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.
Certifications and Technical Foundation
Focuses on a candidate's formal qualifications and foundational hands on technical skills. Topics include professional certifications, coursework, and practical lab experience in networking, systems, and relevant toolsets; honest assessment of strengths and learning gaps; examples of hands on exercises or projects that demonstrate core competencies; and plans for continuing technical development. Interviewers will use this to gauge baseline technical literacy and fit for role expectations.
OSI Model and TCP IP Stack
Comprehensive knowledge of the seven layer Open Systems Interconnection model, including Layer One Physical, Layer Two Data Link, Layer Three Network, Layer Four Transport, Layer Five Session, Layer Six Presentation, and Layer Seven Application. Understand the primary responsibilities and services at each layer, how data is packaged and transformed as it moves down and up the stack through encapsulation and decapsulation, and the unit of data at each stage such as bits at the physical layer, frames at the data link layer, packets at the network layer, and segments at the transport layer. Be able to identify common protocols and services that operate at each layer, for example Ethernet and link layer protocols at the data link layer, Internet Protocol at the network layer, Transmission Control Protocol and User Datagram Protocol at the transport layer, and application layer protocols such as Hypertext Transfer Protocol and Domain Name System at the application layer. Understand which hardware devices operate at which layers, such as cabling and transceivers at the physical layer, switches and bridges at the data link layer, and routers at the network layer, and how these devices affect forwarding and inspection. Know how the Open Systems Interconnection model maps to and differs from the four layer Transmission Control Protocol and Internet Protocol stack, including which functions are combined or abstracted differently, and how layering choices affect security placement, encryption strategy, performance, and troubleshooting. Be able to apply this knowledge to diagnose faults by mapping symptoms to layer specific causes and to reason about header fields, addressing and port schemes, segmentation and retransmission behavior, and cross layer interactions.
TCP IP Fundamentals
Demonstrate a solid understanding of the Transmission Control Protocol and the User Datagram Protocol and how they behave under different network conditions. Topics include connection establishment and teardown, sequence and acknowledgement semantics, flow control windows, congestion control mechanisms such as slow start and congestion avoidance, retransmission and selective acknowledgement strategies, segmentation and maximum segment size, and interactions with maximum transmission unit and path maximum transmission unit discovery. Candidates should explain how protocol choices and parameter tuning affect application latency, throughput, and reliability.