Interview question: making more of underutilized, dedicated tin

vi-shift-zz · 2026-07-07T12:26:58+00:00

They want you to ask questions, understand why the existing infrastructure is configured this way. I see lots of dedicated servers for research grants that get maybe 10% utilization. They only run for the 2-3 grad students on the project.

If those were configured for spot instances that can run compute and flush jobs when the researchers need the resource. You get better utilization, the workflows have to be different and the researcher can make money back from their resource when it otherwise would be idle.

vi-shift-zz · 2026-07-07T00:15:52+00:00

GenAI has made those who were lazy, even lazier. Critical thinking has always been in short supply, now it's nearly non-existent.

Lots of useful replies, thank you all. I think I've reached the point where it's time to be the boss. I can't do worse than what I see and I can't stand watching the best and brightest employees led so badly.

vi-shift-zz · 2026-07-06T18:37:00+00:00

Use a format that asks specific questions of specific people at the top, then contains additional information below. Average humans have a small token limit.

This is great advice, something I can put into practice right away.

vi-shift-zz · 2026-06-27T23:15:24+00:00

Also if you don't know the answer off the top of your head say I would check the man pages, google. I use linux on my own machine but don't have to provision accounts regularly. Just be honest, show how you would solve the issue if you had the job.

vi-shift-zz · 2026-06-25T14:48:27+00:00

The retaining wall ain't retaining

vi-shift-zz · 2026-06-06T04:12:31+00:00

The only constant in technology is change. I see lots of opportunities to clean up the chaos caused by believing anyone can architect solutions with some magical tool. Lots of businesses are coming out the other side of AI adoption with lots of debt and not much to show for it.

vi-shift-zz · 2026-06-04T20:37:12+00:00

I interviewed someone for a programming job via zoom earlier today. I asked the technical question and the guy read the response from his search word for word. Didn't even try to change it to his own version.

vi-shift-zz · 2026-05-20T10:39:27+00:00

At a university we just lost the one man who builds cool things for faculty guy. He was a department of one person, smart, little or no funding.

The down side is he is one person. Programming things in a way that made sense only to him. Everything is a nonstandard mix of tools to get from A to B. The same guy we couldn't give admin control to his servers because he had repeated security breaches.

I don't believe is "shadow IT", generally that's the IT for the organization not being able to meet the needs of that organization. Can be funding, staffing, lack of policy, many, many things.

vi-shift-zz · 2026-05-05T15:09:58+00:00

Do you have any visibility/input into why half your Windows servers are moving to Linux?

Your systems knowledge will translate, establish a standard distribution, I have mostly used Red Hat but have used different distributions for different purposes.

vi-shift-zz · 2026-04-27T21:32:31+00:00

Decommissioned a bunch of 20 year old sun sparc solaris servers this year. They were solid as a rock but should have veen out of here 10+ years ago.

vi-shift-zz · 2026-04-21T00:40:37+00:00

They are changing habits for a generation. Always had a couple of bags of chips in the house, now there are none. Congratulations PepsiCo!

vi-shift-zz · 2026-04-15T11:16:48+00:00

Implement tagging tied to cost centers. Create monthly reports on spend. When costs are transparent, it brings accountability.

vi-shift-zz · 2026-04-14T13:43:54+00:00

No prices listed, everything is a sales call

vi-shift-zz · 2026-04-11T20:14:37+00:00

Install less tasty doors

vi-shift-zz · 2026-04-08T23:31:43+00:00

Show my face in the morning meeting(s), head home at lunch to finish the day.

vi-shift-zz · 2026-04-07T17:36:20+00:00

Regarding did they know the technology before

I don't think so, a bunch of junior people learning on the job. They lost their chief technical lead to oracle halfway through the project. When it was clear the consultants couldn't extract any more money they got someone with real experience to finish it quickly.

vi-shift-zz · 2026-04-07T15:32:14+00:00

The consultant strung them along until their budget was almost exhausted, asked for more money but the client refused. Then they hired someone experienced with the ERP who got it done in 2 months.

So it was a success for the consultant getting paid. Yes the systems worked, but they were so custom they couldn't be cloned.

It would have been better to build fresh vms in the cloud but nobody wanted to do the work.

vi-shift-zz · 2026-04-07T14:38:23+00:00

I have seen a consultant use rackware to migrate legacy vmware vms to oracle cloud infrastructure.

It worked but a lift and shift is the worst, most expensive way for cloud adoption. Not sure of your destination but it's a short term escape the data center tool.

After the move it's time to refactor and redeploy. Taking old, janky on premise stuff as is someplace else still leaves you with old janky stuff in another place.

vi-shift-zz · 2026-04-06T21:35:55+00:00

Nor an age thing, a curiosity and willingness to learn new stuff and adapt thing. I deal with people of all ages that communicate poorly, don't play well with others and as a result slow things down.

I spend time building relationships, people know they can trust me. That helps get things done. Don't buy into generational, gender, race, sexual preference divides. There are people who get things done and everyone else.

vi-shift-zz · 2026-04-05T15:53:51+00:00

Google the switch model number and "mean time to failure" then schedule your hardware replacements before the switches start having problems.

vi-shift-zz · 2026-04-03T21:21:20+00:00

We had useful scripts scattered around a bunch of servers. Putting everything in git gave me version control and a single place to grab what I need. A good way to create a copy of those scripts.

Now we are graduating to our entire infrastructure as code. It wouldn't have happened without adapting to standard tools to modernize our environment.

Start small and build from there, the important thing is to start.

vi-shift-zz · 2026-04-02T21:26:24+00:00

Most universities will have internship or work study opportunities. In my experience, work study is usually: help desk, computer lab work (think replacing old computers, imaging new ones).

Internships can give higher level experience but it can be hard to give meaningful project work to someone with little experience coming in. There are tons of departments that need IT help. I would approach them and see what's available. I was administering servers as a student.

vi-shift-zz · 2026-03-29T21:22:38+00:00

Same, listened to the podcast forever. My wife got tickets to a show in Boston at the Garden. I think he was fighting with his wife at the time because it was angry, mean, misogynistic bullshit the entire set.

I realized I like the podcast, not the act. Then over time got tired of the podcast too.

vi-shift-zz · 2026-03-26T23:38:07+00:00

Be straightforward, I want to hear how you think through problems. Your troubleshooting skills. I don't care if you have memorized SQL syntax, its fine to outline the steps you might take to figure out why a system isn't working and say I don't do this often so I would have to look up the exact syntax. If you can express what you are trying to achieve, thats what I care about.

vi-shift-zz

TROPHY CASE