00:00:00
what's going on everyone today we are
00:00:01
back and we are going to do another
00:00:03
interview questions and answers video
00:00:06
today we're going to cover a system
00:00:08
engineer or a third level support
00:00:10
engineer or wintel engineer whatever you
00:00:12
would sort of call it wherever you're
00:00:14
from i'm going to give you some
00:00:15
questions that i have been asked when
00:00:17
i've applied for system engineers and
00:00:19
i'm also going to give you some
00:00:20
questions that i usually ask system
00:00:22
engineers in their interviews so i'm
00:00:24
going to give you sort of a bit of a bit
00:00:27
of a mix of both sides so the
00:00:28
interviewer and the interviewee and i'll
00:00:30
give you a bit of a breakdown of what we
00:00:32
generally ask and what we ask for as
00:00:34
usual i won't give you the answer
00:00:36
exactly what i'll try and do is lead you
00:00:38
to the answer or sort of tell you what
00:00:40
the interviewer is looking for at that
00:00:42
point but whatever it is i'm gonna try
00:00:44
and give you a hand with your interview
00:00:46
let me know how you go in the comment
00:00:47
section below and if you do want to see
00:00:48
some more videos that are similar in
00:00:50
nature so i t things cloud related
00:00:52
things smash the subscribe button and as
00:00:54
usual smash the like button like you're
00:00:56
gonna smash your interview so basically
00:00:57
whether you've applied for a winter
00:00:59
engineer role or a third level support
00:01:01
engineer role or a system engineer role
00:01:03
or something around server support
00:01:05
linux support windows support something
00:01:07
around that you're probably going to be
00:01:09
asked some of these questions so some of
00:01:10
these questions i have been asked in
00:01:12
interviews and
00:01:14
uh was maybe at the time a bit thrown by
00:01:16
them and what i'm going to point out is
00:01:18
that a lot of these questions are
00:01:20
actually just looking for how you would
00:01:22
answer them it's not necessarily looking
00:01:25
for a right or wrong answer
00:01:27
maybe just showing the interviewer how
00:01:29
you get to a certain answer or how you
00:01:32
go through the troubleshooting steps as
00:01:34
a support engineer you're probably going
00:01:35
to be doing a lot of bau actually that's
00:01:37
all you're going to be doing by you so
00:01:39
tickets that come up resolving issues in
00:01:42
server environments or with user
00:01:44
environments on on application servers
00:01:46
etc so let's start so one of the most
00:01:49
important things that you're going to be
00:01:50
supporting is active directory so a very
00:01:53
simple question is what is active
00:01:56
directory so interview will ask you what
00:01:57
is active directory and you will be
00:01:59
asked to describe what it is so it's
00:02:01
easy to say that it's a windows server
00:02:03
service and it's something that you
00:02:05
install on a windows server and talk
00:02:06
about domain controllers and whatnot but
00:02:08
really what they're looking for you to
00:02:10
describe is what it actually is so it's
00:02:13
a directory it's got users in it it's
00:02:15
got groups in it it's got objects in it
00:02:16
it's got policies in it so basically
00:02:19
giving the interview a bit of
00:02:21
understanding that you know what active
00:02:23
directory is and its usefulness in the
00:02:26
environment in the it environment that's
00:02:28
what they're looking for giving them a
00:02:29
very brief description so something like
00:02:32
active directory is a user and object
00:02:35
directory where we can sort of manage
00:02:38
all of the objects and objects being
00:02:40
users computers groups etc where we can
00:02:43
manage all of those in
00:02:45
one sort of area in one sort of in one
00:02:48
service so active directory may give us
00:02:50
the ability to do things like group
00:02:52
policies or group users together in
00:02:54
security groups or distribution lists
00:02:57
etc that's the type of thing that
00:02:58
they're looking for so maybe not such a
00:03:01
textbook sort of answer not something
00:03:03
that you would read straight out of the
00:03:05
you know microsoft documentation what is
00:03:08
active directory next question is what
00:03:10
is dhcp so it's good if you can actually
00:03:14
tell them what dhcp stands for i
00:03:16
remember when i was going through my
00:03:18
interviews i'd always try and remember
00:03:20
i'd always try and remember what the
00:03:21
acronyms mean and then i'd also try and
00:03:24
remember an example of where i've used
00:03:26
it or where i've had an issue with it or
