questions asked during network engineer interview

Sabri Berisha sabri at cluecentral.net
Tue Jul 14 22:54:40 UTC 2020


----- On Jul 14, 2020, at 1:14 PM, Matthew Petach <mpetach at netflight.com> wrote: 

Hi,

> Depending on how the interviewer responds gives me a pretty good idea how much
> clue the people I'd be working with have, and how well they work
> collaboratively even with people they don't really know. If they respond well
> on their feet, and give me better inputs, I respond with a better answer.

This is exactly what I would be looking for when I interview. Make me regret
asking the question, and you'll have my vote. I like to work with people that 
are smarter than me.

But I also prefer generic questions that are open to the candidate's imagination.
Not so much to make their lives difficult, but to see how they think. For example,
I'll draw a small network topology and ask which protocol they prefer (most of the
time that's either OSPF or BGP). "Ok, fully configured network, after a power 
outage the power is back on. Tell me what happens and how routes are exchanged".

OSPF areas? EBGP or IBGP? You make it up, whatever you're comfortable with. If they
start explaining how R1 starts transmitting hello packets, you know that they think
different from someone that starts to explain how R3 and R4 are ABRs. But whatever
answer I get, I dig until I get an "I don't know". Like "ok, what information is
contained in that hello packet?". Etc, etc. But I expect nobody to know everything,
especially not stuff that can be easily googled.

I've been on both sides many times, and like other commenters say, an interview
goes both ways. 

Thanks,

Sabri



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