Question bank

Interview questions, with guidance on how to answer

834 questions across 64 roles. Open one to see what a strong answer includes and common slips, then drill it out loud with Ava. New to answer structure? Start with the learning hub.

834 questions.

TechnicalMid levelNetwork Engineer
When would you choose OSPF versus BGP, and what problems have you seen with either in practice?
Tests: Routing & switching
TechnicalMid levelNetwork Engineer
How would you set up firewall rules and segmentation for a network with guest wireless, office staff and payment terminals?
Tests: Network security
TechnicalMid levelNetwork Engineer
Tell me about a network task you automated, for example with Python or Ansible. What did it replace, and how did you make it safe?
Tests: Network automation
TechnicalMid levelNetwork Engineer
Users at a branch office report that video calls are choppy every afternoon. How do you find the cause?
Tests: Network troubleshooting
TechnicalSeniorNetwork Engineer
How would you connect several office sites and a cloud environment securely, and how would you choose between VPN tunnels and dedicated links?
Tests: Cloud & hybrid networking
TechnicalSeniorNetwork Engineer
You are designing the network for a new office of three hundred people. How do you plan for redundancy, growth and wireless coverage?
Tests: Network design & capacity planning
BehaviouralSeniorNetwork Engineer
A core router change you made during a maintenance window caused an outage. How would you handle the rollback and the conversation afterwards?
Tests: Composure under pressure
BehaviouralAny levelNetwork Engineer
How do you explain the cause of a network outage and its fix to non-technical staff or managers?
Tests: Communication
TechnicalAny levelNetwork Engineer
What steps would you take if you saw an unexpected spike of traffic leaving the network late at night?
Tests: Network security
TechnicalEntry levelDatabase Administrator
What is the difference between a full, an incremental and a point-in-time backup, and when would you need point-in-time recovery?
Tests: Backup & recovery
TechnicalEntry levelDatabase Administrator
What is an index, and why can adding too many indexes to a table actually hurt?
Tests: Performance tuning
TechnicalEntry levelDatabase Administrator
A developer asks for full admin access to the production database to debug an issue. How do you respond?
Tests: Database security
TechnicalMid levelDatabase Administrator
A query that used to take a second now takes a minute. Walk me through how you would figure out why.
Tests: Performance tuning
TechnicalMid levelDatabase Administrator
How does replication work in a database you know well, and what can go wrong with replica lag?
Tests: High availability & replication
TechnicalMid levelDatabase Administrator
How would you add a column or change a large table in production without locking it and causing downtime?
Tests: Schema design & change management
TechnicalMid levelDatabase Administrator
Which metrics do you watch to know a database is heading for trouble before it actually fails?
Tests: Monitoring & capacity planning
System designSeniorDatabase Administrator
Design a setup for a critical database that needs to survive losing a server or a whole data center with minimal data loss. What trade-offs do you make?
Tests: High availability & replication
TechnicalSeniorDatabase Administrator
Leadership asks how confident you are that we could recover from ransomware hitting our databases. How do you answer, and what would you test?
Tests: Backup & recovery
BehaviouralSeniorDatabase Administrator
Developers want to move fast with frequent schema changes and auto-generated queries. How do you keep the database healthy without becoming a bottleneck?
Tests: Collaboration with developers
BehaviouralAny levelDatabase Administrator
Tell me about a time you caught a mistake before it hit production data, or a time one got through. What did you learn?
Tests: Attention to detail