Chapter-7: Areas in which you would be interviewed.
Lets check for the areas in which you would be interviewed. for Amazon solution Architect position:
Architecting a System and Design it:
In this case you would be given a requirement in detail and you have to design it.
While designing, you have to keep in mind various things like scalability, security, high performance, high availability, auditing, monitoring etc.
Software Engineering Principal and concepts:
“ReadioBook.com App would try to cover Interview Questions and answer based on this. Please check the interview Questions and Answer section for going through before you appear for your real interview. We regularly add new questions based on the feedback we received. Hence, it’s very important you also provide your feedback once your interview process is done. That would be very helpful for other candidates. ”
In this section you would be interviewed for the at the start with Object Oriented Programming, if you are from C++ or Java background. This part would be quite easy for you to answer. Interviewer would ask questions based on the Inheritance, polymorphism which includes overloading and overriding and then abstractions, you must know the difference very clearly between abstractions and encapsulations. That’s where you are being caught at the most of the time.
Next important things you would be tested in this section is REST API. This is not specific to any programming language but rather in general. Hence, you should be knowing in depth this stuff.
Networking concepts: This section is most challenging for the person or candidate who mostly worked with the programming, requirement gathering, scrum master, project manager and technical architect role. And generally, not involved in designing the networks etc. However, this is not that complicated as your programming and algorithm. Because networking concepts follow the standards and you should know those standards. For the networking area you should know the following stuffs.
- A&A (Authentication and Authorization): You must know the difference between authentication and authorizations. And what are the standard ways by which you can implement these requirements.
- Data Encryption: You should know what is the encryption and how you can achieve it and what are its benefits. Other area under this section is tested is how the SSL certification works. Is SSL certification can be used for authentication or not or just for data encryption.
- Session management: As you will be working now a days on the distributed applications. How the sessions can be managed for web application or any other applications.
- Data Caching: This is about the faster retrieval of the data and for that you have to cache it at the nearest location of the retrieval. They are not talking about the caching data for your data-based applications (However, this is the same thing and concept). But they are more about want to know your understanding for the image, videos, static html page caching. This data which usually, needs to be accessed globally or destined for specific region or area.
- Security: You need to know the Firewalls, Access Control list and IAM which is Identity and Access Management. How, would you make your application secure with respect to every aspect like data access, what ports are opened, what is port scanning, what is access control list.
- HTTP and HTTPS: This is the same thing as we discussed above about SSL. If you have good understanding of SSL then you can answer questions based on this as well.
- OSI Layer: I am not sure, if you have ever read it again after you left the collage. Yes, Amazon would certainly want you to know the OSI layer in depth. Their various questions are around this. So please be well aware about this OSI layer and how this works.
Scalability and Performance: Under this section you would be asked questions on how to make your system highly scalable and available. You should know the concept and usage of the load balancer and scaling servers on demand based on the traffic.
Past experience and Current Role: During your interview your resume would be used to check your past experience and you would have questions based on that. They would try to match your past experience with the current role and ask relevant questions. You must go through your resume and you should be able to answer and speak in depth whatever written in your resume. Specially, the work you have done in your recent project. Once you start answering question then certainly you would have next question based on your answer and interviewer will go in depth for each topic you are discussing. You are expected to have leadership role, hence every question which you answer should be based on that you are driving the entire project and bringing it final solutions with implementation. Having monitoring and production support in place. You might be given scenario which you have never heard before and some relevant answer would be expected from you. Think in every direction before you answer the questions like including security, scalability, performance and high availability. You would get similar questions which is posted in the QuickTechie App or HadoopExam.com .
White board sessions: This usually happens when you are onsite and mostly starts with your second round of on-site interview process. This is where, you would be interviewed again for the System Design. Again, you would be provided a different scenario and how would you design that scenario. Take some deep breath, think design in your mind and then start drawing it on the white board. Don’t hesitate to ask questions to interviewer while you are designing. If you are not very sure, first draw it on paper and then bring it to whiteboard that’s fine. However, don’t take too much time interviewers are having patience but it does not mean they have infinite time. It is planned that you complete all 5 rounds in the same day. System design would require much more detail; hence it is expected you ask follow up questions and then draw your diagram accordingly. Go through some training material and interview questions and answer or any other material provided by QuickTechie App or HadoopExam.com to prepare well for this round of interview. While answering the questions you should be able to include the products provided by Amazon, specially from their AWS. You should be well versed with the Solution architect part of the Amazon Web Service. Will provide some sample questions so you can prepare accordingly.
