Cloud & Infrastructure Topics
Cloud platform services, infrastructure architecture, Infrastructure as Code, environment provisioning, and infrastructure operations. Covers cloud service selection, infrastructure provisioning patterns, container orchestration (Kubernetes), multi-cloud and hybrid architectures, infrastructure cost optimization, and cloud platform operations. For CI/CD pipeline and deployment automation, see DevOps & Release Engineering. For cloud security implementation, see Security Engineering & Operations. For data infrastructure design, see Data Engineering & Analytics Infrastructure.
Network Troubleshooting and Tools
Hands on skills for diagnosing and resolving network problems using standard command line and packet analysis tools. Topics include systematic troubleshooting workflows (start with reachability tests and escalate to captures), use of ping and traceroute to verify connectivity and routing paths, netstat and ss to inspect sockets and listening ports, arp and interface commands to check layer two mappings and interface state, router and switch show commands to view routing tables and interface status, and DNS troubleshooting using nslookup and dig. Deep packet capture and analysis with tcpdump and Wireshark is covered, including capture filters, interpreting packet headers and flows, identifying retransmissions, latency sources, and protocol errors. Emphasis is on interpreting tool output, correlating results across layers, and choosing the right tool at each step of an investigation.
Network Protocols and Encapsulation
Comprehensive knowledge of network protocol stacks and layering, including the Open Systems Interconnection model and the Transmission Control Protocol and Internet Protocol suite. Candidates should understand protocol purposes and behaviors at each layer, including connection oriented and connectionless transport, address resolution, discovery and multicast management, and control plane messages. Know common protocols such as the User Datagram Protocol, Internet Control Message Protocol, and Internet Group Management Protocol and how they differ in reliability, ordering, and use cases. Be familiar with tunneling and encapsulation technologies and their tradeoffs, including Virtual Private Network, Generic Routing Encapsulation, Multiprotocol Label Switching, overlay network technologies such as Virtual Extensible Local Area Network, Generic Network Virtualization Encapsulation, and Network Virtualization using Generic Routing Encapsulation. Understand encryption and integrity options at the network layer such as Internet Protocol Security and at the transport layer such as Transport Layer Security and Secure Sockets Layer, including tunnel versus transport modes. Be able to reason about encapsulation overhead, maximum transmission unit and fragmentation, latency and throughput implications, path characteristics, compatibility and interoperability, and typical deployment patterns for site to site tunnels, remote access, data center overlays, and network virtualization.
Cloud Infrastructure Knowledge (AWS/GCP/Azure)
Have working knowledge of at least one major cloud platform: common services (EC2/Compute Engine, RDS/Cloud SQL, S3/Cloud Storage, Load Balancers, VPCs, networking), typical failure modes, and how to troubleshoot within that platform. Understand concepts like availability zones, regions, and cross-region failover.
Windows Service and Process Management
Administering and troubleshooting Windows services and processes. Topics include viewing and managing running processes and resource usage with Task Manager and performance monitoring tools, using command line and PowerShell commands to list, start, stop, and restart services, and understanding service configuration such as startup types including automatic, manual, and disabled. Additional areas include service dependencies, recovery and restart options, service permissions and accounts, diagnosing service related errors using the Event Viewer and logs, and strategies for resolving resource contention, hung processes, and service failures.
Hardware Troubleshooting and Diagnostics
Skills and processes for detecting, diagnosing, and remediating hardware faults across servers, storage, network interface cards, and peripherals. Topics include recognizing common failure modes for CPU, memory, disk, and NICs; using firmware and BIOS UEFI settings and diagnostics; interpreting hardware monitoring outputs and sensor data; running vendor diagnostic utilities and benchmarks; using SMART and storage diagnostics; distinguishing hardware from software issues; safe escalation and vendor engagement procedures; and planning replacements and mitigations to avoid data loss or downtime. Emphasis is on methodical data collection, reproducible tests, and appropriate escalation.
Network Design and Security Architecture
Design secure and reliable network and security architectures for cloud environments. Topics include virtual network and subnet design, segmentation and firewall policies, private connectivity patterns, load balancing and failover, encryption in transit and at rest, key management fundamentals and integration with key vaults, identity and access management boundaries, denial of service protections, network monitoring and logging, and compliance and regulatory controls such as data residency and auditability. Interviewers look for practical trade offs between usability security and operational complexity.
Network Troubleshooting and Root Cause Analysis
Covers structured, multi layer approaches to diagnosing complex network and cross component failures. Candidates should demonstrate how they characterize incidents, assess scope and impact, reproduce problems when safe, form testable hypotheses, and apply systematic elimination to isolate the root cause. Expect discussion of packet capture analysis, path and flow troubleshooting, interpreting router and switch show commands, checking forwarding information and ARP tables, correlating syslog and application logs, verifying Domain Name System and name resolution, and identifying configuration errors, access control or firewall blocks, routing and forwarding anomalies, MTU and performance issues, and intermittent faults. Candidates should describe tooling and telemetry patterns they use to validate hypotheses, how they collaborate with application and infrastructure teams to eliminate components, how they document findings, and how they drive remediation and post incident reviews to prevent recurrence.
Networking Fundamentals and Troubleshooting
Comprehensive coverage of core computer networking principles and the practical diagnostic and operational skills required to design, operate, and troubleshoot production systems. Fundamental concepts include the Open Systems Interconnection model layers, the Transmission Control Protocol and the Internet Protocol stack, the User Datagram Protocol, socket and port semantics, address notation and subnetting, Network Address Translation, Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol, and the Domain Name System resolution process. Infrastructure and architectural topics include switching and virtual local area networks, routing concepts and routing table behavior including Border Gateway Protocol basics, load balancing strategies and failure modes, firewall and access control, virtual private network technologies, and container and service network communication patterns. Diagnostic and tooling skills cover connectivity testing and path analysis, process and socket inspection, packet capture and analysis, and common command line tools and utilities used for network investigation. Performance and reliability topics include latency, bandwidth and throughput, packet loss, congestion and congestion control, connection pooling, timeout and retry strategies, and approaches to optimization. Observability, monitoring, and security practices include collecting and interpreting network metrics, logs, and traces, using packet capture tools for root cause analysis, and understanding how network issues surface in distributed applications. At senior levels expect discussion of network performance tuning, capacity planning, load balancer behavior at scale, and design decisions that affect system reliability and security.
Domain Name System Resolution and Troubleshooting
Deep understanding of the Domain Name System resolution process and the related operational concerns. Topics include the roles of recursive resolvers and authoritative name servers, zone delegation and glue records, common record types such as address records, canonical name records, mail exchange records, name server records, text records, and service records, and how time to live values affect caching and propagation. Candidates should be able to explain frequent failure modes such as misconfigured records, propagation delays, delegation mistakes, name server outages, and secure configuration problems, and demonstrate troubleshooting techniques using query tools and packet capture to trace queries and determine whether issues stem from authoritative sources, caches, transport, or configuration.