Network Programming and Scripting Proficiency Questions

Show practical programming and automation skills focused on networking tasks, using languages such as Python, Go, or shell scripting. Topics include socket programming and protocol knowledge for TCP and UDP, HTTP and higher level APIs, automation of network devices and cloud platform APIs, use of client libraries and remote management protocols, writing maintainable scripts and tools with error handling and retries, testing and validation of network code, performance and scaling considerations for scripts and agents, debugging and logging strategies, and code review and collaboration practices for operational tooling. Candidates should be able to discuss examples of network automation, tooling, monitoring integrations, and how they handled reliability and performance trade offs.

HardTechnical

92 practiced

Create a fuzz-testing approach for your network automation CLI and API client. Choose tools and a test harness design, describe how to handle stateful sequences that can be destructive, and explain how to safely run fuzzers in CI while preventing accidental production changes.

EasyTechnical

83 practiced

Explain the TCP three-way handshake (SYN, SYN-ACK, ACK) and how a SYN flood attack exploits it. In the context of writing a TCP client in Python that must be resilient to slow or half-open connections, list which socket options, timeouts, and operational patterns you would configure (e.g., non-blocking connect, SO_KEEPALIVE, TCP_USER_TIMEOUT) and why. Describe how the client should detect and recover from half-open peers.

HardTechnical

90 practiced

You observe intermittent TCP connection hangs in a data center. The path appears to be asymmetric. Describe a low-level debugging plan: which packet captures to take and from where, which TCP fields to inspect, how to use traceroute/mtr, and mitigation steps you could apply quickly to reduce user impact while you investigate.

EasyTechnical

85 practiced

Write a bash script (or provide clear pseudo-code) that tails /var/log/app.log across a list of servers contained in servers.txt via SSH, merges the outputs preserving timestamps, and handles transient network errors by retrying with exponential backoff. Explain how you ensure the merged stream remains ordered and how you avoid infinite reconnect loops.

HardTechnical

91 practiced

Design a persistent, on-disk queue format for an agent that must buffer unsent network events across reboots and crashes. The format must support fast append, fast consumer reads, efficient compaction, corruption detection, and crash-consistent recovery. Describe segmentization, indexing, checksums, and fsync strategies.

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