00:03:28
where i've had a ticket for it something
00:03:31
along those lines so for example now if
00:03:33
someone asks me what dhcp is i will tell
00:03:35
them it's a dynamic host configuration
00:03:38
protocol i think i got that right but
00:03:40
more importantly what i do is i give
00:03:41
them an example of what it is so i would
00:03:43
tell them it serves out ip addresses it
00:03:46
helps
00:03:47
a device sort of apply the correct
00:03:49
configuration to its network settings
00:03:52
and basically that it sort of gives the
00:03:56
devices on the network
00:03:58
an address when they first come onto the
00:04:00
network or an ip address and then maybe
00:04:03
you can get into it a bit more and give
00:04:05
a bit better example of how it's used
00:04:07
and maybe i would also go and tell them
00:04:09
what happens if the acp is not available
00:04:11
so it's always a good idea to try and
00:04:13
relate it back to
00:04:14
what you have seen in the past so maybe
00:04:17
like a scenario or a ticket that you've
00:04:19
resolved or a ticket that you've had in
00:04:21
your queue for some sort of
00:04:24
issue with dhcp like a device not
00:04:26
getting an ip address or a switch not
00:04:28
having ip helper configured or something
00:04:30
like that anything like that where you
00:04:32
can sort of elaborate on that question
00:04:33
is great they always
00:04:35
even as an interview i will always
00:04:37
really look upon that very well because
00:04:39
it's speaking from experience it's very
00:04:40
hard to speak off the top of your head
00:04:42
if you don't have an example what is dns
00:04:45
so that has come up in pretty much every
00:04:47
interview i've had for a system engineer
00:04:49
role actually what is dns so
00:04:52
what is dns what does it stand for again
00:04:55
domain name system that's right so what
00:04:57
is dns and a system engineer or someone
00:05:00
who's had some experience as a system
00:05:02
engineer always know that it's always
00:05:04
dns every problem is always dns the
00:05:07
question will be around what is dns so
00:05:10
what is it actually useful it's good to
00:05:12
tell them the acronym again so don't
00:05:14
name name system but what's more
00:05:15
important is that you tell them what it
00:05:17
does so basically it gives a friendly
00:05:19
name to an ip address i mean that's
00:05:22
that's one of the easiest ways that i
00:05:23
can describe it to you
00:05:25
rather than having to remember an ip
00:05:27
address of a server we use a dns name
00:05:30
rather than using an ip address
00:05:33
for connecting an application to a
00:05:34
database we'll use a dns name rather
00:05:37
than an ip address so that we can then
00:05:40
change it or
00:05:41
be able to change the ip address behind
00:05:43
that dns name or something along those
00:05:45
lines so maybe give an example of that
00:05:48
maybe even better give an example of
00:05:50
when you've come across some sort of
00:05:52
device that's using an ip address to
00:05:54
connect to another device and then that
00:05:57
ip address has changed and how that
00:05:59
could have been resolved if you were
00:06:00
actually using dns that would be a
00:06:02
really good example and i would be very
00:06:03
impressed if someone said that to me
00:06:05
what is a ping and what protocol does it
00:06:07
use so this is a bit of a tricky
00:06:10
question
00:06:11
so as you might know ping actually uses
00:06:13
its own protocol icmp protocol so it's
00:06:16
not here or there when it comes to tcp
00:06:18
or udp but what what i'm trying to look
00:06:21
for here is whether you've actually used
00:06:23
a lot of ping to troubleshoot things and
00:06:25
whether you understand that you know
00:06:27
ping is a very
00:06:28
useful tool in sort of finding out if a
00:06:30
server or a device or something is
00:06:32
online but there's also always caveats
00:06:35
so it's good if you can describe those
00:06:36
kvs as well so just because you can't
00:06:38
ping something doesn't mean that it's
00:06:40
down it could be that there's a firewall
00:06:41
it could be that it's not responding to
00:06:43
pings it could be that
00:06:45
the service is down or the service is
00:06:48
blocked on the actual device itself it
00:06:50
could be many things but i'm just trying
00:06:52
to get an understanding of do you know
00:06:54
what ping is do you know what it's used
00:06:56
for do you know what round trip time is
00:06:58
you know how we calculate the latency
00:07:00
those are the type of things that i'm
00:07:02
trying to understand because it's as a
00:07:04
engineer as a someone who's going to be
00:07:05
