The Digital Detective: Finding CPU Hogs with the PowerShell Pipeline Junior/Mid Engineer Asked at: Microsoft, Azure, Enterprises Q: How do you find the top 5 CPU consuming processes in PowerShell? Why this matters: This is the first question a system paramedic asks a sick server. A server with high ...
The PowerShell Sieve: How to Filter Objects, Not Just Text Junior/Mid Engineer Asked at: Microsoft, Azure, Enterprises Q: How do you list all running services in PowerShell? Why this matters: This is a philosophical question disguised as a technical one. The answer immediately reveals whether you un...
The Exit Code Doctrine: Writing Bash Scripts That Don't Lie Junior/Mid Engineer Asked at: FAANG, Startups, Cloud Providers Q: Write a Bash script that pings google.com 5 times and prints "Network is Up" if successful, else "Network is Down". Why this matters: This is the "hello, world" of reliable a...
The Marksman's Method: Killing Processes Without Causing Collateral Damage Mid/Senior Engineer Asked at: FAANG, Unicorns, Startups Q: Kill all processes named "python". Why this matters: This is a test of judgment disguised as a syntax question. On any non-trivial server, multiple processes share th...
The Digital Time Capsule: Archiving Logs with Purpose Junior/Mid Engineer Asked at: Every company that uses Linux. Q: Create a tarball of /var/log and compress it. Why this matters: This is the digital equivalent of "pack this box." It's a fundamental task for system administration. The answer revea...