the requirement backwards to the design.
Follow-up
- What assumption would you test first?
- How would you know your answer was wrong?
Describe a challenging bug you encountered in a project and how you resolved it.
Describe a challenging bug you encountered in a project and how you resolved it.
Approach
- Clarify what is being asked and what a complete answer contains.
- State your assumptions explicitly before working the problem.
- Say what you would check first and why it is the highest-information step.
- Work from the requirement backwards to the design.
Follow-up
- What assumption would you test first?
- How would you know your answer was wrong?
How would you approach designing a system to handle large datasets in healthcare?
How would you approach designing a system to handle large datasets in healthcare?
Approach
- Clarify what is being asked and what a complete answer contains.
- State your assumptions explicitly before working the problem.
- Say what you would check first and why it is the highest-information step.
- Work from the requirement backwards to the design.
Follow-up
- What assumption would you test first?
- How would you know your answer was wrong?
Provide an example of how you have improved a software application’s performance.
Provide an example of how you have improved a software application’s performance.
Approach
- Clarify what is being asked and what a complete answer contains.
- State your assumptions explicitly before working the problem.
- Say what you would check first and why it is the highest-information step.
- Work from the requirement backwards to the design.
Follow-up
- What assumption would you test first?
- How would you know your answer was wrong?
How would you design a cloud-based application for patient data management?
How would you design a cloud-based application for patient data management?
Approach
- Fix the scope first: who calls this, how often, and what they do when it fails.
- Name the read and write paths separately; they rarely have the same bottleneck.
- Choose a partition key and say what query it makes expensive.
- State the consistency you need, and where you are willing to be stale.
Follow-up
- What breaks first when traffic grows ten times?
- How does this behave when that dependency is down for an hour?
Discuss the trade-offs between microservices and monolithic architecture.
Discuss the trade-offs between microservices and monolithic architecture.
Approach
- Fix the scope first: who calls this, how often, and what they do when it fails.
- Name the read and write paths separately; they rarely have the same bottleneck.
- Choose a partition key and say what query it makes expensive.
- State the consistency you need, and where you are willing to be stale.
Follow-up
- What breaks first when traffic grows ten times?
- How does this behave when that dependency is down for an hour?
Read latency spikes on a sixty-second sawtooth
The cached listing read path serves about 14k reads/second at an 85% hit rate. p99 sits at 35 ms for 57 seconds, jumps to 900 ms for 3, and repeats. During each spike the primary shows several hundred identical listing queries starting within the same millisecond, all carrying one large tenant's id. Cache entries use a 60-second TTL. Give the mechanism, the ordered checks, the fix, and the correctness hazard your fix must not introduce.
Approach
- Match the period to a configured number before theorising about load. A spike every 60 seconds against a 60-second TTL is an entry expiring, and you confirm it by correlating spike timestamps with the entry's write time rather than with the traffic curve. If the period had matched a cron or a GC interval instead, this is a different investigation.
- Establish the concurrency of the miss. Several hundred identical queries in one millisecond means the miss path has no coalescing: every request that arrives between expiry and repopulation recomputes. The herd size is that key's arrival rate times its recompute time, so at 1.2k reads/second for the hot key and a 250 ms recompute you expect about 300 concurrent misses, which matches what is observed.
- Add single-flight on the miss path so one caller per key recomputes under a short-lived lock while the rest wait for its result. Prefer stale-while-revalidate where the read tolerates it: return the expired value immediately and refresh asynchronously, which removes the latency spike rather than serialising it into a queue of waiters.
- De-synchronise the keys. Write TTLs with jitter, for example 60 seconds plus or minus 10%, so a deploy or a mass invalidation does not align every key on the same second and turn a per-key herd into a fleet-wide one.
Follow-up
- The same sawtooth appears on a key that is invalidated on write rather than expired. Is that the same bug?
- How does your answer change if the recompute takes 4 seconds instead of 250 ms?
Built from the rounds and topics Medical Science & Computing candidates report.
Prepare, practise & reflect
One practical outcome each day. Spend longer where you need it.
0 / 7 done01Map the Medical Science & Computing loop
- Write out the reported sequence: Initial Screening, Technical Assessments, Interviews with Team Members, Interviews with Management.
- For each round, write one sentence on what it is judging, from the description above, and mark the one you are least ready for.
Deliverable: A one-page map of the 4 reported rounds, with the weakest marked.
02Work Java
- Spend the session on Java, which Medical Science & Computing candidates report being tested on.
- Write one worked example in Java and time yourself on it.
Deliverable: One timed worked example in Java.
03Work Algorithms & Data Structures (coding interview)
- Spend the session on Algorithms & Data Structures (coding interview), which Medical Science & Computing candidates report being tested on.
- Write one worked example in Algorithms & Data Structures (coding interview) and time yourself on it.
