Site Reliability Engineer Interview Experience - Zürich, Switzerland
October 1, 2020
Positive ExperienceGot Offer
Process
Recruiter screen with a list of canned questions, followed by a phone screen with an engineer.
Five onsite interviews with engineers (in one day).
Onsite topics:
- Shell scripting
- Networking
- System internals
- Coding (C)
- Troubleshooting
One follow-up on NALSD (Non-Abstract Large System Design) because they forgot it at the on-site.
Got an offer approximately two weeks after the last interview.
Questions
shell scripting: Run a script on every last Friday of the month using a combination of bash and cron.
networking: TCP/IP, fragment reassembly, error handling, tunneling.
system internals: Filesystem, block cache, file handles, inodes, etc.
Troubleshooting: Debug a slow web server, using any tool available.
NALSD: Design a chat system for 10 million users.
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Interview Statistics
The following metrics were computed from 3 interview experiences for the Google Site Reliability Engineer role in Zürich, Zurich.
Success Rate
33%
Pass Rate
Google's interview process for their Site Reliability Engineer roles in Zürich, Zurich is fairly selective, failing a large portion of engineers who go through it.
Experience Rating
Positive100%
Neutral0%
Negative0%
Candidates reported having very good feelings for Google's Site Reliability Engineer interview process in Zürich, Zurich.
Google Work Experiences
4.0
Great work-life balance
Site Reliability Engineer • Current Employee
April 1, 2022
Pros: Great perks and awesome work-life balance.
Cons: Salaries are getting less and less competitive in spite of revenue growth.
5.0
Lots of interesting problems and chances to grow if you work at it
Site Reliability Engineer • Current Employee
Mountain View, California, United States
June 17, 2008
Pros: You get to work on some of the biggest clusters in the world on some very hard and interesting problems.
The people are generally above average, and you always have to work to make sure you're doing better.
For the most part, it's a very strong meritocracy.
Cons: You might not get assigned to the groups doing the really cool things.
It must be very frustrating to want to do, e.g., large-scale graph algorithms (think maps) and be stuck doing HR programming or JavaScript.
Though, after 18 months, you can move to any team you want if they need engineers (and you're performing).
The infrastructure is getting complex enough that there is a huge ramp-up time.
While that means that it takes a while to launch a project for the first time, if you know what you're doing, you can launch a very scalable project quickly.
5.0
Great place to work, unless you have children
Site Reliability Engineer • Current Employee
Dublin, Dublin, Ireland
June 11, 2008
Pros: If you are an engineer, it's wonderful.
The place is built by engineers, for engineers.
The company's rules, structure, and processes usually make sense, and when they don't, anyone can fix them if they can get enough people to reach a consensus.
Promotions sometimes seem very difficult, but are well-earned and very fair.
Cons: They don't suffer fools. If you move into an area that is not your strength, you can be penalized. A move from engineering to project management might take someone six months to get up to speed. In that time, they may be given only "adequate" performance reviews. All companies have 'dull jobs' that are hard to automate. Google only hires the 'best and brightest', which means some people can be really bored.
- 4.0Great work-life balanceSite Reliability Engineer • Current EmployeeApril 1, 2022Pros: Great perks and awesome work-life balance.Cons: Salaries are getting less and less competitive in spite of revenue growth.
- 5.0Lots of interesting problems and chances to grow if you work at itSite Reliability Engineer • Current EmployeeMountain View, California, United StatesJune 17, 2008Pros: You get to work on some of the biggest clusters in the world on some very hard and interesting problems. The people are generally above average, and you always have to work to make sure you're doing better. For the most part, it's a very strong meritocracy.Cons: You might not get assigned to the groups doing the really cool things. It must be very frustrating to want to do, e.g., large-scale graph algorithms (think maps) and be stuck doing HR programming or JavaScript. Though, after 18 months, you can move to any team you want if they need engineers (and you're performing). The infrastructure is getting complex enough that there is a huge ramp-up time. While that means that it takes a while to launch a project for the first time, if you know what you're doing, you can launch a very scalable project quickly.
- 5.0Great place to work, unless you have childrenSite Reliability Engineer • Current EmployeeDublin, Dublin, IrelandJune 11, 2008Pros: If you are an engineer, it's wonderful. The place is built by engineers, for engineers. The company's rules, structure, and processes usually make sense, and when they don't, anyone can fix them if they can get enough people to reach a consensus. Promotions sometimes seem very difficult, but are well-earned and very fair.Cons: They don't suffer fools. If you move into an area that is not your strength, you can be penalized. A move from engineering to project management might take someone six months to get up to speed. In that time, they may be given only "adequate" performance reviews. All companies have 'dull jobs' that are hard to automate. Google only hires the 'best and brightest', which means some people can be really bored.
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