nanog mailing list archives

Re: questions asked during network engineer interview


From: Michael Thomas <mike () mtcc com>
Date: Tue, 14 Jul 2020 13:31:07 -0700


On 7/14/20 1:23 PM, Scott Weeks wrote:

--- mpetach () netflight com wrote:
From: Matthew Petach <mpetach () netflight com>
On Tue, Jul 14, 2020, 11:00 Ahmed elBorno <amaged () gmail com> wrote:

I had less than two years experience.

The interviewer asked me:
[...]
2) If we had a 1GB file that we need to transfer between America and
Europe, how much time do we need, knowing that we start with a TCP size of
X?


I *love* questions like that, because I can immediately respond back with
"well, that depends; did your sysadmin configure rfc1323 extension support
in your TCP stack?  Is SACK enabled?  What about window scaling?  Does your
OS do dynamic buffer tuning for TCP, or are the values locked in at start
time?"
------------------------------------------------



I'm not so sure someone with only 2 years experience would know that.

On the other hand, it might not be bad ask as a "what would you do if somebody asked you this question, what would you do research how to answer the question?" because this is definitely something that an unknowledgeable person up the management chain might ask.

Mike


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