← Back to Interview List

Laravel Fullstack Tech Job Interview

A real-world fullstack PHP and Laravel job interview covering advanced concepts, live scenario questions, and project experience.

Interviewer Hello! Let’s get started. Can you introduce yourself and share your experience with PHP and Laravel?
You Hello sir! I’m a full-stack developer with around 4 years of experience. Most of my recent work is with Laravel. I’ve built REST APIs, admin panels, user dashboards, and e-commerce sites using Laravel.
Interviewer What versions of Laravel have you worked with?
You I have worked with Laravel 5.6, 6.x, and currently 8.x. I have also started exploring Laravel 9 for personal projects.
Interviewer What is object-oriented programming and how is it used in Laravel?
You Object-oriented programming is a way of writing code using objects and classes. In Laravel, everything is organized as classes, like controllers, models, and services, making code reusable and maintainable.
Interviewer Can you explain the MVC architecture in Laravel?
You MVC stands for Model-View-Controller. Models handle database logic, Views manage the UI, and Controllers process requests, interact with models, and return a view or response. Laravel strictly follows MVC, which keeps concerns separated.
Interviewer How does routing work in Laravel?
You Routing in Laravel defines how URLs are mapped to controllers or closures. You define routes in routes/web.php and routes/api.php, mapping HTTP verbs and URIs to handlers. Example: Route::get("/user", "UserController@index").
Interviewer What is middleware in Laravel?
You Middleware acts as a layer between the HTTP request and the controller, allowing filtering and modification. Common examples are authentication and logging. You can create custom middleware for logic like role checks.
Interviewer How do you generate a controller and what are typical tasks in one?
You You use "php artisan make:controller ControllerName" to generate. In controllers, I handle requests, call models, validate data, and return responses. You can also bind middleware to controllers.
Interviewer Have you worked with Eloquent ORM? What is it used for?
You Yes! Eloquent provides an active record implementation for working with the database in an object-oriented way. Each model represents a table, and you can query, insert, update, or delete rows using Eloquent methods.
Interviewer How do you define relationships in Eloquent, for example between posts and comments?
You You define methods in models. In Post, I create a "comments()" method that returns $this->hasMany(Comment::class). In Comment, I use $this->belongsTo(Post::class), mapping the relationship.
Interviewer What is a resource controller, and how is it registered?
You A resource controller declares standard CRUD methods (index, create, store, edit, update, destroy, show). It’s registered with Route::resource("name", Controller::class), mapping HTTP verbs to methods.
Interviewer How do you use route model binding?
You Route model binding lets Laravel inject model instances based on the route parameter. You type-hint the model in controller methods, and Laravel looks it up by ID or custom key automatically.
Interviewer What is your approach to input validation in Laravel?
You I use the request()->validate([...]) method in controllers. For complex cases, I use custom Form Request classes for reusable validation logic.
Interviewer What are migrations and how do you use them?
You Migrations are code files that version control database schema changes. You make migrations with "php artisan make:migration", define fields in up() method, and apply changes with "php artisan migrate".
Interviewer How do you seed sample data into your database?
You I use seeders for bulk data and factories for generating model instances. Factories help in creating fake data for models, and seeders run these factories to insert bulk rows.
Interviewer When would you use Query Builder over Eloquent?
You Query Builder is useful when performance is critical and you don’t need the model layer, like complex joins or batch tasks. Eloquent is great for clarity and relationships, but sometimes less performant.
Interviewer How do you pass data from controllers to Blade views?
You In controllers, I return view("view_name", ["data" => $value]). The Blade template accesses the data using {{ $data }}.
Interviewer How do you manage frontend assets in Laravel?
You I use Laravel Mix to compile CSS and JS, often with versioning to avoid caching old assets. Mix config goes in webpack.mix.js, and versioned assets are used in Blade via mix() helper.
Interviewer What is CSRF and how does Laravel protect forms from it?
You CSRF stands for Cross-Site Request Forgery. Laravel automatically includes a CSRF token in forms via @csrf in Blade, validating requests with this token to prevent forgery.
Interviewer Have you implemented user authentication in Laravel projects?
You Yes. I have used Laravel Breeze, Jetstream, and the classic "php artisan make:auth" in older versions for authentication, registration, and password resets.
Interviewer How do you implement authentication for APIs?
You I use Laravel Passport or Sanctum for APIs. They generate and manage API tokens for authenticating requests. Middleware like "auth:sanctum" secures the routes.
Interviewer What is the difference between policies and gates in Laravel?
You Gates are simple authorization closures usually for small cases, while policies group authorization logic around a model class for cleaner, reusable checks.
Interviewer How do you handle errors and exceptions in Laravel?
You Laravel handles errors via app/Exceptions/Handler.php. For everyday debugging, I use dd() or dump(). For production, I use logs and custom error views in resources/views/errors/.
Interviewer How do you optimize Laravel application speed?
You I use eager loading to avoid N+1 issues, cache data and queries with Redis or file cache, minify assets, and use queues for heavy tasks.
Interviewer What’s your experience with jobs and queues?
You I’ve offloaded tasks like mail sending, image processing, and notifications to queues. I use Redis or database as queue drivers with Laravel’s queue worker.
Interviewer Have you implemented events and listeners in Laravel?
You Yes, for decoupling features. For example, firing an event when a user registers, and listening to send a welcome email.
Interviewer How do you handle file uploads and storage?
You I use the Storage facade and configured disks in config/filesystems.php. Files are stored with $request->file()->store(), and public files are symlinked to storage/app/public.
Interviewer What is your approach to testing in Laravel?
You I write unit and feature tests using PHPUnit, set up test databases, and use factories for data. I run "php artisan test" and check code coverage.
Interviewer How do you deploy a Laravel application?
You I set up environment variables in .env, configure web server (like Apache/Nginx), run migrations, configure storage symlinks, cache configurations, and make sure queues and schedulers are running.
Interviewer What is REST API, and how do you return proper HTTP status codes?
You REST API follows CRUD operations mapped to HTTP verbs. In Laravel, I use response()->json($data, 200) or other status codes based on the result.
Interviewer What security practices do you follow with Laravel?
You I validate inputs, use CSRF, HTTPS, password hashing, authorization checks, and avoid committing credentials to Git. I also set APP_DEBUG=false in production.
Interviewer How do you manage packages in Laravel?
You I use Composer to install, update, and manage dependencies. I check for package conflicts and update packages with "composer update".
Interviewer Suppose you have to integrate a third-party API, how would you do that in Laravel?
You I use Laravel's HTTP client or Guzzle for API requests, put credentials in .env, and handle responses and exceptions properly.
Interviewer Thank you! Any questions for me?
You Thank you for the opportunity. I’d like to know more about your tech stack and the team’s workflow, if possible.