Deliverable: One timed worked example in Algorithms & Data Structures (coding interview).
04Work SQL
- Spend the session on SQL, which Medical Science & Computing candidates report being tested on.
- Write one worked example in SQL and time yourself on it.
Deliverable: One timed worked example in SQL.
05Answer out loud: Technical / Domain Questions
- Answer aloud, timed: Explain the differences between Java and other programming languages you are familiar with.
- Answer aloud, timed: What are the principles of Object-Oriented Programming?
Deliverable: Spoken answers to 2 reported Technical / Domain Questions question(s), under time.
06Answer out loud: Problem-Solving / Case Studies
- Answer aloud, timed: Describe a challenging bug you encountered in a project and how you resolved it.
- Answer aloud, timed: How would you approach designing a system to handle large datasets in healthcare?
Deliverable: Spoken answers to 2 reported Problem-Solving / Case Studies question(s), under time.
07Answer out loud: Behavioral / Leadership
- Answer aloud, timed: Describe a time when you had to work closely with a team to achieve a common goal.
- Answer aloud, timed: How do you handle conflict within a team setting?
Deliverable: Spoken answers to 2 reported Behavioral / Leadership question(s), under time.
Expand any day for tasks and deliverables. Your progress is saved on this device.
Behavioural rounds judge the decision you made and what it cost.
Describe a time when you had to work closely with a team to achieve a common goal.
Describe a time when you had to work closely with a team to achieve a common goal.
Approach
- Pick a story where you made the decision, not one where you watched it.
- State the situation in two sentences and spend the rest on the reasoning.
- Give the blast radius: what could have broken, and what you measured.
- Name the disagreement and how you resolved it with evidence.
Follow-up
- What would you do differently if you ran that again?
- How did you know your change caused the improvement?
How do you handle conflict within a team setting?
How do you handle conflict within a team setting?
Approach
- Pick a story where you made the decision, not one where you watched it.
- State the situation in two sentences and spend the rest on the reasoning.
- Give the blast radius: what could have broken, and what you measured.
- Name the disagreement and how you resolved it with evidence.
Follow-up
- What would you do differently if you ran that again?
- How did you know your change caused the improvement?
What motivates you to perform at your best?
What motivates you to perform at your best?
Approach
- Pick a story where you made the decision, not one where you watched it.
- State the situation in two sentences and spend the rest on the reasoning.
- Give the blast radius: what could have broken, and what you measured.
- Name the disagreement and how you resolved it with evidence.
Follow-up
- What would you do differently if you ran that again?
- How did you know your change caused the improvement?
- 01
Describe a time when you had to work closely with a team to achieve a common goal.
- 02
How do you handle conflict within a team setting?
- 03
What motivates you to perform at your best?
How difficult is the interview process for a Software Engineer at MSC?
The interview process is rigorous, with a mix of technical assessments and behavioral interviews. It is essential to prepare thoroughly, especially for coding problems and system design questions.
Medical Science & Computing Software Engineer candidate reports ↗What differentiates successful candidates?
Successful candidates typically demonstrate strong technical skills alongside effective communication and teamwork abilities. Showing how you align with MSC's mission can also set you apart.
Medical Science & Computing Software Engineer candidate reports ↗What is the company culture like at Medical Science & Computing?
The culture at MSC emphasizes collaboration, innovation, and a strong commitment to advancing medical science. Teamwork and open communication are highly valued.
Medical Science & Computing Software Engineer candidate reports ↗What is the typical timeline from the initial screening to an offer?
The timeline can vary, but candidates often hear back within a few weeks after completing the initial assessments. Expect follow-up interviews to take place shortly thereafter.
Medical Science & Computing Software Engineer candidate reports ↗Are there remote work options available?
While specific policies can vary by team, MSC is generally supportive of flexible work arrangements, including remote work, especially for roles that can be performed virtually.
Medical Science & Computing Software Engineer candidate reports ↗What topics does Medical Science & Computing test in interviews?
Medical Science & Computing interviews most often cover Java, Technical Project Management, Resume review and submission workflow, Algorithms & Data Structures (coding interview), and Stakeholder Communication. The exact emphasis depends on the specific role you apply for.
Medical Science & Computing Software Engineer candidate reports ↗Sources & methodology 3 sources ↗
No official company page is cited. Rounds and questions come from candidate reports and PracHub editorial material; each source shows the date it was read.
- 01Medical Science & Computing Software Engineer candidate reports ↗
Company-reported rounds, questions and FAQ.
Candidate reports · Accessed 2026-09-22 - 02PracHub Software Engineer practice ↗
PracHub practice material, not company-reported.
PracHub page · Accessed 2026-09-22 - 03PracHub preparation framework ↗
PracHub preparation guidance.
PracHub page · Accessed 2026-09-22
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