Website design: You would most likely come across a scenario where you would be given a scenario to design high traffic global or regional website. Here, website design not mean to using HTML and Java script, but more with perspective to System design. You should be able to use following components while designing website like
- Load Balancer.
- Auto Scalability.
- Sharing data between On-prem to the Cloud.
- Security Configurations, especially ACL and Security Groups.
- Understand firewall concepts this is same as Security group and ACL in AWS.
- Applying Monitoring.
- Using instances of EC2.
- Data and file Caching which include CDN or Content Distribution Network.
- Web Caching.
It is not necessary; you would be using all the above component in your System Design. Based on the scenario given to you, you should be able to design it and use the above or some more components. Specially, note you are using AWS components in your answer.
OSI Layer: OSI is Open System Interconnection model which has 7 layers in it. And these OSI layers are used to communicate between computers over the network. Using OSI, 7-layer model you can visualize and communicate how network operates. There are below 7 layers which you should know in depth, each layer’s responsibility.
- Layer-7: Application Layer: This is you can consider for Human Interaction, using this layer your applications can interact with the network services.
- Layer-6: Presentation Layer: This layer makes sure your data is in usable format and that is the layer where your data encryption happens.
- Layer-5: Session Layer: This is the layer where connections are mad using the ports and sessions are controlled.
- Layer-4: Transport Layer: As name suggest using this layer your data would be transmitted which include TCP and UDP protocols.
- Layer-3: Network Layer: Using this layer it would decide which physical path it should take.
- Layer-2: Data Link Layer: This is the data format over the network.
- Layer-1: Physical Layer: Now your data would be streamed like in binary format for instance 1010101001.
Multi-Layer Architecture: In this you would be asked to design a system and questions will be asked based on each layer.
- Front End: Which include your web pages designed using HTML, Java Scripts etc.
- Web Server: This is for which server you use to serve your web pages like it could be Apache Tomcat or Apache Web Server, Microsoft Webserver etc. This server will be used to serve your dynamic website.
If you have been asked questions based on static website then you don’t need WebServer at all, you can use Amazon S3 buckets to serve the pages and also S3 would take care of caching your static web pages across the network if these pages do not require authentication to get accessed.
- Application Server: Sometime you would have different servers one for Web traffic and another for implementing application logic. Specially, complex data process, order management etc.
- Backend: This would include Databases, where your data would be stored for your websites.
You would be facing question around security for each of this layer.
Lets check for the areas in which you would be interviewed. for Amazon solution Architect position:
Architecting a System and Design it:
In this case you would be given a requirement in detail and you have to design it.
Software Engineering Principal and concepts:
“ReadioBook.com App would try to cover Interview Questions and answer based on this. Please check the interview Questions and Answer section for going through before you appear for your real interview. We regularly add new questions based on the feedback we received. Hence, it’s very important you also provide your feedback once your interview process is done. That would be very helpful for other candidates. ”
In this section you would be interviewed for the at the start with Object Oriented Programming, if you are from C++ or Java background. This part would be quite easy for you to answer. Interviewer would ask questions based on the Inheritance, polymorphism which includes overloading and overriding and then abstractions, you must know the difference very clearly between abstractions and encapsulations. That’s where you are being caught at the most of the time.
Next important things you would be tested in this section is REST API. This is not specific to any programming language but rather in general. Hence, you should be knowing in depth this stuff.
Networking concepts: This section is most challenging for the person or candidate who mostly worked with the programming, requirement gathering, scrum master, project manager and technical architect role. And generally, not involved in designing the networks etc. However, this is not that complicated as your programming and algorithm. Because networking concepts follow the standards and you should know those standards. For the networking area you should know the following stuffs.
- A&A (Authentication and Authorization): You must know the difference between authentication and authorizations. And what are the standard ways by which you can implement these requirements.
- Data Encryption: You should know what is the encryption and how you can achieve it and what are its benefits. Other area under this section is tested is how the SSL certification works. Is SSL certification can be used for authentication or not or just for data encryption.
- Session management: As you will be working now a days on the distributed applications. How the sessions can be managed for web application or any other applications.
- Data Caching: This is about the faster retrieval of the data and for that you have to cache it at the nearest location of the retrieval. They are not talking about the caching data for your data-based applications (However, this is the same thing and concept). But they are more about want to know your understanding for the image, videos, static html page caching. This data which usually, needs to be accessed globally or destined for specific region or area.
