The engineering managers and leaders who work with the Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) teams should read this article. You can copy, paste, and edit the following sample SRE job description for your particular location and needs to get started. To assist you in evaluating a candidate’s skill level, the description includes a sample list of desired skills based on Gremlins’ experience working across multiple companies in various industries.
We conclude the essay with a set of SRE interview questions that provide guidance on how to assess and consider candidate responses. You can also modify and improve these for your particular requirements. You might also want to check out the job postings on the Gremlin-sponsored Chaos Engineering Slack’s #jobs channel, which attracts participants from across the industry in addition to Gremlin.
We are aware that this article will probably be read by SRE candidates as well. Good. We want people to be prepared and ready. But rather than offering a candidate cheat sheet, we are offering a resource for those who are hiring. The best course of action for applicants is to concentrate on our article, How to Become a Top-Notch Site Reliability Engineer. If you have the knowledge and abilities, responding to the questions will be simple. Finding out how to create a captivating job description and how to conduct effective interviews will help businesses find the ideal candidate for their SRE team needs.
- How can an organization improve its observability? …
- Can you explain what SLO means and why it’s important? …
- What is cloud computing? …
- How can you improve the relationship between operations and IT teams?
How to Prepare for Site Reliability Engineer ( SRE ) Interviews | SRE Interview Questions
Interviews for Top Jobs at Microsoft
Site Reliability Engineer Interview
I applied through a recruiter. The process took 2 months. I interviewed at Microsoft (Noida) in Jul 2021
Interview
First round was codility Test with two questions ranging from medium to high coding skills.After clearing codility test 2 coding interviews were taken virtually through MS teams. Then 4 technical screening and culture fitment round help with other SREs, Hiring Manager and Leadership team,After clearing them, recruiter reached out for salary discussion and offer is made.
- 2 hacker rank coding problems. 2 coding interviews4 technical and cultural fitment interview.
Site Reliability Engineer Interview
I applied through a recruiter. The process took 1 day. I interviewed at Microsoft
Interview
It was a very good experience. Interviewers were encouraging and kind. I had 4 technical questions, mostly LC easy or medium. It was my first technical interview and a smooth experience overall.
- What would you do if you encountered error message X for the first time?
Site Reliability Engineer Interview
I interviewed at Microsoft
Interview
Multiple rounds from recruiter to technical to manager. Technical questions where good and tough. Additional background check by their partner. They are really flexible. There should be already 30 words.
- Some questions about programming in python
Now, the first question is very simple, and the majority of respondents answered it correctly, though there were some interesting edge cases. The second query is challenging, and most respondents answered incorrectly. I was able to figure out both of these (at least, I think I did:p)
Online Assessment Round: DIFFICULTY: Easy – Medium. This round was based on Codility and had two questions. The questions were fairly straightforward, but we were cautioned to watch out for edge cases, etc. because we could only submit once and the outcome was unknown
I recently participated in an interview for the position of Microsoft Site Reliability Engineering Intern. I was unprepared for this role because it was a relatively new one for me. I was selected, along with many other people, to participate in the online assessment round after Microsoft visited our campus.
Given an array A, A[i] represents the number of steps you can take after i. Is it possible to get to the end of the array? If so, how many steps would it take you to get there in the least amount of time?
Interview Round 2 : DIFFICULTY: Easy – Medium. Some senior Microsoft employee (I’m not sure of his title) took this round. Although I had no prior experience with SRE, we were told that this round would test our potential and passion for the position.
Sample Site Reliability Engineer Job Description
[Company Name] is expanding our Site Reliability Engineering team to help deploy, manage, troubleshoot, and enhance our complex cloud-based services for a variety of customers. Do you enjoy working with a highly motivated and talented team to deliver mission critical software?
In order to replace our current monolith implementation, you will design and implement web applications and REST API services using a microservices-based infrastructure. The new technology stack includes Google Cloud, Amazon Web Services, and other services. [Relational database], [NoSQL/NewSQL database], [Monitoring tool], [Docker/Kubernetes/other] Your focus will be on maximizing system uptime. Team members all participate in an on-call rotation.
You will create cutting-edge automated tools and solutions to assist in debugging, resolving, and preventing production-related issues. Furthermore, you will employ data monitoring, trend analysis, and Chaos Engineering to proactively look for system flaws and discover solutions before they affect production.
We’re looking for candidates who are particularly strong in a few areas and have some interest and capabilities in others. It’s not expected that any one candidate will have knowledge in all of these fields.
Our mission at [company name] is to [insert company mission] Our products enable businesses and people to [save time and money] by assisting software companies in [doing something awesome]. [Name], [Name], [Name], and [Name] are a few of our clients. [Company] is a distinctive place to work and provides competitive compensation packages with flexible PTO, medical, dental, and vision benefits, as well as a 401(k) with company-matched contributions [up to X%].
With the ability to work on small, agile teams, [company] has an [industry] startup culture that prioritizes transparency, collaboration, and career growth. Employees have the power to affect change at a large scale and the chance to significantly disrupt and change [industry].
[ company] is an equal opportunity employer. Without taking into account their race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender perception or identity, national origin, age, marital status, protected veteran status, or disability status, qualified applicants will be given consideration for employment.
Learn more at [ company URL].
Site Reliability Engineering essentially builds a link between the departments of development and operations. It is a field that applies principles from software engineering to issues with infrastructure and operations. The primary objectives are to develop highly scalable and reliable software systems. Visit our article An Insight To Site Reliability Engineering for more details on SRE.
To get a sense of how engaging site reliability engineering interviews can be, look over these frequently asked questions.
The on-demand availability of computer system resources, particularly data storage (cloud storage) and processing power, without the user’s direct active management is known as cloud computing. Typically, the phrase refers to data centers that are accessible to numerous users online. Large clouds, which are common today, frequently distribute functions from centralized servers to different locations. It might be referred to as an edge server if the connection to the user is reasonably close.
You must have realized from the aforementioned SRE interview questions and their responses that passing an SRE interview requires both practical and theoretical knowledge. Simple: enroll in our Site Reliability Engineering training and certification course, receive your training and certification, raise the bar on your resume, and presto!
Pretty interesting. Well, a Site Reliability Engineer job interview is also quite fascinating, isn’t it?
FAQ
What is SRE in Microsoft?
Site Reliability Engineering (SRE): An Introduction | Microsoft Learn
Which is better SRE or SDE?
They’re just different roles. SDE is more general and focused on building features, whether they are in a web, mobile, desktop application, etc., while SRE is more focused on DevOps and sysadmin (although for some reason, whenever I refer to my SRE friends as sysadmins, it strikes a nerve lmao).
Are site reliability engineers tough?
The SRE field probably isn’t the best fit for you if you roll your eyes when career discussions turn to people skills or the general category of “soft” skills. In some organizations, especially those with deeply ingrained processes and cultures, these characteristics may be the most challenging aspects of the job.
What is SRE in Azure?
A set of guidelines and procedures called site reliability engineering (SRE) is used to develop highly scalable and reliable software systems. SRE is increasingly used when designing digital services to ensure greater dependability.