a support engineer you're going to be
00:07:07
doing a lot of pings and you're going to
00:07:09
be doing a lot of troubleshooting so i
00:07:11
want to understand i want to make sure
00:07:12
that you i do understand that how do you
00:07:15
check if a port is open there's plenty
00:07:17
of ways you can check if a port is open
00:07:19
i'll give you one tip if i'm
00:07:20
interviewing for a windows engineer or a
00:07:23
server engineer with windows background
00:07:25
or if a senior engineer or something
00:07:27
like that what i'm looking for
00:07:29
is
00:07:30
something a bit different to telnet so
00:07:33
when i first came into iit all of the
00:07:35
engineers around me were always using
00:07:37
telnet to actually test if ports open
00:07:39
which is great and it worked but we
00:07:42
always would come across the issue where
00:07:43
telnet wasn't installed on the windows
00:07:45
server by default so that would have all
00:07:47
the time we'd have an issue where we're
00:07:49
doing some tests and then we find that
00:07:51
telnet is not actually installed so i
00:07:53
found that there was actually a tool in
00:07:55
powershell commandlet in powershell that
00:07:58
does the same thing test net connection
00:07:59
so i always actually use this as a bit
00:08:02
of a sneaky question to see if someone
00:08:05
can give me a different answer to telnet
00:08:08
doesn't have to be test net connection
00:08:09
but it's nice to see if someone uses
00:08:11
something a bit different something a
00:08:13
bit easier like test mechanism because
00:08:14
powershell's already installed and
00:08:16
usually has the command available for
00:08:18
you so i would love to see that i don't
00:08:20
mind if we hear some linux answers
00:08:23
i think it's
00:08:24
ncat nc something like that it limits
00:08:26
but whatever it is i'm just wanting to
00:08:28
know if you know how to check if a port
00:08:30
is open and i might also ask you why you
00:08:33
would check if the port is open so i
00:08:34
might say for example okay now that
00:08:36
you've told me how to check if a port is
00:08:37
open can you tell me why you would check
00:08:40
if a portal is open can you give me an
00:08:41
example where you've done that in the
00:08:43
past and you can come back and tell me
00:08:44
something like yeah we were setting up
00:08:46
monitoring and wasn't working to a
00:08:48
particular server so we wanted to know
00:08:49
if the actual server could reach the
00:08:51
monitoring probe or something like that
00:08:53
so speaking of test net connection
00:08:55
another question i would ask a windows
00:08:56
engineer is what is powershell so
00:09:00
i want all the engineers that come to
00:09:03
wherever i'm working at the time i want
00:09:05
them all to know what powershell is when
00:09:07
i was sort of moving through the you
00:09:09
know the roles that i've had and you can
00:09:12
see that video in the card above when i
00:09:14
was going through those sort of roles i
00:09:16
found that a lot of the engineers who
00:09:19
had been around the while had not been
00:09:21
actually you know
00:09:22
using powershell and they had not really
00:09:24
bothered to learn powershell so i
00:09:27
actually went and i thought that it was
00:09:29
a great idea because you could do so
00:09:30
much from powershell without actually
00:09:32
having to click through all these bunch
00:09:35
of different dialogues and management
00:09:36
windows blah blah so i actually taught
00:09:38
myself powershell with a book called
00:09:41
powershell in 30 days of lunches or
00:09:44
something like that anyway i'll find
00:09:45
that post it in the section below and
00:09:47
i'll also leave a card here somewhere
00:09:49
so i want to know that the engineers can
00:09:52
use powershell so if i ask you what is
00:09:54
powershell that's a very basic question
00:09:56
and i'll expect you to answer it very
00:09:58
easily because you can tell me it's some
00:09:59
sort of management or scripting tool
00:10:01
that you can use in microsoft windows
00:10:03
server or actually any microsoft windows
00:10:05
device but more importantly i'll
00:10:07
probably follow that up with a question
00:10:08
like what have you used it for so give
00:10:11
me an example where you've actually
00:10:12
written a powershell script or you've
00:10:15
fixed an issue using powershell or maybe
00:10:17
you have just used powershell to
00:10:19
diagnose an issue those are the type of
00:10:21
questions that i'll be asking on the
00:10:22
back of that question what is powershell
00:10:25
so if you go and you study something you
00:10:28
know like a document telling you what
00:10:29
