Over the years, I’ve interviewed many candidates. One crucial skill that often gets overlooked is operational reflexes during oncalls. Surprisingly, few companies test for this, yet it’s a capability that greatly distinguishes engineers.
There is a gap in interviewing. Some of the candidates excel in code interviews and system design but not on the operational side of things. Sometimes, they effectively play the system without real operational experience. They secure positions but lack the practical skills to handle real world scenarios.
As software engineers, we are expected to run what we build, either individually or as a team. If you lack operational experience, it can spell trouble. The operational muscle is something you build with time. It requires a combination of interpreting graphs, understanding system behavior, and staying calm.
The Importance of Operational Reflexes
Operational reflexes are not just about reacting to incidents but also about anticipating and preventing them. Engineers with strong operational skills can diagnose problems from seemingly minor alerts, recognize patterns that suggest larger issues, and apply fixes before problems escalate.
Having the gut feeling for operations helps improve and maintain system reliability and performance. Most engineers get the gut feeling by operating systems in production and seeing various different failure cases.
Interviewing for Operational Experience
Alright, we understand we should test someone’s operational experience but how do we do it? Traditional interviews focus on coding skills and theoretical knowledge. Obviously, they are easier to evaluate through standardized questions. Yet, operational skills require a different approach as they require real-world scenarios.
One potential method could be incorporating scenario-based questions in interviews. For example, presenting candidates with a hypothetical system outage and asking them to walk through their troubleshooting process. Hence, this could reveal their thought process, decision-making skills, and familiarity with operational tools and practices.
Operational Scenario Interviews
To better evaluate candidates, interview processes should include:
- Realistic Incident Scenarios: Present candidates with past incidents your team has faced. Ask them how they would respond, what steps they would took to identify and resolve the issue. Understand how they would potentially communicate with stakeholders during the incident.
- System Monitoring and Alerting: Assess candidates’ familiarity with monitoring tools like Prometheus, Grafana, or Datadog. Ask them how they would set up alerts and what metrics they would monitor to ensure system health.
- Post-Mortem Analysis: Discuss the importance of post-mortem analysis after incidents. Ask candidates to describe how they would conduct a post-mortem, identify root causes, and implement measures to prevent recurrence.
Operational experience is a crucial yet often overlooked aspect of interviewing. By introducing realistic operational scenarios into the interview process, we can better evaluate an engineer’s ability to handle real-world challenges. This not only ensures that new hires are technically proficient but also operationally capable. It ultimately leads to more resilient and reliable software systems.