Interviewing for Systems Engineer/System admin role- What should I expect?
Posted by Master_Sea295@reddit | sysadmin | View on Reddit | 13 comments
The job description is very heavy on the following stack:
- Virtualization: VMware (vSphere/vCenter)
- Backup: Veeam
- Cloud/SaaS: Office 365, Azure, Exchange Online, Teams
- Infrastructure: Physical and virtual server management
SithLordDooku@reddit
As long as it’s not a senior level position, you probably aren’t going to be expected to know everything about everything. Be confident in what you know and thoroughly explain your answers. That way, even if the answer is wrong, they can follow the logic of how you got there.
A1ien30y@reddit
Strange...that's my exact job. Wait a minute...
enterprisedatalead@reddit
One thing I’ve noticed with sysadmin/system engineer interviews is that the technical questions are usually only half the evaluation. A lot of hiring managers are really trying to figure out how you troubleshoot under pressure and communicate during incidents.
In one interview I had, they barely cared about memorized commands. They spent most of the time walking through scenarios like AD replication failures, backup restores, DNS issues, and “what would you check first” during outages. Being able to explain the reasoning step-by-step mattered way more than having a perfect answer immediately.
I’d also recommend being ready to talk about real environments you’ve worked on things like M365 administration, virtualization, patch management, scripting, monitoring, or handling production incidents. Specific examples usually stand out more than textbook answers.
What kind of environment is the role focused on mostly Windows infrastructure, cloud, hybrid, or networking-heavy?
Zerowig@reddit
As someone who had performed hundreds, if not thousands of interviews in my years, I can’t believe anyone would ask for memorized commands. I would walk out of the interview there, because that’s a huge red flag they’re probably shit.
derango@reddit
All of this right here.
If the interviewer is any good they're going to care way more about the fact you understand the overall concepts and less about what specific commands you've memorized. Documentation and the internet exists. Nobody should need to literally have memorized the exact syntax of a command you'd use to do something you only do like...once a year or something.
If you get questions like "What does DHCP stand for" or "What are the layers of the OSI model" then you're in for a really annoying time.
They should be way more interested in seeing your process. Like "First, I'd check the documentation/with my team to see if we've run into this situation before and if there were any notes I could use to fix it quickly. I'd look for anything in the error logs that might give more information, and I'd look up any error codes that seem relevant... After that, based on the information I have, I think it might be related to so I'd start by maying trying X, Y and Z and then I'd have to see where that got me."
In a technical setting, you should never be afraid of being honest and saying "I'm familiar with the concept, but I would have to reference the documentation for specifics"
The worst kind of new hire is the person who thinks they know how to do more than they actually do and just does stuff without communicating.
Ok-Attitude-7205@reddit
> A lot of hiring managers are really trying to figure out how you troubleshoot under pressure and communicate during incidents.
as they should. it's alarming at times how often people still don't understand that you have to talk to other people when working in infrastructure in IT. the technical side is only half of it, soft skills are just as valuable (arguably more valuable now with the rise of AI/LLMs to help with the tech side)
rootcurios@reddit
Dude, I would do anything for a role like that to even be hiring around me.
30yearCurse@reddit
HELL!! Hell to the left, Hell to the right, gunners ahead trying to take you down, doubts behind you...
Mention how you t/s, how would you troubleshoot issues in VMWARE, is latency and issue? What is your view of security? How to implement.
Your asking a general questions, you should expect a lot of questions all over the place, AD, Hybrid, O365. Conditional Access, program experience, DB experience.
What is your experience level?
Master_Sea295@reddit (OP)
I have around 4 years of experience as IT support, nothing in the server side in prod environment. I have certs like CCNA, Security+, AZ-104.
30yearCurse@reddit
Also, remember to ask them questions, What issues has the team faced before in regards to this...
Do not ask, what days am I off, what is after hours like?
30yearCurse@reddit
I am guessing you will get lots of questions regarding VMWARE, migrations, failovers. AD / DNS / DHCP, troubleshooting. One question that was asked alot was 2 offices, 1 group always have slow logins and the other office, no issues. Both identical, local AD, same network setup, laptops How would you troubleshoot slow logins, if the network has already be eliminated.
I always preferred open ended questions, more interested in thought process, how would you narrow down what the issue could be.
Even if you do not get the opportunity, take it as a learning experience, build a virtual environment and break it. Virtual servers act the same as physical. AD is AD.
Most backup vendors have free use cases of their software, play with thoses.
You do not need to be an expert day 1, but show capacity to learn, to be part of a team and independent.
Good luck.
TerrorToadx@reddit
I think you can expect questions about: Virtualization: VMware (vSphere/vCenter) Backup: Veeam Cloud/SaaS: Office 365, Azure, Exchange Online, Teams Infrastructure: Physical and virtual server management
Pocket-Flapjack@reddit
Do you know the difference between vcenter and esx. Understand what a snapshot is? Know how to clone a machine and create a template?
Do you know the different back up "types" incremental, differential, full. Do you know how to create a backup? Do you know about reports and SureBackup?
Do you know what Azure portal looks like, how to use bastion, maybe map a data store. Possibly some question about permissions...
Do you know what a router, switch and firewall are and their functions, do you know what an SFP is and the differences between them...
Those are what I would want to know, and probably some stories of why your experience meets the requirments