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.
Windows Server Roles and Services
Covers the functions, installation, configuration, management, dependencies, and troubleshooting of built in Windows Server roles, role services, and operating system features that provide server functionality. Candidates should understand common server roles such as Active Directory Domain Services, Domain Name System server, Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol server, File and Storage Services, Print Server, Remote Desktop Services, Remote Access, and Web Server. The topic includes the distinction between roles and features, examples of features such as Hyper V, Failover Clustering, and Backup components, and how roles or features may depend on one another. Candidates should be able to demonstrate how to add and remove roles or features using graphical tools such as Server Manager and programmatic tools such as PowerShell, explain common PowerShell cmdlet workflows for installing and configuring roles and features, and describe how to manage individual Windows services that implement role functionality. Core service management knowledge includes startup types such as automatic, automatic delayed, manual, and disabled, service dependencies and startup order, service recovery settings, and common maintenance tasks such as restarting services and checking service status. Troubleshooting and operational responsibilities include using Event Viewer and the Services console to diagnose service failures, interpreting relevant event logs, identifying dependency related startup issues, resolving port and network conflicts for role services, and applying best practices for high availability and scale such as clustering, load balancing, and role placement. Candidates may also be expected to explain backup and restore considerations for role data, permission and security implications of enabling roles and features, and basic monitoring strategies for role health and performance.
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.
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.
Technical Foundation and Self Assessment
Covers baseline technical knowledge and the candidate's ability to honestly assess and communicate their technical strengths and weaknesses. Topics include fundamental infrastructure and networking concepts, operating system and protocol basics, core development and platform concepts relevant to the role, and the candidate's candid self evaluation of their depth in specific technologies. Interviewers use this to calibrate how technical the candidate is expected to be, identify areas for growth, and ensure alignment of expectations between product and engineering for collaboration.
Group Policy Fundamentals
Fundamentals of Microsoft Group Policy administration for Windows environments. Topics include Group Policy Objects and the Group Policy Editor, policy application order and inheritance across sites domains and organizational units, scope and filtering including security filtering and WMI filters, common policy categories such as password and account policies, audit policies, software restriction and application control, folder redirection and scripts, preferences versus policies, replication and processing behavior, and troubleshooting techniques using gpresult, event logs, and diagnostic tools to resolve policy application issues.
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.
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.
Operating System Concepts
Covers general operating system and process management fundamentals applicable to desktop, server, and embedded contexts. Topics include processes versus threads, process lifecycle operations (fork, exec, exit, wait), process and thread states, context switching, scheduling policies and priorities, CPU and memory management, virtual memory and paging, resource utilization and load metrics, common operating system diagnostic and management tools and commands, and trade offs between process isolation and shared memory threading.
Package Management and Software Updates
Covers operating system and language package management tools and processes for installing, updating, and removing software. Topics include common Linux package managers such as apt, apt get, yum and dnf, repository configuration and mirroring, package dependency resolution, version management and pinning, package signing and verification, handling third party and custom repositories, and basic automation of package operations. Also includes routine security and feature updates at the package level and understanding how package upgrades can affect services and dependencies.