powershell does and what it's great for
00:10:31
that's great but i'm also going to ask
00:10:33
you a question about that as well and
00:10:34
i'm going to make sure that you actually
00:10:36
have real life experience using it and
00:10:40
sometimes you'll be able to get away
00:10:42
with you know just getting away with a
00:10:43
very vague answer it really depends on
00:10:46
the interviewer it depends if that
00:10:47
interviewer is very strong with their
00:10:49
powershelf skills or with their just in
00:10:51
you know engineering skills in general
00:10:53
or maybe if they're just a manager that
00:10:55
has a bit of experience but can't really
00:10:57
deep dive into it sometimes it's just a
00:10:59
matter of luck with the interviewer what
00:11:01
type of experience have you had in a
00:11:04
certain software so
00:11:06
as a windows engineer or as someone who
00:11:08
has been in a system engineer role for a
00:11:10
while or something like that it's very
00:11:12
unlikely that all you're doing is
00:11:14
supporting windows server unless you're
00:11:16
in some massive environment where all
00:11:18
you do is just do windows server type
00:11:20
stuff you're probably doing something
00:11:22
like
00:11:23
citrix or microsoft azure or microsoft
00:11:25
365 or
00:11:27
supporting a vmware stack or supporting
00:11:30
a hyper-v stack something along those
00:11:32
lines so let's keep this a bit broad
00:11:34
what i'll ask for is i'll ask for
00:11:36
any other type of experience that you
00:11:38
have so for example i might say to you
00:11:41
what type of other experience do you
00:11:43
have when it comes to server technology
00:11:45
so some maybe something like vmware and
00:11:47
you will say yeah i have a lot of vmware
00:11:49
experience i've managed a 10 or 20 node
00:11:52
cluster and we have been managing it in
00:11:54
terms of patching in terms of
00:11:56
troubleshooting in terms of maintenance
00:11:58
so then i'll understand that you have a
00:11:59
bit of vmware experience and i might
00:12:00
come back with you with some sort of
00:12:02
question about vmware so maybe i'll ask
00:12:04
you how have you done patching in vmware
00:12:06
or maybe i'll ask you how you actually
00:12:08
apply host profiles in vmware or how you
00:12:11
might add a new node to vmware or i
00:12:13
might ask you the difference between
00:12:15
thick and thin provisioning in vmware
00:12:17
and ask you maybe a couple of scenarios
00:12:19
that you might have troubleshooted in
00:12:21
the past but that will be the general
00:12:22
juice so i'll try and capture any other
00:12:24
knowledge that you have so maybe you
00:12:25
have some citrix knowledge ask you some
00:12:27
questions about citrix what is a
00:12:29
delivery controller licensing server
00:12:31
something along those lines but if i ask
00:12:33
and you return something that i have
00:12:36
some knowledge in then i'll probably ask
00:12:37
you another question based on that as
00:12:39
well so moving slightly away from
00:12:41
technical or still technical but not
00:12:43
very focused on technical i might ask
00:12:45
you some questions around ticketing or
00:12:48
around some tickets that you've worked
00:12:50
on so a really good example would be
00:12:52
have you actually worked on any p1 or p2
00:12:55
tickets in the past and if so can you
00:12:57
describe them to me at this point i'm
00:12:59
really looking for real life experience
00:13:01
if you haven't worked on p1 or p2s in
00:13:03
the past
00:13:05
it's fine just say that but if you say
00:13:08
you have then i expect you to be able to
00:13:10
give me an example so i expect you to be
00:13:12
able to go and tell me yes i have had
00:13:14
many p1s and p2s one of them was about
00:13:18
all printers being down on a windows
00:13:20
file and print server and then i'll come
00:13:22
back to you and say okay and how did you
00:13:24
troubleshoot that issue
00:13:25
and how did you resolve the issue and at
00:13:27
that point i'm not really looking for a
00:13:29
right or wrong answer what i'm trying to
00:13:31
understand is how you troubleshoot and
00:13:33
how you get to a certain point so how do
00:13:36
you get to the point of going from a
00:13:38
service that's completely down users
00:13:40
calling you and saying that they can't
00:13:42
print to a point where they're actually
00:13:43
printing again i just sort of want to
00:13:45
understand the methodology you do
00:13:48
for your troubleshooting and how you get
00:13:50
there and
00:13:51
basically the knowledge that you will
00:13:53
apply to get there as well when it comes
00:13:55
to the p1 p2s i might ask you a couple
00:13:57
of those so i might ask you one or two
