Chandramouli Gopalakrishnan, Ph.D’s Post

Stop Asking "How Technical Are You?" in PM Interviews It's a common question, but it's not the right one. PMs don’t need to code, but they do need to understand systems and how technical decisions impact product outcomes. Instead of vague questions about technicality, ask candidates about their ability to navigate real-world scenarios that matter for the role: - Can they map out data flow in a microservices architecture? - Do they know why a database migration might break production? - Can they identify how an inefficient query could impact performance? These questions give a clearer picture of whether a PM can translate technical challenges into product decisions. Hiring managers need to prioritize understanding over raw technical skill because a great PM bridges vision and execution. If you want to find a product manager who can lead effectively, focus on the “how” and “why” of technical decisions.

🚀 The Importance of System Design for DevOps & SRE Engineers As DevOps and SRE professionals, we often find ourselves focused on automation, CI/CD pipelines, infrastructure-as-code, and observability. However, one of the most crucial skills that can amplify our impact in any technical organization is system design. System design is not just for architects or software engineers. Understanding the principles behind scalable, resilient, and highly available systems is a game-changer. It enables us to make informed decisions that support reliability and performance across the entire lifecycle of our applications. Whether it’s about optimizing for fault tolerance, managing latency, or ensuring consistent deployments, knowing why and how things work is key to building better systems. For anyone looking to brush up on the basics, here’s a great introductory video I recommend checking out: System Design Concepts Course and Interview Prep. It’s an accessible review, and for those who want to dive deeper, there are plenty more resources and advanced sessions out there to explore. Let’s prioritize expanding our skills beyond tooling—system design might just be the next leap in our DevOps/SRE journey. 🚀 #DevOps #SRE #SystemDesign #TechSkills #ContinuousLearning

“Teach me something.” This is the single most impactful interview question I’ve been asked, and that I now use in every interview. (Almost) Every technical founder tells me that their AE’s aren’t able to consistently connect with the customer like they can. Here’s what they say about their approach: “When I’m in a room with senior engineering leaders, I can quickly diagnose what’s wrong with their incident management approach and guide them through solutions” ”When I hop on the phone with a CTO I know how to help them eliminate the growing DevOps tax that comes into the team as they hire more engineers.” “Data leaders want to talk to me about commercialization - they have an ah ha moment when they realize they aren’t harnessing data as quickly as their competitors.” Often they share their AE’s don’t seem to “get it” - but can’t necessarily point to why. The gap I see is teaching vs selling. Prospective buyers want to *learn* meaningful things about the industry from people who are well informed. Therefore, the highest value skillset we can build is *teaching.* Arming our reps with meaningful industry and technical insights to share is our responsibility. And when we build a team that shows an authentic desire and ability to bring folks along on the learning journey, we set ourselves up for tremendous success. Fun Fact: This is the question Bi Le asked me when applying for my role at Twilio in 2014. I taught him how to make a Grilled Cheese. It was methodical, it had diagrams, it used Mayo instead of Butter. It’s an unconventional question that allows candidates to show you who they really are - and you to raise the bar for your company’s ability to educate the world about something new.

13 Advanced Kubernetes Interview Questions for 2024

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Shipped another video… perfectionism saves time. By embracing iterations, we ended up with multiple, repurposable content pieces. Perfectionism is only a problem when it paralyzes your output. Set clear goals and embrace multiple rounds. Here’s what helped us iterate faster and more effectively: Storyboard & Low-Fidelity Timeline — Establishing a narrative foundation with rough frames clarified asset needs and gave the story direction. Medium Fidelity — This is where the video took shape. With a locked story, we added filler frames and assets to build flow. Mapping transitions here saved time and minimized rework, taking us eight iterations to progress. High Fidelity + Final Polish — Once the medium-fidelity timeline was strong, we finalized pacing, keyframes, and sound. Laying this groundwork early made polishing efficient. Outcome? A polished video and content ready for future reuse.

🚀📚 Technical Interview Tomorrow! Seeking Advice 📚🚀 I have a technical interview tomorrow for the role of Associate Application Solutions Engineer. Looking for advice on how to best prepare for questions related to REST APIs. Any tips or resources would be greatly appreciated! #TechInterview #Preparation

💻 Ace the Technical Interview Most IT jobs involve multiple rounds of technical assessments. Prepare for: Coding Challenges: Practice on platforms like LeetCode, HackerRank, and CodeSignal to brush up on algorithms and data structures. System Design: Be ready to discuss large-scale system architecture, especially for senior roles. Behavioral Interviews: Use the STAR method (Situation, Task, Action, Result) to answer questions assessing problem-solving and teamwork skills. 🔧 Must-Do: Schedule mock interviews to refine your communication and technical explanation skills.

Another interview question I get a lot is, "You are in the middle of the sprint and your customer has an emergency need, what do you do?" This is a very interesting question, because the "right" answer assumes you have a CI/CD pipeline. (Deliver working software frequently...) Which sadly, many companies do not. So, if the company interviewing me has one, then the answer is easy: Stop the sprint to switch to something that has higher business value (We welcome changing requirements, even late in development.) But if there is no CI/CD pipeline, this becomes a more interesting question. How do we get quality code integrated and out the door out of band? (And maybe more interestingly, if we can do it once, can we make that our practice?) Or, are we stuck on a delivery cadence of every 6 months? In which case this question is entire hypothetical, and we continue on the present sprint, and this "emergency" need just goes to the top of the backlog.