- Security: You need to know the Firewalls, Access Control list and IAM which is Identity and Access Management. How, would you make your application secure with respect to every aspect like data access, what ports are opened, what is port scanning, what is access control list.
- HTTP and HTTPS: This is the same thing as we discussed above about SSL. If you have good understanding of SSL then you can answer questions based on this as well.
- OSI Layer: I am not sure, if you have ever read it again after you left the collage. Yes, Amazon would certainly want you to know the OSI layer in depth. Their various questions are around this. So please be well aware about this OSI layer and how this works.
Scalability and Performance: Under this section you would be asked questions on how to make your system highly scalable and available. You should know the concept and usage of the load balancer and scaling servers on demand based on the traffic.
Past experience and Current Role: During your interview your resume would be used to check your past experience and you would have questions based on that. They would try to match your past experience with the current role and ask relevant questions. You must go through your resume and you should be able to answer and speak in depth whatever written in your resume. Specially, the work you have done in your recent project. Once you start answering question then certainly you would have next question based on your answer and interviewer will go in depth for each topic you are discussing. You are expected to have leadership role, hence every question which you answer should be based on that you are driving the entire project and bringing it final solutions with implementation. Having monitoring and production support in place. You might be given scenario which you have never heard before and some relevant answer would be expected from you. Think in every direction before you answer the questions like including security, scalability, performance and high availability. You would get similar questions which is posted in the QuickTechie App or HadoopExam.com .
White board sessions: This usually happens when you are onsite and mostly starts with your second round of on-site interview process. This is where, you would be interviewed again for the System Design. Again, you would be provided a different scenario and how would you design that scenario. Take some deep breath, think design in your mind and then start drawing it on the white board. Don’t hesitate to ask questions to interviewer while you are designing. If you are not very sure, first draw it on paper and then bring it to whiteboard that’s fine. However, don’t take too much time interviewers are having patience but it does not mean they have infinite time. It is planned that you complete all 5 rounds in the same day. System design would require much more detail; hence it is expected you ask follow up questions and then draw your diagram accordingly. Go through some training material and interview questions and answer or any other material provided by QuickTechie App or HadoopExam.com to prepare well for this round of interview. While answering the questions you should be able to include the products provided by Amazon, specially from their AWS. You should be well versed with the Solution architect part of the Amazon Web Service. Will provide some sample questions so you can prepare accordingly.
Website design: You would most likely come across a scenario where you would be given a scenario to design high traffic global or regional website. Here, website design not mean to using HTML and Java script, but more with perspective to System design. You should be able to use following components while designing website like
- Load Balancer.
- Auto Scalability.
- Sharing data between On-prem to the Cloud.
- Security Configurations, especially ACL and Security Groups.
- Understand firewall concepts this is same as Security group and ACL in AWS.
- Applying Monitoring.
- Using instances of EC2.
- Data and file Caching which include CDN or Content Distribution Network.
- Web Caching.
It is not necessary; you would be using all the above component in your System Design. Based on the scenario given to you, you should be able to design it and use the above or some more components. Specially, note you are using AWS components in your answer.
OSI Layer: OSI is Open System Interconnection model which has 7 layers in it. And these OSI layers are used to communicate between computers over the network. Using OSI, 7-layer model you can visualize and communicate how network operates. There are below 7 layers which you should know in depth, each layer’s responsibility.
- Layer-7: Application Layer: This is you can consider for Human Interaction, using this layer your applications can interact with the network services.
- Layer-6: Presentation Layer: This layer makes sure your data is in usable format and that is the layer where your data encryption happens.
- Layer-5: Session Layer: This is the layer where connections are mad using the ports and sessions are controlled.
- Layer-4: Transport Layer: As name suggest using this layer your data would be transmitted which include TCP and UDP protocols.
- Layer-3: Network Layer: Using this layer it would decide which physical path it should take.
- Layer-2: Data Link Layer: This is the data format over the network.
- Layer-1: Physical Layer: Now your data would be streamed like in binary format for instance 1010101001.
Multi-Layer Architecture: In this you would be asked to design a system and questions will be asked based on each layer.
- Front End: Which include your web pages designed using HTML, Java Scripts etc.
- Web Server: This is for which server you use to serve your web pages like it could be Apache Tomcat or Apache Web Server, Microsoft Webserver etc. This server will be used to serve your dynamic website.
- Application Server: Sometime you would have different servers one for Web traffic and another for implementing application logic. Specially, complex data process, order management etc.
- Backend: This would include Databases, where your data would be stored for your websites.
You would be facing question around security for each of this layer.
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