00:13:59
might ask you one about print might ask
00:14:01
you one about a vmware environment being
00:14:03
down or something like that depending on
00:14:04
what you've told me in the previous
00:14:06
questions i'll also ask you questions
00:14:07
around slas so
00:14:09
you know coming from an msp background
00:14:11
and you'll probably be applying at msp
00:14:13
as well coming from msp background i
00:14:15
really need the engineers to understand
00:14:17
what an sla is so i need you to
00:14:19
understand that some customers have
00:14:21
different slas to other customers and
00:14:23
when we need to make sure we apply the
00:14:24
right priority to those customers and to
00:14:27
the right tickets and how to sort of
00:14:29
differentiate between a p1 and a p2 and
00:14:32
how you're going to sort of manage your
00:14:34
time in the day so that the company as a
00:14:36
whole meets all its slas just something
00:14:38
a bit rough so that i understand that
00:14:39
you know what a sla is and why it's
00:14:42
important okay then i might actually
00:14:44
move into
00:14:45
some scenario type questions
00:14:48
and we might leave these for like the
00:14:50
senior type of engineers or the
00:14:52
engineers where we're looking for a bit
00:14:54
more experience but let's break them
00:14:56
down anyway so one of the very common
00:14:57
scenarios that will play out and i've
00:15:00
been asked this in interviews and i've
00:15:02
also asked this in interviews one of the
00:15:04
most common scenarios that
00:15:06
interview will ask you is they'll say
00:15:08
this we have a customer who has a
00:15:10
network so mpls or a when or something
00:15:13
like that with 15 different branch sites
00:15:16
and one head office every branch site
00:15:18
has its own domain controller physical
00:15:20
domain controller on site you come in on
00:15:23
a monday morning and all of the users at
00:15:25
branch a are saying that it's taking
00:15:28
them over four minutes to log in so the
00:15:30
window screen is sitting there and
00:15:31
they're sort of loading but they're not
00:15:33
able to do anything once they are logged
00:15:34
in it's fine there's no sort of other
00:15:37
issues and no one else is complaining
00:15:38
about any slowness or anything like that
00:15:40
but it's just a log in process we found
00:15:43
that other branches so branch b branch c
00:15:46
they're not actually having the same
00:15:47
issue where would your troubleshooting
00:15:49
start and what would you do to resolve
00:15:51
the issue it might seem like the
00:15:52
interviewer hasn't given you enough
00:15:53
information at that point but that's
00:15:55
exactly the idea what they're trying to
00:15:58
look for what i would be trying to look
00:15:59
for is your questions we're hoping that
00:16:02
you will come back and ask a few
00:16:03
questions like is there problems on this
00:16:05
site is there problems on this site and
00:16:07
is it just happening when they log on
00:16:09
have you checked this have you checked
00:16:10
that and we'll give you a feed you a bit
00:16:12
of answers but not too much and then
00:16:14
we'll just see where your mind goes
00:16:16
again there's not really a right or
00:16:18
wrong answer at this point i'm sort of
00:16:20
just trying to understand how you are
00:16:23
actually troubleshooting so the
00:16:24
methodology you are applying i want to
00:16:27
understand that you know you have the
00:16:29
analytical skills to get to the
00:16:30
resolution there is something very
00:16:32
obvious that we would love to hear and
00:16:34
that is that he sounds like the domain
00:16:36
controller on site is having some sort
00:16:38
of issue and it might be reaching out to
00:16:40
another domain controller whether you
00:16:41
actually get there or not is not that
00:16:43
important it's more important that i you
00:16:46
give me some questions back
00:16:48
and that i give you those answers and i
00:16:50
sort of see your brain ticking and i see
00:16:52
i understand how you sort of picture the
00:16:55
environment i'm hoping at that point
00:16:57
that you've drawn the environment in
00:16:58
your head and that you can sort of
00:17:00
understand
00:17:01
what's going on and you ask me the right
00:17:04
questions that will get you to the point
00:17:05
of saying oh it's the on-premises domain
00:17:08
controller so as usual i hope that was
00:17:09
helpful and i hope you smash your
00:17:11
interviews like you're going to smash
00:17:13
that like button and smash that
00:17:14
subscribe button i hope that you guys
00:17:16
land those roles that you've applied for
00:17:18
we'll see you next time
