The Top New Relic Interview Questions To Prepare For

Getting hired at a top tech company like New Relic takes more than just having the right skills. You need to ace the interview by being ready for the types of questions you’ll face.

In this comprehensive guide, I’ll cover the top New Relic interview questions and how to prepare winning answers With over 10 years of experience in the software industry, I’ve been on both sides of the interview table at various tech firms

So let me provide some insider tips to help you land your dream job!

Why Are Interview Questions Important at New Relic?

New Relic is one of the leading software analytics companies out there. They offer a robust cloud-based platform for monitoring and optimizing digital systems.

With over 15,000 customers worldwide, New Relic has a lot at stake when hiring. They need people who can jump right in and deliver results.

That’s why their interview process is designed to thoroughly assess a candidate’s skills and problem-solving abilities. You’ll face a range of technical and behavioral questions aimed at determining your capabilities.

Mastering the interview questions demonstrates that you have what it takes to succeed at New Relic. It shows the interviewers that you understand their products, value proposition, and can address real-world challenges faced by their users.

So preparation is key! Let’s look at some of the most common New Relic interview questions and how to tackle them like a pro.

Technical New Relic Interview Questions

These questions test your hands-on skills and knowledge of New Relic’s products and technologies:

1. How would you use New Relic to monitor and troubleshoot a production application?

This tests your practical experience with New Relic APM. Discuss how you’d use key features like application monitoring, transaction tracing, and alert conditions to quickly detect and diagnose performance issues. Provide specific examples if possible.

2. What are some ways you could improve the performance of an application being monitored by New Relic?

Demonstrate your technical knowledge of performance optimization techniques like caching, CDNs, database indexing, etc. Explain how New Relic’s data can help identify areas for improvement.

3. How can New Relic help reduce downtime and improve reliability during deployments?

Highlight integrations like deploy markers and change events to monitor deployments. Discuss proactive monitoring and alerting to detect problems early. Emphasize the importance of synthetic monitoring for availability.

4. What are some key metrics you would monitor in New Relic to assess application health?

Mention vital metrics like throughput, Apdex score, error rate, response times etc. Explain how monitoring thresholds and baselines help spot abnormalities.

5. How would you use New Relic Insights to analyze application or business data?

Discuss Insights’ abilities like custom dashboards, reports, and querying language. Share examples of questions Insights can help answer to provide value.

6. What are some ways you would customize the New Relic interface to suit your specific needs?

Highlight your ability to tailor views, charts, and dashboards. Mention creating custom events, attributes, and alerts to monitor critical business scenarios.

7. How can New Relic be used to monitor and optimize mobile app performance?

Discuss the mobile monitoring capabilities including crash reporting, network request tracing, performance monitoring etc. Give examples of optimizing mobile apps with New Relic’s data.

Behavioral New Relic Interview Questions

These assess your soft skills and fit for the company’s culture:

1. Tell me about a time you influenced a team or company to adopt New Relic. What value did you highlight?

Showcase your ability to demonstrate the business value of New Relic. Share a story of how you positioned NR to convince stakeholders.

2. How would you explain New Relic to a prospect with no technical background?

Demonstrate your communication skills. Explain how you’d break down NR’s value in simple, non-technical terms. Focus on business benefits.

3. Describe a challenging troubleshooting scenario you faced using New Relic. How did you resolve it?

Show problem-solving skills and perseverance. Share how you methodically diagnosed and fixed a tricky issue with New Relic.

4. Tell me about a time you had a conflict with an engineer while troubleshooting an application issue. How did you handle it?

Reveal your teamwork and diplomacy. Discuss how you resolved a disagreement professionally to find the root cause.

5. What’s your approach for keeping customers happy and helping them renew/expand their New Relic deployment?

Highlight customer orientation and account management skills. Share strategies for ensuring customer success and growth.

6. Why do you want to work at New Relic specifically? What attracts you to this role?

Convey your passion for the company and role. Research New Relic and emphasize your alignment with their mission, values and culture.

How to Prepare for the Interview

Here are my top tips for acing your New Relic interview:

• Learn the products: Get hands-on experience with New Relic’s platform. Leverage their free trials and documentation.

• Research the company: Understand their history, mission, culture, and competitive landscape. This shows commitment.

• Revise computer science basics: Brush up on fundamentals like data structures, algorithms, OS, networking etc.

• Practice answering questions aloud: Verbalize your thoughts to polish your responses. Time yourself to improve pacing.

• Prepare stories and examples: Have 2-3 anecdotes ready demonstrating relevant skills and traits.

• Review your resume: Ensure you can talk in-depth about every accomplishment and project listed.

• Plan to ask smart questions: Questions show your engagement. Ask about growth opportunities, team culture, leadership philosophy.

• Get a good night’s sleep: Rest well so you’re refreshed and focused on interview day. Caffeinate lightly if needed.

Examples of Excellent Answers

Let’s look at sample responses for a couple of key New Relic questions:

Q: What strategies have you found effective for troubleshooting performance issues identified by New Relic APM?

A: When troubleshooting performance issues flagged by New Relic APM, I’ve found a few strategies to be highly effective:

First, I triage the issue based on severity and impact to isolate the most critical problems. For widespread slowdowns, I’ll look at aggregate metrics like throughput and error rate to identify major bottlenecks. For localized issues, I drill down using traces and segments to pinpoint specific transactions.

Next, I gather additional context by enabling debug-level logging on suspect transactions to capture granular diagnostic data. I also examine related events around the time of the problem, like configuration changes or deployments.

Finally, I focus on hypothesizing and testing potential causes through incremental changes. For example, if I suspect a SQL query, I’ll try optimizing it and monitor results. I find this methodology allows me to systematically validate and eliminate possibilities.

Throughout the process, I collaborate with relevant teams, whether development, DBAs or operations, to leverage their expertise as needed. The key is applying a structured approach to turn New Relic’s data into actionable solutions efficiently.

Q: If a customer was having difficulty expanding their use of New Relic across the organization, how would you advise them?

A: When customers encounter challenges scaling their New Relic adoption more broadly, I’ve found several techniques to be helpful:

First, identify key internal champions who are excited by New Relic’s value and can spread awareness organically. Equip them with compelling examples of benefits and ROI. For instance, quantifying performance gains or cost savings for initial teams can generate enthusiasm.

Next, offer to conduct workshops or demos showcasing how New Relic can help other departments like IT, security, business ops etc. Make it relevant by tying features directly to their goals and pain points.

Also, suggest starting small by piloting New Relic with a subset of users in new teams first. Once they experience the benefits directly, they can advocate for wider rollout.

Finally, emphasize that your team is available to support their internal evangelization efforts through resources like customized collateral, demo environments, and training assistance.

The key is providing continuous guidance, resources, and value to nurture these internal champions and grow New Relic’s footprint across their systems and teams.

Preparing strong and thoughtful responses to popular New Relic interview questions is the best way to stand out from the competition. It demonstrates your technical knowledge, problem-solving abilities, and commitment to customer success.

Use the strategies and examples provided above to tackle your interview with confidence. With the right preparation, you can excel in the interview and launch an exciting career at one of the most innovative companies shaping the future of software analytics. All the best!