I just phone interviewed with a company for a graduate software developer position and was asked the following questions. I should add that the company concerned are not a database vendor. How does a query optimiser work? If a database was performing badly how would you use the performance logs to find out the problem. I have asked whether they ask such questions of all candidate software developers (graduate or experienced) in a first phone interview. They replied that they like to test their candidates knowledge of database development. I want to write to the company to say that these questions are unreasonable to ask at a software developer interview and to request that my interview be done over. I would like to check the reasonableness of the following assumptions a) Those questions cannot be fairly classified as database development questions. b) I think the questions are appropriate for a DBA interview but wholly unreasonable for a software developer interview (experienced or not). c) The first question is only relevant to a database vendor. d) The second question is not fair because software developers typically don't deal with database performance logs as that is the job of the DBA. Perhaps some of you will be kind enough to comment on my assumptions or may have any other suggestions, before I write to the company.