In an SRE (site reliability engineer) interview, the interviewer will evaluate your expertise in maintaining software systems.
The demand for SRE has been increasing with the growth of numerous businesses. Thus, the job openings for the SRE position have been around for a very long time.
Site Reliability Engineering acts as a bridge between the operations and development departments. This discipline includes software engineering and applies them to operational issues.
The main focus of a site reliability engineer (SRE) is to create reliable and scalable software systems.
In an SRE interview, you must showcase your skills and in-depth knowledge of the systems and their connectivity.
Having a brief idea about what types of SRE interview questions an interviewer can ask to evaluate your expertise in this discipline is beneficial.
SRE Concept You Must Practice to Ace Your SRE Interviews
- Domain 1: Software Development
The first phase of any SRE interview questions generally contains primary programming languages. Your interviewer will want to know if you know the essential components of coding and the programming language the organization uses for coding.
This is your golden chance to prove yourself if you are a fresher. Please understand all data structures like stacks, algorithms, heaps, and queues. They might also ask you questions about the R compiler in this phase.
In the next part of the software development domain, your interviewer would like to know if you have the proper training in identifying an error in a code and the ability to solve it.
The interviewing team hardly asks candidates to write code. However, they might test if the candidates have proper software development training to address issues regarding major applications like databases with particular emphasis on configuration issues and interoperability.
Though the roles of an SRE and a DevOps are related to software development, they are not similar.
An SRE only checks the code reliability issues, while DevOps is responsible for developing software, testing, and deploying that.
An SRE is part of a DevOps group. This can be a fundamental yet essential SRE interview question in an SRE interview.
- Domain 2: Monitoring and Troubleshooting
In this domain, an interviewer generally examines whether a candidate has the necessary knowledge of monitoring principles. They may ask you about monitoring tools or practices for database query times.
Moreover, in many cases, interviewers show a set of monitoring alerts to test the candidates’ knowledge in determining the severity of the alerts.
Correct answers are expected from an experienced candidate. But a fresher can make a positive impression in this domain.
Similarly, your ability to observe, analyze, and resolve a problem is tested in troubleshooting. Observability is the most crucial skill in the monitoring and troubleshooting domain.
Please ensure that you are well-trained in metrics and log analysis. Moreover, they would want to know the best methodologies and practices for resolving issues.
An experienced SRE needs to be prepared with their experience in handling the most problematic issues in this part.
- Domain 3: Networking
You may get a bit flustered while reading this domain. Indeed, networking is not directly related to an SRE but is vital to computing and service delivery.
Therefore, please be prepared with your concrete networking skills. Interviewers testify about candidates’ skills and their knowledge of networking.
A fresher may face basic networking questions in the SRE interview questions and concepts on DNS or TCP/IP. However, things may get challenging for experienced candidates.
An interviewer might ask an experienced SRE about the nuances of a TCP connection setup or calculate the number of usable and possible IP addresses on a /23 network.
The questions may lead to architectural concepts about identifying failures or issues in a basic network map or network bottleneck location connected to workload reliability and accessibility.
- Domain 4: Infrastructure and Operations
SRE interview questions are incomplete, with multiple conceptual-based questions on infrastructure and operations. For a fresher, the interviewing team may ask basic questions regarding security and OSes.
A candidate must know methods and practices to secure and protect a container image. Moreover, they must be prepared well about the differences between multiple topics like RAID 5, RAID 0, SLA and indicator, Kubernetes, virtualizations, and containers.
However, an experienced candidate must be prepared with complex concepts about infrastructure and operators.
Questions on data distribution, successful data transfer, or different approaches to updating servers faster are regular for an expert SRE. This is because an interviewer tests the expertise of an SRE in this domain.
Please ensure you know the metrics, scripting languages, and automation approaches and practices for better performance.
Knowing about tools like Datadog, Vagrant, Puppet, and Ansible benefits every candidate. NetApp Cloud Volumes OnTap is a specialized must-know tool for every SRE.
- Domain 5: Business-Side Issues
For an expert SRE, it is expected to have deep insights into business initiatives and the ability to make valuable decisions. Hence, an expert SRE must have a great understanding of crucial business-side matters.
Expert and experienced site reliability engineers often work with multiple development teams, IT teams, and project managers to execute a project effectively.
Good communication and valuable input are the critical points of success. Hence, interviewers look for candidates who have the potential to add valuable input to their organization.
Hence, questions related to error budgets, technical debt reduction, communication skills between different teams, and even HR issues fall under business-side issues in SRE interview questions.
You must practice these five domains hard to excel in an SRE interview. If you are fresher, you may expect conceptual-based questions that gauge your potential as a promising SRE.
However, for an experienced SRE, it is a must to polish their skills and remain updated about the latest features of the different programming languages.
Practice and more practice is the key to success. You can ask an experienced SRE to help you upgrade your skills.
Sit in multiple mock interviews to gain more confidence. Always remember that your positive approach can make a huge impact on your overall performance in the interview.
Final Words
SRE interview questions can be a combination of technical questions, problem-solving questions, and questions related to coding and scripts.
Besides all the questions mentioned earlier, you must also have a brief knowledge of the company and its SRE practices.
You must demonstrate your technical knowledge and a collaborative mindset to crack an SRE interview successfully.
No comments yet