Site Reliability Engineer (SRE) Interview Preparation Guide

This repository is an attempt to consolidate useful resources for Site Reliability Engineer (SRE) interview preparation.

Basics

• What happens when you type google.com into your browser's address box and press enter?
• What happens when you type in ‘www.cnn.com’ in your browser?

Linux

Boot Process

• An introduction to the Linux boot and startup processes
• What happens when we turn on computer?
• What happens when we turn on computer?
• From Power up to login prompt

Filesystem

• Understanding Inodes
• Understand UNIX / Linux Inodes Basics with Examples
• Understanding proc filesystem
• Common Mount Options
• Understanding Linux filesystems: ext4 and beyond

Kernel

• Explain the basics of Linux kernel
• Kernel Space and User Space
• Linux Kernel Process Management
• Linux Addressing
• Linux Kernel Memory Management
• STACK AND HEAP
• Paging and Segmentation
• Linux Kernel System Calls
• The Virtual Filesystem
• Concurrency and Race Conditions
• Memory Leak
• What is a kernel Panic?

Troubleshooting

• Linux troubleshooting tools
• Linux Performance Analysis in 60,000 Milliseconds

Networking

• Network protocols for anyone who knows a programming language
• Introduction to Linux interfaces for virtual networking
• Multi-tier load-balancing with Linux
• Introduction to modern network load balancing and proxying
• Load Balancing Algorithms

Containers

• Introduction to Docker and Containers
• Deploying and Scaling Microservices with Docker and Kubernetes
• Containers Patterns
• Kubernetes Production Patterns
• Docker Container Anti Patterns

Infrastructure as code / Configuration management

• Terraform
• Ansible

CI/CD

• Pattern and anti-pattern CI/CD

Programming

Go (Golang)

• A tour of Go
• Go by Example
• Getting up and running with Go
• Effective Go
• Go Design Patterns
• Go Memory Management

Big O Notation, Algorithms and Data Structures

• AlgoExperts
• Hacking a Google Interview – Handout 1
• Hacking a Google Interview – Handout 2
• Hacking a Google Interview – Handout 3

System design

• The most useful course: Grokking the System Design Interview
• The System Design Primer
• Crack the System Design Interview
• System design interview for IT companies
• Web Architecture 101
• What's in a Production Web Application?

Monitoring

• SLOs & You: A Guide To Service Level Objectives

Processes

• Incident Response
• Postmortems

Interview

SRE interview process

• How to hire talent

Interview Questions

• A collection of questions to practice with for SRE interviews
• SRE Interview Questions
• Sysadmin Test Questions

Blogposts

• SRE Interviews in Silicon Valley
• Preparing the SRE interview

Books

SRE books

• Site Reliability Engineering
• The Site Reliability Workbook
• Seeking SRE

Linux

• Linux Kernel Development (3rd Edition)
• UNIX and Linux System Administration Handbook (5th Edition)
• Linux Pocket Guide, 3rd Edition

Networking

• TCP/IP Illustrated, Volume 1

Courses

• Site Reliability Engineering: Measuring and Managing Reliability