The process begins with a phone screening interview conducted by two senior or staff-level engineers.

Questions will primarily focus on Apache, Tomcat, Unix, and AWS (if mentioned on the resume). Scripting experience, preferably in Shell or Python, and monitoring tools are also key areas.

They may also ask about best and worst-case scenarios you've encountered and how you handled them. The goal here is to assess your learning curve, looking for evidence of continuous learning and personal initiatives.

Based on your performance in the screening, you'll be invited for an all-day in-person (f2f) round. This round typically consists of 2-4 sessions, each lasting 45-60 minutes.

This f2f round is generally the final deciding factor. However, if the interviewers are not fully convinced but are not ready to dismiss a candidate, they may schedule an additional f2f round.

1. Describe the Unix boot sequence, with scenario-based questions for debugging. This can be in-depth and will involve good Unix knowledge, so be prepared on Unix internals.

2. Python/Shell scripting. Over the phone, you may be asked for your approach. In an actual face-to-face round, you will be asked to code in real-time on a whiteboard or with pen and paper.

3. AWS-related questions on various services, except for EC2 etc., which are common ones.

4. Java core knowledge: thread dump and heap dump analysis, and clear knowledge of analyzing stack traces for debugging/troubleshooting server issues.

5. Scenario-based questions on how you would work through a production issue.

6. Clear understanding of DNS, HTTP, API calls, and basic networking concepts.

7. Have clear monitoring understanding of new tools like New Relic, PagerDuty, Nagios, SiteScope, etc.

8. If you have Chef/Puppet experience, you will be assessed on these as well.