Interview Experience – Altizon | Site Reliability Engineer (SRE) 🚀

College: PUNE INSTITUTE OF COMPUTER TECHNOLOGY| Batch: 2027 | Branch: IT | Total Rounds: 5

Process Snapshot 📸

Eligibility / Shortlisting: CGPA of 9.3 and above, no backlogs. Branches allowed: ALL UG.
Application Route & Timeline: On-campus drive. The Online Assessment (OA) was followed by interviews the very next day. Interviews averaged about 1 hour each.

Round-by-Round Breakdown 📋

Round 1: Online Assessment (OA) 💻

This was the initial screening round.

Round 2: Group Discussion (GD) 🗣️

A Group Discussion was conducted to assess communication and teamwork skills.(Non Elimination round)

Round 3: Technical Interview (Core SRE Topics) 🧠

Duration: Approximately 1 hour.
Format: Primarily technical and scenario-based questions.
Key Focus: Practical troubleshooting, Linux commands, production deployment scenarios, and infrastructure management.
Questions Asked:
Questions Asked
1. Introduction and AWS
- Tell me about yourself and your experience with AWS.
- Explain AWS networking, VPCs, subnets, and private IP access.
- How do AWS Regions and Availability Zones work?
2. Linux and Troubleshooting
- Which Linux commands do you use regularly?
- How do you check CPU, memory, disk usage, and running processes?
- How would you troubleshoot high resource usage, application crashes, or large log files?
- How would you find and terminate a process?
3. Docker and Containerization
- What is Docker, and how do images and containers differ?
- Explain Docker volumes, networking, and container lifecycle management.
- How do you write and optimize a production-ready Dockerfile?
- Explain Docker layer caching and the difference between
  code
```
1CMD
```
  and
  code
```
1ENTRYPOINT
```
  .
- How would you troubleshoot failing containers or update an application without downtime?
4. CI/CD and Git
- Explain CI/CD and the tools used to automate deployment pipelines.
- How would you create a GitHub Actions workflow?
- Explain Git branching, stashing, fetching, merging, and rebasing.
- How would you resolve merge conflicts and deploy changes safely?
5. Networking and Load Balancing
- Explain the OSI model and common networking concepts.
- What is the difference between Layer 4 and Layer 7 load balancers?
- How do load balancers distribute traffic?
- How would you design a highly available application across multiple Availability Zones?
6. Monitoring and Logging
- How do Prometheus and Grafana work?
- Which monitoring and logging tools have you used?
- How would you investigate application failures using logs and metrics?
- How would you identify the root cause of high CPU or memory utilization?
7. Kubernetes
- What is Kubernetes, and why is it needed?
- Explain Kubernetes architecture and control plane components.
- Why use Kubernetes instead of deploying directly on EC2?
- How does Kubernetes handle crashed containers and scale applications?
- How would you troubleshoot pod failures?
8. Terraform and Ansible
- What are Terraform and Ansible, and how do they differ?
- How would you provision and configure a large number of EC2 instances?
- How would you automate infrastructure provisioning and configuration management?
- How would you manage infrastructure changes safely in production?
9. Scenario-Based Questions
- How would you troubleshoot a production outage?
- How would you investigate application performance issues?
- How would you minimize downtime during deployments?
- How would you handle infrastructure failures and ensure high availability?
- How would you automate repetitive operational tasks?

Round 4: Technical Interview with SRE Lead (Project & Linux Focus) 🛠️

Duration: Approximately 30 minutes.
Format: Similar to Round 3, with a strong focus on scenario-based questions and practical troubleshooting.
Key Focus: DevOps, AWS, and Linux, with heavy emphasis on Linux commands.
Questions Asked:
- Explain your final-year BE project.
- How are you integrating cloud technologies into your project?
- Which Linux commands are you familiar with?
- Which Linux command would you use to check disk usage?

