fastapi-ai-interview-prep

FastAPI AI Interview Prep

A question bank and mock-interviewer toolkit for FastAPI + AI-engineering roles. Ten topic files hold ten questions each (100 total), every one with a model answer that includes the senior signal an interviewer listens for — the distinction that separates "knows the API" from "has run this in production."

Inspired by the topic coverage of FastAPI for AI Engineers (AI Engineering Insider, 2026). All questions and answers here are written from scratch; this is not a reproduction of the book's question set.

When to use

• "Help me prep for a FastAPI / Python backend / AI-engineer interview"
• "Give me a mock interview" / "quiz me on FastAPI" / "ask me async questions"
• Drilling one weak area (e.g. RAG serving, JWT security, testing strategy)
• Self-testing: answer first, then check against the rubric

When NOT to use

• You want to understand a pattern to apply it now → use fastapi-ai-patterns
• You want to build a service → use fastapi-ai-scaffold

How to run a session

Mode A — Mock interview (you are the interviewer)

1. Draw questions without answers (so you can react to the candidate live):

python3 scripts/quiz.py --random 5

1. Ask one at a time. Let the candidate answer before revealing anything.
2. Reveal the rubric for that id only when scoring:

python3 scripts/quiz.py --answer ch09-q4

1. Grade against the senior signal, not keyword bingo (see rubric below).

Mode B — Topic drill

python3 scripts/quiz.py --topics                       # list chapters + counts
python3 scripts/quiz.py --topic ch08 --random 4        # async, questions only
python3 scripts/quiz.py --topic ch08 --list --with-answers   # study a whole topic

Mode C — Self-test

python3 scripts/quiz.py --random 3            # answer out loud / in writing first
python3 scripts/quiz.py --random 3 --seed 42 --with-answers   # same draw, with rubrics

Grading rubric (how to score an answer)

For each question, weight the answer on:

1. Correctness — the core mechanism is right.
2. Senior signal — names the production consequence, trade-off, or failure mode, not just the definition (e.g. for def vs async def, mentions that a blocking call in async def stalls the whole loop and degrades unrelated endpoints).
3. Scenario handling — for the "you observe X, diagnose it" questions, looks for a method (decompose, measure, isolate) rather than a single guessed cause.

A junior answer defines the term; a senior answer says what breaks in production and what they'd do about it. The model answers are written to that bar.

Topic map (reference files)

Each file is self-contained; load the one matching the area you're drilling.

File	Chapter scope
references/ch01-intro.md	FastAPI/ASGI/REST/OpenAPI fundamentals
references/ch02-pydantic.md	Typing, Pydantic v2, validation, schema design
references/ch03-endpoints.md	Verbs, status codes, pagination, versioning
references/ch04-dependency-injection.md	Depends(), layering, project structure
references/ch05-database.md	SQLAlchemy/SQLModel, N+1, pooling, Alembic
references/ch06-security.md	Auth, JWT, OWASP API risks, BOLA
references/ch07-testing.md	TestClient, overrides, test DB strategy, coverage
references/ch08-async.md	Event loop, retries, queues, webhooks, streaming
references/ch09-ai-serving.md	ML/RAG/LLM serving — the core of the role
references/ch10-deployment.md	Probes, scaling, observability, degradation

Available scripts

• scripts/quiz.py — Draw/list/reveal questions parsed from the references.
  • Flags: --list, --topics, --count, --random N, --topic chNN, --answer ID, --with-answers, --seed N, --json, --help.
  • Stdlib only; run with python3 or uv run.

Gotchas

• Don't reveal answers before the candidate responds. Use --random (no --with-answers) to ask, and --answer <id> only when scoring — otherwise the exercise tests reading, not recall.
• Answers are written rubrics, not scripts to recite. Score for the senior signal and the diagnostic method; a differently-worded answer that names the production consequence is a pass.
• quiz.py parses the reference markdown live. If you add questions, keep the exact ### Q<n>. <text> heading format or they won't be picked up (the parser ends an answer at the next markdown heading).
• These mirror the book's topics, not its wording. Treat them as equivalent practice; the real interview will phrase things differently, which is the point.