r/devops • u/MountainTruth6073 • 11d ago
Discussion Kubernetes interview gone really bad
I went to a kubernetes tech interview, expecting that they are going to ask me about my experience using kubernetes and some basic question or some system design about how I could possibly build a cluster some scratch but nop they end up asking me questions that I found it very difficult to answer from the top of my head:
- First warm up question was, Can you explain to me what it is Quorum?
- Next question, I guess it was a follow up question, Do you know what ETCD? What is the difference between ETCD and Redis?
- Next question, Given this CNI Flannel, Cilum and Calico, which one you will use and why?
- And the killer question that literally frozen me was explain to me under the hood what is happening when a user clicks a button to download a file.
As a Senior Kubernetes Engineer, it is realistic to know all this stuff from the top of my head? Does it makes sense?
I have the feeling that the interview was setting me to fail, I never have to have to memorize things in my career, I always have to understand and get into conclusion by reasoning. But this is the third interview where the interviewer expect me to know things by heart... I was in another interview where the interviewer asked me to name all of the type of kubernetes services and explain them, I forgot to mention the headless service which I never use in my life.
Maybe it is realistic, that is why I need to vent and have another point of view
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u/EgorWasHere 11d ago
A common format of DevOps interview is this kind of quiz and in my experience they pick really esoteric questions because if you know then then you definitely know the basics, I have also failed 3 interviews of a similar style, all I can say is learn the answers to all the questions asked and be ready for that one next time.