Technical Fundamentals & Core Skills Topics
Core technical concepts including algorithms, data structures, statistics, cryptography, and hardware-software integration. Covers foundational knowledge required for technical roles and advanced technical depth.
Technical Depth and Domain Expertise
Covers a candidate's deep hands on technical knowledge and practical expertise in one or more technical domains and their ability to provide credible technical oversight. Interviewers probe specialized system design, domain specific patterns and constraints, and how the candidate stays current in the field. Expect questions on platform internals such as Linux and Windows internals, networking fundamentals including transport and internet protocols, domain name system, routing, and firewalls, database internals and performance tuning, storage and input output behavior, virtualization and containerization, cloud infrastructure and services, application performance analysis, security principles, and troubleshooting methodologies. Candidates should be prepared to explain architecture and design trade offs, justify technical decisions with metrics and benchmarks, walk through root cause analysis and debugging steps, describe tooling and automation used for deployment and operations, and discuss capacity planning and scaling strategies. For senior roles, demonstrate both breadth across multiple domains and depth in one or two specialized areas with concrete examples of diagnostics, performance tuning, incident response, and technical leadership. Interviewers may also ask why the candidate specialized, how they built that expertise, how that expertise shaped technical decisions and trade offs in real projects, expected failure modes and performance considerations, and how the candidate mentors others or drives best practices within their specialization.
Operating System Fundamentals and Troubleshooting
Covers foundational operating system concepts and common platform level problems across desktop and server operating systems and how to diagnose and fix them. Fundamental areas include processes and threads, scheduling and priorities, virtual memory and swap, file systems and permissions, device drivers and system services or daemons, startup and boot processes, user account and permission models, and update and package management. Common issues covered are slow system performance, unresponsive applications, runaway processes, memory or handle leaks, filesystem corruption, driver or update failures, boot problems, permission errors, and networking or service failures. Candidates should be familiar with basic diagnostic techniques and tools for major platforms such as Windows, macOS and Linux including process and resource monitoring, log inspection, safe mode or recovery environments, system file checks, package and service management, and steps to roll back or isolate updates. Emphasize systematic troubleshooting workflows, evidence collection, and remediation strategies such as restarting services, isolating faulty drivers, correcting permission problems, cleaning up disk usage, and applying or rolling back patches.
Operating System Fundamentals
Comprehensive knowledge of operating system concepts and practical administration across Linux, Unix, and Windows platforms. Core theoretical topics include processes and threads, process creation and termination, scheduling and context switching, synchronization and deadlock conditions, system calls, kernel versus user space, interrupt handling, memory management including virtual memory, paging and swapping, and input and output semantics including file descriptors. Practical administration and tooling expectations include file systems and permission models, user and group account management, common system utilities and commands such as grep, find, ps, and top, package management, service and process management, startup and boot processes, environment variables, shell and scripting basics, system monitoring, and performance tuning. Platform specific knowledge should cover Unix and Linux topics such as signals and signal handling, kernel modules, initialization and service management systems, and command line administration, as well as Windows topics such as the registry, service management, event logs, user account control, and graphical and command line administration tools. Security and infrastructure topics include basic system hardening, common misconfigurations, and an understanding of containerization and virtualization at the operating system level. Interview questions may probe conceptual explanations, platform comparisons, troubleshooting scenarios, or hands on problem solving.
Problem Solving and Analytical Thinking
Evaluates a candidate's systematic and logical approach to unfamiliar, ambiguous, or complex problems across technical, product, business, security, and operational contexts. Candidates should be able to clarify objectives and constraints, ask effective clarifying questions, decompose problems into smaller components, identify root causes, form and test hypotheses, and enumerate and compare multiple solution options. Interviewers look for clear reasoning about trade offs and edge cases, avoidance of premature conclusions, use of repeatable frameworks or methodologies, prioritization of investigations, design of safe experiments and measurement of outcomes, iteration based on feedback, validation of fixes, documentation of results, and conversion of lessons learned into process improvements. Responses should clearly communicate the thought process, justify choices, surface assumptions and failure modes, and demonstrate learning from prior problem solving experiences.
Operating System Internals and Administration
Fundamental and advanced operating system concepts that underlie system administration across platforms. Topics include process and thread management, scheduling and concurrency, memory management and swapping, virtual memory and page replacement, input output and disk performance, file system architecture and semantics, system call interfaces, kernel parameters and tuning, authentication and permission models, boot and initialization sequences, monitoring and system performance analysis, and general techniques for debugging and diagnosing systemic operating system issues. Candidates should be able to explain not only how to perform administrative tasks but why the underlying mechanisms behave as they do and how design choices affect performance and reliability.
Foundational Information Technology Awareness
Basic knowledge of common information technology concepts, typical user platform components, and everyday support and troubleshooting patterns. Topics include component-level concepts such as random access memory, central processing unit, persistent storage, basic networking ideas, and operating systems including Windows, Mac, and Linux; typical end user problems like account issues, software installation and updates, connectivity and performance complaints; and help desk and support processes such as ticketing, prioritization, and escalation. Interviewers use this topic to assess whether a candidate can communicate effectively with technical teams, triage user reports, set expectations for resolution, and avoid incorrect assumptions about how common systems behave.
Storage Technologies: SATA and Hardware Interfaces
Understand SATA (Serial Advanced Technology Attachment) and its role as a high-speed interface for storage devices. Know other common interfaces and buses. Understand RAID configurations and how storage redundancy works. Know the difference between HDD and SSD technologies and their performance characteristics. Understand how to diagnose storage-related issues.
Linux System Administration Fundamentals
Core Linux administration knowledge and hands on operational skills required to install, configure, and maintain Linux systems. Covers user and group management, file permissions and ownership, process management and signals, package management across distributions, the boot process and runlevels or targets, basic systemd service control, filesystem navigation and basic disk management, common system configuration files, shell and command line proficiency, and differences between major enterprise and community distributions. Candidates should demonstrate practical troubleshooting of routine issues, patching and updates, and an ability to perform day to day administration tasks reliably.
Computer Startup and Boot Troubleshooting
Troubleshooting computers that won't power on or won't fully boot. Includes checking power connections, power supply functionality, BIOS settings, boot order, disk errors, and corrupted operating systems. Knowing when to attempt software fixes vs. hardware replacement.