Round 5: Technical + Behavioral Interview with Co-Founder (Decision-Making & Justification) 💡

Difficulty: This was the toughest round.
Format: Started with technical, scenario-based questions, then shifted to behavioral.
Key Focus: Testing technical knowledge, ability to justify decisions, critical thinking, communication, and approach to real-world scenarios. The interviewer often created conflict to challenge answers.
Interview Experience:
- The interviewer frequently asked follow-up questions like "Why would you do this?" and "Why would you choose this approach over another?"
- The discussion initially focused on technical concepts and decision-making.
- Later, behavioral questions were introduced to understand thought processes, communication style, and how one approaches different situations.

Difficulty, Topics, and Interview Focus 🎯

Difficulty Across Rounds: The interviews were difficult if you lacked knowledge in DevOps and Cloud. Even with knowledge, the scenario-based questions were challenging and required hands-on practical experience.
Most Asked Topics:
- DevOps, AWS, and Linux (especially commands and scenario-based troubleshooting).
- Docker, networking, CI/CD, Kubernetes, monitoring, and infrastructure automation (Terraform and Ansible).
What Interviewers Focused On:
- Practical problem-solving and technical fundamentals (DevOps, AWS, Linux commands).
- Scenario-based troubleshooting.
- BE project and cloud technology integration.
- Communication skills (GD round).
- Decision-making, reasoning, and behavioral skills (final round).
- Overall: Practical knowledge and the ability to justify technical decisions.

Coding and Project Discussion 🧑‍💻

Coding Question Patterns / Constraints / Expected Approach:
- The interview focused on DevOps, AWS, Linux, and scenario-based troubleshooting, not coding or DSA.
- No specific coding questions, input constraints, or algorithmic optimizations were discussed.
- Emphasis was on Linux commands, Dockerfile writing, Git workflows, CI/CD automation (GitHub Actions), and troubleshooting production issues.
Project Deep-Dive (architecture, trade-offs, scaling, debugging):
- Yes, the BE project was discussed, specifically how cloud technologies were integrated.
- The discussion covered implementation details and technology choices.
- Scenario-based questions related to AWS, DevOps, and production troubleshooting tested the ability to explain technical decisions and handle real-world issues.

HR and Behavioral 🤝

HR/Behavioral Questions:
- The final round with the Co-Founder included behavioral questions on decision-making, handling uncertainty, personal safety, and social responsibility.
- Handling Failure/Uncertainty: For questions about not knowing if I'd clear a round, my approach was to learn from setbacks, identify gaps, continue improving, and focus on controllable aspects rather than worrying about outcomes.
Handling Tricky Moments:
- For the Co-Founder's challenging follow-up questions ("Why would you do this?" and "Why this approach over another?"), I focused on explaining my reasoning and thought process rather than just giving direct answers.

Final Outcome ✅

Verdict: Selected

Mistakes to Avoid 🚫

Juniors should avoid these common pitfalls:

Focusing only on theoretical definitions: Neglects practical, scenario-based questions.
Ignoring Linux commands and real-world troubleshooting: Critical for an SRE role.
Memorizing answers without understanding: Unable to explain why an approach is used.
Neglecting production deployment, monitoring, and CI/CD concepts: Essential SRE knowledge.
Inability to explain projects: Be ready to discuss your project's implementation and technology choices.
Giving answers without reasoning: Always justify your technical decisions.
Panicking under pressure: Stay calm when faced with unexpected technical or behavioral questions.
Over-focusing on interview results: Continue preparing for other opportunities regardless of the outcome.
Most importantly: Focus on understanding concepts, practicing real-world scenarios, and clearly explaining your thought process.

Preparation Strategy 📚

What Helped Most (resources/mocks/plan):
- DSA: Striver's A2Z DSA Sheet and Aditya Verma's tutorials (
  code
```
1takeuforward.org
```
  ,
  code
```
1youtube.com
```
  ).
- System Design: Hello Interview (
  code
```
1hellointerview.com
```
  ).
- Core CS Subjects: GeeksforGeeks for OOP, DBMS, OS, and Computer Networks (
  code
```
1geeksforgeeks.org
```
  ).
- DevOps and SRE: Practiced Linux commands, AWS fundamentals, Docker, networking, CI/CD, Kubernetes, and scenario-based troubleshooting.
Most Helpful Strategy: Focus on fundamentals and practice explaining how to handle real-world production issues. Linux commands and scenario-based questions deserve particular attention for an SRE role.