Cracking the Spring Transactions Interview: Tips and Must-Know Questions

Cracking the Spring Transactions Interview: Tips and Must-Know Questions Work through these 12 questions out loud. Open any question for the full model answer, the trap to avoid, and the follow-up a panel usually asks.

  1. How do you stop a LangChain4j agent loop from running forever, and who owns the workflow?

    I set maxSequentialToolsInvocations to a small number — three or four for triage. Writes take an idempotency key. Approve is not a @Tool. Automating a business process with AI...

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  2. What is the N+1 query problem and how do you fix it?

    Loading 100 orders then accessing each order's items triggers 101 queries. Fix with JOIN FETCH in JPQL, @EntityGraph on repository method, or a DTO query selecting only...

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  3. How does @Transactional work?

    Spring creates a proxy around @Transactional beans. Calling createOrder() from another bean starts a transaction on the thread-bound EntityManager; commit on success, rollback...

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  4. How do Spring application events work with @EventListener?

    OrderService publishes OrderCreatedEvent after save. EmailListener @EventListener sends confirmation. @TransactionalEventListener(AFTER_COMMIT) prevents email on rolled-back...

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  5. Load shedding and backpressure in microservices?

    Tomcat max queue + reject policy returns 503 with Retry-After. WebClient timeout + circuit breaker stops calling slow dependency. Kafka consumer pause partitions when...

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  6. How does Spring Boot auto-configuration work?

    @SpringBootApplication enables @EnableAutoConfiguration, which loads candidate configs from starters. Each auto-config uses @ConditionalOn* to register beans only when...

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  7. Describe the Spring Bean lifecycle.

    Container instantiates the bean, injects dependencies, runs BeanPostProcessors, then @PostConstruct or InitializingBean. Singleton lives for context lifetime; prototype creates...

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  8. What is dependency injection and why does Spring use it?

    DI supplies collaborators from outside the class — typically via constructor. Problem solved: tight coupling to concrete classes, hard unit tests, scattered object...

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  9. Saga pattern — choreography vs orchestration?

    Order saga: reserve inventory → charge payment → ship. Failure at payment triggers release inventory compensation. Orchestration clearer for complex flows with visibility....

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  10. Explain the transactional outbox pattern.

    OrderService @Transactional saves Order and OutboxEvent(type=ORDER_CREATED, payload=json). OutboxProcessor @Scheduled polls FOR UPDATE SKIP LOCKED, sends to Kafka, updates...

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  11. What happens if @Transactional fails midway? How do you verify rollback?

    Default: runtime exception marks rollback-only; transaction commits nothing on exit. ```java @Transactional(rollbackFor = Exception.class) public void placeOrder(Order o) {...

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  12. New deployment causes random 5xx errors. Rollback fixes it. Why?

    Compare metrics before/after: error rate, pool saturation, GC. Enable DEBUG temporarily in canary pod only. Check new dependency version, connection pool default change, or...

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Spring Transactions Interview Questions and Answers · Top 50 Spring Transactions Interview Questions and Answers (2026 Edition) · Top 40 Spring Transactions Interview Questions | Must-Prepare before interview. · Spring Transactions Interview Questions Every Fresher Must Know

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