This post provides detailed information on what the AWS interview process entails, with practice questions and answers to help you to effectively prepare for the interview.
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The AWS interview process is backbreaking but consistent. This makes it easy for you to prepare for what’s to come.
It also drastically reduces the chances of you being surprised at the interview.
You must know that all this doesn’t mean the interview is in any way easy, it just gives you an inkling of what to expect.
This process can last for months sometimes.
Expect that a large number of the questions would be based on your technical skills and your experience with the AWS platform.
The Aws Hiring Process
This is a breakdown of what the AWS interview process entails.
- Online Assessment
The assessment comes after you have been shortlisted. The usual time given for completion is two hours.
This stage is wholly to test your skill. You would be faced with quantitative and logical reasoning, coding questions, technical questions on OS, Java, big data, data science, networking and other related topics.
- Screening Call
This call which lasts for about 45 minutes to an hour, would involve the interviewer asking career-related questions.
The questions are not limited to your current job alone, they would ask questions about your first job and how you’ve progressed in your career.
The focus would be on your technical skills. Use the STAR method to answer the questions asked.
This stage is usually conversational and casual.
- Interview with the Hiring Manager
This stage can be in person or over the phone. It usually is one of the “easy” stages of the interview because the hiring manager is going to be your manager if you get the job and they need to make a hire.
So, they are nice and welcoming. This doesn’t mean they ask easier questions, though. For this stage, arm yourself with questions about the goal the hiring manager has.
Also, you would need to talk about your career and expertise in AWS and other related systems.
- The final interview
This stage of the interview is for them to see how well you fit into the Amazon culture. You might have to go through 2-9 interviewers during this stage, depending on the level of position you’re being interviewed for.
Some questions would be related to your role, others wouldn’t be. Also, you would get to be interviewed by the bar raiser who is an interviewer with more experience.
The bar raiser would usually be the roughest interviewer in this stage because of their vast experience.
Be prepared for long minutes of tasking conversation with the bar raiser.
Be fully armed with all things AWS and use the STAR method to answer questions.
20 AWS Interview Practice Questions And Answers
Here are questions and answers to practice with when going for an AWS interview:
1. What are the key components of AWS?
“The key components of AWS are:
- Route 53
- Simple email service
- Cloudwatch
- Simple storage device (S3)
- Elastic compute cloud (EC2)
- Elastic block store (ECB)
- Identify and access management “
- Simply explain vertical scaling.
“It is increasing the power (process) contained in a current machine”.
- How many buckets can be created in AWS by default?
“A total of 100”.
- What is one benefit that can be gotten from AWS?
“ secure clouds systems”.
- What are important skills for an AWS developer to have?
“An AWS developer should be skilled in
- Java
- Troubleshooting
- Python
- Computer networking skills
- AWS experience
- An adequate understanding of security features”.
- What is the last step when you’re scaling an Amazon instance?
” make notes of the ID number, put the root volume into the new worker and restart.”
- What are the types of instances?
“They are
● memory-optimized
● Computer-optimized
● Accelerated computing
● Storage optimized
● General-purpose. “ - The approach when an organization splits their workload between private servers and public cloud is called?
“The hybrid cloud approach”.
- What functionality lets you terminate unhealthy instances and replace them with new ones?
” Group auto-scaling”.
- Describe a time you used auto-scaling.
“The traffic on the site I was building usually increased from 11:30 to 1:30 on weekdays.
Auto-scaling availed me with the option to arrange the support to help more clients during top hours.
This brought about better help conveyance to all clients.”
- Differentiate between spot instance and on-demand instances.
- What is the difference between open stack and AWS.
- Does Amazon VPC support the property of multicast?
- What’s the number of EC2 instances that can be used in a VPC?
- What differences stand out between Amazon EC2 and S3?
- What is an AMI and what does it include?
- Amazon S3 has how many storage classes available and what are they?
- In detail, what is the difference between AMI and an instance?
- What are the types of AMI provided by AWS?
- What is AWS Lambda?
10 Good Questions you can ask your Interviewer in an AWS Interview
Here are questions that you can ask your interviewer during your AWS interview:
- What specific tools will I be using on this job?
- What metrics would be used to measure my accomplishments and what is success defined as here?
- What are the opportunities for growth on the job?
- Do you have any questions about my expertise?
- What is a typical working day like in this role?
- What qualities do the most successful employees in this role have in common?
- What do you find most enjoyable about working in AWS?
- What is the biggest challenge AWS is facing right now?
- How does this role solve or handle this challenge(s)?
- Is there anything else I can provide you or questions I can answer that would be helpful?
Conclusion
The AWS interview process may seem daunting but adequate preparation would make the whole process easier.
Working on the practice questions and answers above may bring you one step closer to getting through the interview, as daunting as it may seem.