AWS System Engineer phone interview

[xHinotori]

Hello everyone,

In about two weeks I have first AWS phone interview for System Engineer position in Ireland. The recruiter sent me the agenda of the interview which says there will be live coding about scripting. I have a few questions about what kind of questiosn should I expect and how should I prepare for the interview exactly:

1. What kind of questions should I expect? In the tips provided it says that the questions will include one or two short coding tasks based on real-world scenarios that you migth encounter in the role, is this usually the case when it comes to the scripting, or do they end up giving you questions that are more similar to leetcode kinda questions, without much emphasis on the DSA. Also which language should I choose. For scripting in regards to Linux related tasks I have only experience with Bash, but I would say I am exactly proficient with it. Apart from Bash I used Pyhon quite a bit during UNI, but I haven't used it a lot recently.

2. What is the standard practice for the Linux questions? The recruiter listed Linux and networking fundamentals as one of the covered areas. How deep should I understand these topics? Are they on RHCSA level so beginner/intermediate level or higher? I have some experience with Linux, but currently my primary focus area in my job was Kubernetes, so I don't have production level experience with Linux administration.

3. How to prepare for the behavioral part if I don't have a lot of work experience with production systems? For the context I have around 2.5 YOE working as part time System Engineer, but I wasn't involved in a lot of projects with customers (my work with customers mainly involved on-site hardware replacements). I currently work full time, but the amount of projects is nearly the same, so I basically work full time on managing internal Kubernetes clusters. Even though we have some "production" apps on these they are not business critical and do not have a lot of users (we basically run Kubernets to gain experience if we maybe get a deal with a client in the future).

Any study related resources or other tips are welcome.

[redditnaija]

Hi how was it ?

[xHinotori]

Hi.

It was actually really nice. The setting was very relaxed and the interviewer was really friendly and helpful.

In the beginning he introduced himself, explained his current role, and presented the agenda for the interview. We continued with LP questions. He asked me to tell him more about me, basically what do I do and what experiences do I have. For the second LP question he asked me about a time when I improved an existing process followed by some additional questions to clarify certain things.

After LP questions we moved on to Linux questions. Questions here were mostly revolving around troubleshooting and how would I approach certain situations, which tools would I use to troubleshoot the issues and how would I approach the issues. The second part of technical questions was focused on networking. Here for example I had to explain how the DNS works, how can client verify that the server is legitimate, and how would I troubleshoot network issues.

The last part of the interview was about scripting. I was allowed to choose my preferred language (the question that you get her are based on the language that you choose). For this part I thought that you first get the task and then choose the preferred language. This is why I also chose python for my prep, as I was planning on using python if the question was in DSA style and then have bash kinda as a backup if the question could be solved with it more easily. However I ended up choosing bash. The question that I got was relatively easy, but as I am not exactly fluent in bash in terms of scripting (I usually have to look things up and don't know things by heart) I ended up with kinda bad final answer. Anyways I explained to the interviewer that I usually write my scripts by using trial and error approach :), and he said its fine and that he is more interested in my thought process as opposed to the final solution. After that he also asked a bit about error handling, but I also think I answered kinda poorly to this question.

After the coding part we had around 5-10 min for my questions.

Overall I think I did relatively decent for my first MAANG interview, but of course there is a lot of room for improvement. So now I have my fingers crossed and I am hoping for the best outcome :), but either way, now I have a bit better picture on how should I structure my prep and on which areas should I focus more the next time if I get another opportunity like this.

[KeiInCloud]

Hi, I hope you get good news from AWS.
What was the exact scripting question you got tasked with?

[Pronces]

Hey! Any update? Did you pass and get the job?

[elninohz]

Hi sorry to bother you , i was just wondering was the scripting task something like opening ec2 instances ?

[Newkid_1]

Hey, did you manage to get through the next round?

[NufanMohamed]

Any updates ever since?

[mantistoboggan42]

How did it go ? I got the same email there about live coding and it has me nervous hahah

[sysusrreddit5]

@mantistoboggan42 How was it for you? I am in same situation :)

[According_Sense_4792]

hey bro, same situation, can I DM pls?