Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) is a highly sought-after field that combines software engineering and IT operations to build reliable and scalable systems. If you’re preparing for an SRE role, here are the top 22 interview questions you should know, along with tips on how to answer them effectively.
What is Site Reliability Engineering (SRE)?
Answer: SRE is a discipline that applies software engineering principles to IT operations. It focuses on improving system reliability, scalability, and performance through automation and proactive monitoring.
Tip: Emphasize the balance between development and operations and the importance of achieving service-level objectives (SLOs).
Technical Questions
Explain the concept of SLO, SLA, and SLI
- SLO (Service Level Objective): A target level of reliability a service aims to achieve.
- SLA (Service Level Agreement): A formal agreement with users outlining the service’s reliability expectations.
- SLI (Service Level Indicator): A measurable metric (e.g., uptime, latency) to track performance.
- What is a blameless postmortem, and why is it important?
A blameless postmortem is a retrospective analysis of an incident that focuses on learning and preventing future issues without assigning blame. It fosters trust and encourages honest discussions about failures. - Describe the importance of monitoring in SRE.
Monitoring ensures the health of systems by collecting metrics, generating alerts, and identifying issues in real-time. Tools like Prometheus, Grafana, and Datadog are widely used in SRE. - What is the difference between proactive and reactive monitoring?
Proactive monitoring aims to predict and prevent issues before they occur. Reactive monitoring identifies and addresses issues after they arise.
Behavioral Questions
How do you prioritize tasks when multiple systems face issues?
I prioritize based on the impact on business-critical services, user experience, and SLAs.
Describe a time when you automated a manual process. (Provide a specific example, such as writing a script to automate log analysis or deployment tasks.)
How do you ensure effective collaboration with development teams?
Regular communication, shared objectives, and using tools like Jira or Confluence to track progress ensure alignment between SRE and development teams.
Read More : SRE (Site Reliability Engineer) Interview Questions & Answers
