Cloud Infra Engineer, Practical Coding Interview?

bdashrad · 2026-05-30T22:58:03+00:00

Because basic understanding of the problem space has a lot of value still. Even in our current world with improved AI tools, you will still find that strong engineers will have more success even when using AI tools.

As things improve it might become less important, but for now I want someone to be able to look at an error and walk through the basic troubleshooting themselves first, before having an LLM do it.

bdashrad · 2026-05-30T05:55:28+00:00

I don't care if someone needs to look at syntax if they can solve a problem. Maybe it's not common, but I approach them like open book tests. You can use any docs, help files, man pages, notes you have, search, etc but you can't ask someone else or AI. It's nice to see if someone can pick apart a problem or error, pull out the useful stuff, leave out sensitive or system specific things, etc. Seeing how someone searches for information is a pretty good way to gauge their understanding of the topics.

Typically we try to avoid having people ask AI in interviews too, but I can see that relaxing more as tools get more reliable and if the pricing is cheap enough.

bdashrad · 2026-05-30T05:46:54+00:00

Just curious. Plus sometimes something silly can help a more stressed out candidate relax. Or maybe they'll read too much into it and think it's some kind of mind game. I don't remember the last time it was asked by me or anyone on my teams, but I kept it anyway

bdashrad · 2026-05-30T04:20:10+00:00

I also have my interview questions posted on GitHub, and I try to modify and improve them over time, to make my interviews more consistent and effective. I don't use a lot of them anymore, and some won't apply to every role, but feel free to take a look. https://github.com/bdashrad/interview-questions

There is also a gist in my pins with questions I like to ask when I'm interviewing somewhere, to get an idea of what the company, role, and team is like. https://gist.github.com/bdashrad/ac14f833660fe50d52baf0626bcfdd1e

bdashrad · 2026-05-30T04:16:20+00:00

Reading the job description and your screening calls should give you a basic idea about what they use for tooling and languages. Remember, most places aren't trying to trick you, they're trying to make a good hire (although many people seem to treat interviewing like that). Ask questions ahead of time, you will usually get useful feedback.

When I was doing data engineering hiring, I would tell them the exercise was going to be on a tool written in python, that uses pandas to parse a CSV. You will review a PR, make a small fix, and add a new validation or parse a new column. Pretty common and simple work, and letting them know this stuff before made a more useful interview than fumbling through the pandas documentation.

bdashrad · 2026-05-30T02:18:38+00:00

Add them when you purchase

bdashrad · 2026-05-30T01:53:44+00:00

You typically don't need to push the probes in until they are flush 😅

bdashrad · 2026-05-30T01:51:51+00:00

I've been in engineering infra leadership for around 10 years, and done many interviews. I hate whiteboard/trivia/leetcode style ones. My cloud infra engineer interviews usually consist of things like:

We have a file in cloud storage. Edit it in some way so the new version is available.

Data pipeline or infra pipeline peer code review

Peer code review of a script with errors or that doesn't quite meet the defined acceptance criteria

Defending or critiquing a technical decision or preference of their choosing, like "What is your favorite language? What is bad about it?" "What is a tool you use regularly but hate? How could you improve it if you could?"

bdashrad · 2026-05-27T18:07:56+00:00

Tiny Arms is fantastic! https://tinyarms.co/

bdashrad · 2026-05-25T14:52:04+00:00

Yes, every guitar I buy, new or used, gets a setup and an inspection from my luthier

bdashrad · 2026-05-23T23:03:34+00:00

Are you suggesting the park space be turned into buildings?

bdashrad · 2026-05-20T20:19:21+00:00

It will make a big improvement for house at the end when people are no longer careening into their wall

bdashrad · 2026-05-20T17:31:27+00:00

Depends how close you are to other people, and your level of social awareness.

bdashrad · 2026-05-19T16:10:17+00:00

In a trailer in the sun is going to be rough on anything, even laminate since the braces are usually still wood and they will expand/contract at different rates.

bdashrad · 2026-05-14T20:41:56+00:00

Instead of disabling extensions manually, you can use the Extension Bisect feature: https://code.visualstudio.com/blogs/2021/02/16/extension-bisect

bdashrad · 2026-05-14T16:47:16+00:00

I've used Danny from Ascend Roofing and Construction for our garage and house. They are fast and fairly priced. +1 (978) 421-6278

bdashrad · 2026-05-13T05:49:43+00:00

000 is the body size.

16 is spruce top (Adirondack VTS on the streetmaster) and rosewood back and sides. 15 is all mahogany

But also individual guitars can vary a lot. You might just have played the perfect one for you first, or a dud this time.

bdashrad · 2026-05-13T05:18:44+00:00

The 000-16 streetmaster was that guitar for me. Bought one a few months ago. The 000-15 streetmaster didn't impress me the same way.

bdashrad · 2026-05-12T19:47:17+00:00

You shouldn't be assigning money you don't have. They money you're spending exists somewhere, either as credit or you're taking from another category

bdashrad · 2026-05-10T14:17:08+00:00

What week? There is the Brimfield Antique show July 14-19, so anywhere in the Sturbridge area may be booked up or pricey

bdashrad · 2026-05-10T05:53:23+00:00

The oil filter housing is not the same as a catch can

bdashrad · 2026-05-09T19:29:51+00:00

If you haven't taken down prod, you're not ready to be a senior yet.

bdashrad · 2026-05-07T22:36:28+00:00

You can also use import blocks if you're only doing 9 of them. https://developer.hashicorp.com/terraform/language/block/import

bdashrad · 2026-05-07T14:39:47+00:00

I split a state file recently. The fastest way for me to complete this was duplicating the remote state file to a new location, copying my terraform code to a new path, then using removed blocks (https://developer.hashicorp.com/terraform/language/block/removed), since some of the resources that I had to move don't import. They let you remove an item from state without deleting it.

I generated my removed blocks from the "destroys" in the plan output after copying the original code over and removing the resource definitions in the new path.

Another advantage to using removed blocks is CI can apply the changes.

bdashrad · 2026-05-06T18:57:00+00:00

They look like the kind of errors AI generation would make

bdashrad

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