If you are looking for a position as a Magento developer, then there is a good chance that your interviewer is going to ask you a series of questions related to Magento. If you want to have the best chance of landing the job, you need to be prepared in advance so that you make sure you know the answers.

Here are some of the 13 most common Magento interview questions and answers. It is very likely that these questions will be asked during your Magento developer position interview. If you landed here looking for how to hire a Magento developer, check out this post from Toptal for Magento Hiring Guide.

1. What is Magento?

Magento is an ecommerce platform that enables companies to run and manage their ecommerce sites in an optimized way. Magento functions as an open-source ecommerce management system. It was first published by a Varien Inc in 2008, before being sold to eBay and ultimately spun off into its own entity. The 2.0 version of Magento arrived in November of 2015 and has improved the platform across the board.

2. Why is Magento valuable for businesses?

Magento is valuable for businesses because it gives them a high level of control and flexibility when they are managing the look, functionality, and content of their ecommerce store. The Magento software is both extremely convenient, and extremely effective for running an ecommerce operation.

Further, it has a number of features that make operating an ecommerce site easier compared to other options. Many of these features revolve around how financial transactions are made, and how content can be uploaded and optimized for search engine rankings.  

3. What are the different versions of Magento?

Magento categorizes their product across multiple offerings:

  • Magento Commerce
  • Magento Order Management
  • Magento Business Intelligence
  • Magento Shipping
  • Magento Social
  • Magento Open Source

Magento 2.4 is available now and it includes new features and improvements such as improvements to the B2B Module, ElasticSearch, Product Recommendations powered by Adobe Sensei, Adobe Stock Integration and more. This version is sought after by businesses who want the most current technology.

4. What are some of the top features of Magento?

  • Payment
  • Reporting and Analytics
  • Customer Accounts
  • Product and Catalogue Browsing
  • Site Management
  • Search Engine Optimization
  • Customer Accounts
  • International Support
  • Checkout
  • Marketing Promotion and Tools
  • Order Management

5. What is MVC Architecture?

MVC, or Model, View, Controller, is a type of architecture in which business logic, data access, and user interface are separated for applications. MVC has two different types: configuration-based and convention-based. However, Magento uses the configuration-based version. This means that to get a module’s config file to work, everything must be specified to it.

6. Can you explain the technology that is used by Magento?

Magento uses MySQL for database and PHP as a web server scripting language. Specifically, it uses MySQL 5.6 (Percona or Oracle), and PHP 5.4 and 5.5. This technology makes up the core of Magento and is what gives the software its functionality.

7. Are there any limitations to the Magento software?

The Magento software is extremely useful and is one of the top ecommerce platforms available on the market. However, it does require a lot of space and memory. Furthermore, it requires object-oriented programming in order to prevent turning into a very complex system. Finally, Magento can be slow in terms of performance, at times. However, these limitations are usually not a significant concern in most cases, and the benefits provided by the Magento Software usually far outweigh any potential issues.

8. How do you create a custom module in Magento?

In order to create a custom module in Magento, you must first - create a module directory, second – create controller, block, and module files for your module, third – create a module configuration file, and finally, fourth – create an XML file. The purpose of creating an XML file is so that you can enable or disable the module and also instruct the system which code pool that the module will be taken from.

9. How can you improve the performance of Magento?

There are a number of things that you can do to enhance and improve Magento performance.

Doing all of the following can improve Magento performance.

  • Disabling any modules that are not being used
  • Disabling the Magento log
  • MySQL Query Caching
  • Optimizing your image
  • Enabling Gzip Compression
  • Enabling Magento Caching
  • Combining the external CSS/JS into a single file

All of these things can speed up Magento and make it work better. This can be very helpful for both the ecommerce company, and for the customers of the company.

10. Which billing information can be managed through Magento?

All of the following things can be managed from the client account.

  • Adding a credit card
  • Adding a PayPal account
  • Updating a billing address
  • Producing a print-ready receipt
  • Viewing your billing history

Considering the fact that Magento is an ecommerce platform it is absolutely critical that all of this billing information can be managed through the platform. This is why all of these things are able to be managed through Magento.

11. How do you add a blog to Magento?

Blogs are very important for helping to increase the search engine rankings for an ecommerce site. To add a blog to Magento, you have two options, you can use a prebuilt Magento blog extension, or you can create a custom blog module. If you are going to set up a free pre-built blog extension, then you will need to first download the extension. You can get them from Aheadworks. Next, you need to install the blog extension. After that, you need to configure it. If you are going to build a custom blog, then you will have to create a module for it.

12. How many design patterns does Magento Have?

Magento has a total of 12 design patterns. These patterns include:

  • Factory Pattern
  • Singleton Pattern
  • Model View Controller Pattern
  • Front Controller Pattern
  • Registry Pattern
  • Prototype Pattern
  • Iterator Pattern
  • Object Pool Pattern
  • Service Locator Pattern
  • Lazy Loading Pattern
  • Observer Pattern
  • Module Pattern

13. How many tables will be created when you make a new EAV module?

If you make a new EAV module, then six tables will be created. These tables include:

module_datetime, module, module_decimal, module_int, module_text, and module_varchar.

Final thoughts

Earning a position as a Magento developer can be both profitable and fulfilling. However, you really need to know the key Magento information in order to get such a position and knowing the answers to the 13 most common Magento interview questions is a great start.

If you have any more questions about Magento topics, or if you need any type of Magento-related assistance, please feel free to contact MW2 Consulting today. You can reach us by clicking here, or by calling 1 (408) 573-6310. We look forward to speaking with you and to helping you get all of your Magento issues resolved as we are genuine Magento experts and are certified Magento partners.