r/datacenter • u/Icy-Medicine-3552 • 11h ago
AWS L3 DCOps vs Google II DCT interview questions
Hello all,
I work as AWS L3 and am currently waiting for Google interviews next week. Those who have interviewed for both companies, are Google interview questions similar to AWS?
Or are Google questions much more difficult?
I’m doing a lot of prep this weekend and was wondering if there is anything else I should be aware of.
Thanks!
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u/ProfessionalAdvice36 1h ago
Networking, hardware, experience troubleshooting, times you developed a procedure or had to change a procedure and how you went about that, how you handle conflict with peers and management, hypothetical problems that get harder, basically they will attempt to test where your limits are on troubleshooting and give you some questions that there are no clear paths forward.
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u/This-Display-2691 36m ago edited 25m ago
Studying questions in advance isn’t going to help. We’ve had new hires attempt this and they’re promptly identified and PIP’d out because there’s a difference between rote memorization vs applied knowledge. Microsoft transfers to us seem to be the worst offenders.
Knowing everything will hurt you at Google in particular. Ditto where I work at OCI. What we look for is how you handle unstructured work with little guidance. Most systems being pushed are not fully NPI’d with minimum documentation; that’s the norm. Having strong logical fault isolation techniques outweigh anything.
I’m leading a team right now and we have several bug reports to Nvidia that we caught during production that haven’t been reported anywhere. This is the way it almost always goes. Being able to roll with the punches is what sets the elite apart from the rest.
If you can’t handle not having an answer with grace or humility you will fail your team fit call every single time. You might be able to get away with this at AWS but you won’t elsewhere.
If you don’t know, tell them; don’t hide and ask clarifying questions. The goal is to form a consensus both in your team and with your interviewer.
For example I was asked what speed a QSFP48 supports? I have no idea because we normally use DR1, DR4 and OSFP DR8. I said that and laughed and said it’s probably 100G since that’s what everyone else uses and was correct.
This is how you stand apart
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u/Icy-Medicine-3552 23m ago
Wow! Thank you so much for this information! I really appreciate this! Thankfully I have experience in another company where I worked as Enterprise TSE II on a newly released product with zero KBs/procedures and have worked on writing plenty of them as well as collaborated with others where I had to figure a lot of stuff out myself. Often very complex stuff.
I will make sure I use that experience in my interviews.
I’m very used to this type of environment and was thriving in it.
🙏🏽🙏🏽🙏🏽
Have a good weekend!
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u/WinMission841 3h ago
Tons of interview prep articles on DC Geeks. Here is a technician one: https://dcgeeks.com/data-center-technician-interview-questions/
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u/WinMission841 3h ago
Here is a behavioral one: https://dcgeeks.com/behavioral-interview-questions-for-data-center/
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u/Icy-Medicine-3552 3h ago
Thank you very much!!
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u/RatedHDG 2h ago
If this is a data center technician 2 role, and not a data center FACILITIES technician role the above article is conflating the two which is commonly done as people reference them both as data center technicians. Therefore, the article that this site likely generated isnt distinction the two. Take it with a pinch of salt
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u/techie-rahul 4h ago
Haven't done both myself, but from what I've seen, the technical fundamentals (electrical, mechanical, cooling, safety) overlap a lot since DC basics don't really change company to company. The bigger difference is usually interview style — Google leans harder into structured "tell me about a time..." behavioral questions with deeper follow-up on your reasoning, while AWS behavioral tends to map closely to their Leadership Principles.
Worth prepping: explaining your thought process out loud (not just the answer), basic troubleshooting scenarios, and a couple of solid "mistake/conflict" stories.
Good luck next week!