Entrevista Tècnic de Sistemes
Interviewer
Good morning. Please, have a seat. My name is Laura Evans, I’m the IT Operations Manager here. Thank you for coming in today. To kick things off, could you walk me through your background as a systems technician?
Candidate
Good morning, Laura. Thanks for having me. I’ve been working in systems administration for about four years now. Most recently, I was at a mid-sized logistics company where I was solely responsible for maintaining a hybrid environment — around eighty on-premises Windows Server machines alongside a growing Azure footprint. Day-to-day I handled everything from Active Directory management and Group Policy configuration to patch cycles and incident escalation. It was a fast-paced role, so I had to be pretty hands-on and proactive about preventing issues before they snowballed.
Interviewer
You mentioned patch cycles — that’s often a pain point for teams. Can you tell me about a specific situation where a patch caused problems and how you handled it?
Candidate
Absolutely. We had an incident last year where a cumulative Windows update broke compatibility with our warehouse management software. The vendor hadn’t flagged it in advance, so we only found out once the WMS started throwing errors on twelve terminals. My immediate response was to isolate the affected machines, roll back the update using DISM, and open a priority ticket with both Microsoft and the vendor. In parallel, I documented a temporary workaround so the warehouse team could keep operating. The whole thing was resolved within six hours. After that, I pushed for a more robust testing policy — we introduced a pilot group of three machines that receive updates one week ahead of the rest of the fleet, which has saved us a couple of headaches since.
Interviewer
That’s a solid approach. What drove you to implement the pilot group specifically, rather than, say, a staging environment?
Candidate
Honestly, budget and time constraints. A full staging environment would have been the ideal solution, but getting approval for additional hardware wasn’t realistic at the time. The pilot group was a pragmatic middle ground — low cost, minimal effort to set up, and it still gives you real-world signal on production hardware. It’s not bulletproof, but it raised our confidence level significantly. I always try to find the best solution within the constraints I actually have, rather than holding out for the perfect one.
Interviewer
I appreciate that mindset. Let’s talk about backups and disaster recovery. What’s your experience there?
Candidate
Backup strategy is something I feel quite strongly about. At my last job I inherited a setup that was frankly a liability — full backups every weekend, no incremental runs, and nobody had tested a restore in over a year. I redesigned the entire policy: daily incrementals, weekly fulls, and monthly restore tests documented with timestamps and checksums. I implemented Veeam for the on-prem servers and configured Azure Backup for critical data. The restore tests were non-negotiable for me — a backup you haven’t tested is just a hope, not a plan. I actually caught a corrupt backup set during one of those tests, which would have been catastrophic if we’d discovered it during an actual disaster.
Interviewer
Very thorough. Last question — where do you see yourself growing technically over the next couple of years?
Candidate
I’m very focused on deepening my cloud skills, particularly around Azure infrastructure automation with Bicep and PowerShell DSC. I’ve been working through the AZ-104 certification and I plan to sit the exam next quarter. Beyond that, I’m genuinely interested in moving towards a DevOps-adjacent role — bridging the gap between traditional sysadmin work and CI/CD pipelines. I think that’s where the field is heading and I want to stay ahead of the curve rather than play catch-up.
Interviewer
That’s great to hear. Thank you very much for your time today — we’ll be in touch shortly. It was a pleasure speaking with you.
Candidate
Likewise, Laura. Thank you for the opportunity. I look forward to hearing from you.
Entrevista Tècnic de Xarxes
Interviewer
Good afternoon. Come on in. I’m David Chen, Head of Network Infrastructure. Thanks for making the trip. Let’s get right into it — can you give me a brief overview of your experience in networking?
Candidate
Good afternoon, David. Of course. I’ve spent the last three years working as a network technician at a regional healthcare provider — quite a demanding environment given the uptime requirements and the sensitivity of the data involved. My responsibilities covered the full stack: configuring and maintaining Cisco switches and routers, managing VLANs, overseeing the site-to-site VPN infrastructure between our four locations, and responding to network incidents. I also played a big part in a campus network refresh we completed last year, where we migrated from legacy Cat5e to a fully redundant Cat6A backbone.
Interviewer
Healthcare networking has very strict requirements. How did you approach network segmentation to comply with those standards?
Candidate
Segmentation was absolutely central to our architecture. We used VLANs extensively to isolate clinical devices — patient monitors, imaging equipment — from the general corporate LAN and from guest Wi-Fi. Inter-VLAN routing was tightly controlled through ACLs on the core layer switches, and we applied 802.1X port-based authentication to prevent unauthorised devices from connecting. Any device on the clinical VLAN had to be explicitly approved and registered in our NAC solution. It was a layered approach: no single control was enough on its own, but together they gave us a very solid security posture that passed our annual compliance audits without major findings.
Interviewer
You mentioned the campus refresh. What was the biggest technical challenge you encountered during that project?
Candidate
The biggest challenge was maintaining continuity of service during the migration. We couldn’t afford extended downtime in a healthcare setting — some systems are genuinely life-critical. Our solution was a phased approach: we migrated one wing of the building at a time during overnight windows, pre-configuring the new switches with all the VLANs and port settings before the cutover so the actual switchover took under ten minutes per closet. We also kept the old switches running in parallel for the first 48 hours as a fallback, just in case. Coordination with the clinical teams was essential — I had to build a lot of trust with people who weren’t particularly technical but whose buy-in we absolutely needed.
