questions asked during network engineer interview

Tue Jul 14 17:20:38 UTC 2020

On 7/13/20 8:16 PM, Greg Skinner via NANOG wrote:
> If you ever decide to revisit this subject, I recall it was covered 
> here in this thread started by Bill Herrin 
> <https://mailman.nanog.org/pipermail/nanog/2012-July/149687.html>.
>
> My general feelings on the subject of tech interviews are summarized 
> in the “interview anti-loop” section of this article by Steve Yegge 
> <http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2008/03/get-that-job-at-google.html>. 
>  Although it is targeted to people seeking software engineering jobs 
> at FANG (and FANG-like) companies, IMO the general tone is applicable 
> to other tech careers, even network engineering.  I have seen numerous 
> articles (and subsequent discussions) on this subject on forums such 
> as Quora, Medium, and Hacker News.

That blog post is everything that is wrong with software interviews. 
It's fine to ask intricate algorithm questions for somebody fresh out of 
school because what else are you going to ask them? But for somebody 
who's years out of school and has lots of experience, the intricate 
details of various algorithms fade especially ones that you don't use 
very often, or are embedded in library routines you'd be fired for if 
you tried to reinvent them. Telling people they have to go back to 
school for stuff they won't be using on the job is offensive.

My personal method is to devise a problem and actually work with them... 
because that's what I (or others) are going to be doing. How well can 
they get the requirements? How do they zero in on how to solve it? You 
can take this as deep or shallow as you like. Often I'd give it as a 
homework assignment if I liked them.

My personal theory is software interviewing is basically a hazing ritual 
where the interviewers are trying to fluff their own privates, and it's 
almost to a one male. I wrote this post a while ago:

http://rip-van-webble.blogspot.com/2013/07/interviews-as-hazing-rituals.html

Mike

>
> —gregbo
>
>> On Jul 11, 2020, at 11:34 AM, Mehmet Akcin <mehmet at akcin.net 
>> <mailto:mehmet at akcin.net>> wrote:
>>
>> hey there,
>>
>> I am hosting a live show a few times a month about internet 
>> infrastructure
>> and today's topics were, your favorite questions asked network 
>> engineers -
>> you can watch the recording here
>>
>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3pvikTrF0M
>>
>> if you have suggestions on topics to cover helping network operations
>> engineering that you want to see in here, please feel free to contact me
>> off-list, and let's create unique content that can be helpful to others.
>>
>> mehmet
>> -------------- next part --------------
>> An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
>> URL: 
>> <http://mailman.nanog.org/pipermail/nanog/attachments/20200711/6a87a4e0/attachment.html>
>>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman.nanog.org/pipermail/nanog/attachments/20200714/78d53e8b/attachment.html>