Troubleshooting scenario
Interviewer
Walk me through how you’d diagnose a sudden drop in performance across a subnet.
Candidate
I’d start at the physical layer and work up. First, check port utilisation on the upstream switch and look for any interface errors — CRC errors, input drops, or late collisions can point to a duplex mismatch or a degraded cable. Then I’d look at CPU and memory on the affected switch itself. If the hardware looks clean, I’d move to the traffic layer — capture a span on the affected segment with Wireshark to see if there’s a broadcast storm, a misbehaving device flooding the network, or unusual traffic patterns. I’d also check whether the issue is time-correlated with a specific event, like a scheduled backup or a new device that came online. The goal is to narrow it down methodically rather than jump to conclusions and start making changes that could make things worse.
Interviewer
Good systematic approach. Final question — are you familiar with SD-WAN? It’s something we’re evaluating.
Candidate
Yes, I’ve been following the SD-WAN space quite closely. I haven’t deployed one in production yet, but I’ve done hands-on lab work with Cisco Viptela and I’ve gone through the Meraki SD-WAN documentation in depth as part of my self-study. My understanding is that the main value proposition is centralised policy management and the ability to intelligently route traffic across multiple WAN links — MPLS, broadband, LTE — based on application requirements and real-time path conditions. For a multi-site organisation, the operational simplification can be significant. I’d be very keen to get involved in your evaluation process — it’s exactly the kind of project I’d want to sink my teeth into.
Interviewer
Good answer. Thank you, it’s been a very informative conversation. We’ll follow up with you within the week.
Candidate
Thank you, David. I really enjoyed the conversation. I look forward to it.
Suport HelpDesk
Interviewer
Good morning. I’m Rachel Moore, IT Support Team Lead. Really glad you could join us today. To get started, can you tell me a bit about your experience in helpdesk or end-user support?
Candidate
Good morning, Rachel. Thanks for having me. I’ve been working in first and second-line support for just over two years. My most recent role was at a financial services firm with about 300 users spread across three offices. I handled everything that came through our ticketing system — hardware issues, software troubleshooting, account provisioning, VPN connectivity, and the inevitable printer problems. We were a small team, so I had to be comfortable switching contexts quickly and managing my own ticket queue without much hand-holding. On a busy day I’d resolve somewhere between fifteen and twenty tickets.
Interviewer
Financial services users can be pretty demanding. How did you handle situations where a user was frustrated or impatient?
Candidate
That came up fairly often, especially with senior staff who felt their time was very valuable. My approach was always to acknowledge the impact first before diving into troubleshooting. Something like: «I can see this is holding you up — let’s get this sorted as quickly as possible.» It sounds simple, but it genuinely de-escalates the situation because the user feels heard. After that, I’d keep them informed at each step so they never felt left in the dark. I found that most frustration comes not from the problem itself but from uncertainty about when it’ll be fixed. Being transparent about timelines, even when it meant saying «I need to escalate this to second line and you should hear back within two hours,» was usually enough to keep people on side.
Interviewer
Can you give me a concrete example of a tricky ticket you resolved that you’re proud of?
Candidate
One that stands out — a trader came to me saying his Bloomberg terminal was behaving erratically: random freezes, data not refreshing. The obvious move would have been to reimage the machine, but that would have taken hours and disrupted his work significantly. I started digging and noticed the freezes correlated with network activity. Checking the NIC driver, I found it was several versions out of date — not critical-looking on the surface, but Bloomberg is very network-intensive. I updated the driver, adjusted the power management settings to prevent the adapter from going into sleep mode, and the issue disappeared. Total time: about forty minutes. He was genuinely impressed because he’d been dealing with it for weeks and assumed it was a hardware fault. For me, the takeaway was: don’t jump to the nuclear option before you’ve ruled out the simpler ones.
Interviewer
Good diagnostic thinking. What tools and systems are you most comfortable with?
Candidate
On the ticketing side, I’ve used Jira Service Management and ServiceNow extensively. For remote support, TeamViewer and RDP day-to-day. I’m very comfortable in both Windows 10/11 and macOS environments, and I have solid experience with Microsoft 365 — user and licence management in the admin portal, Exchange Online, Teams troubleshooting, SharePoint permissions. I’ve also done quite a bit of work with Intune for device enrolment and policy deployment, which is increasingly important now that hybrid work is the norm. On the scripting side, I’ve written PowerShell scripts to automate repetitive tasks — password resets, bulk licence assignments — which freed up a meaningful amount of time for the team.
Interviewer
That’s very well-rounded. Where would you like to develop professionally from a helpdesk position?
Candidate
My medium-term goal is to move into a second or third-line systems role. I want to build on the broad exposure I’ve gained in helpdesk and develop deeper expertise in infrastructure — specifically around endpoint management, identity, and security. I’m currently studying for the CompTIA Security+ certification, and I see that as a stepping stone. I genuinely enjoy solving complex problems, and I’ve found that the best sysadmins I’ve worked with all started in support — it gives you a real appreciation for the user impact of every decision you make in infrastructure. I’d love for this role to be the launchpad for that progression.
Interviewer
That’s exactly the kind of ambition we look for. Thank you for your time today — it’s been a pleasure. We’ll be in touch very soon.
Candidate
Thank you, Rachel. I’ve really enjoyed learning more about the team. I hope to speak again soon.
