Went through an awesome interview today!

Dont you love it when you've been through an interview when the conversations are intelligent and engaging?! Well I had an amazing one today, it was quite unnerving to start with - I'll be honest about it. My interviewers were the following

- One current VCDX
- 2 aspiring VCDX's, both having been accepted to defend but unable to make it past the defence the first time.
- Their manager, a gun Windows guy

When I first saw them, I was like.. Damn, this is going to tough as.. I recognised them and so did they. They ensured I was comfortable, offered me a glass of water, which I accepted. They talked about the weather and sports for 5 or so minutes to ensure I was at ease. I was gradually eased into the interview, really. I was asked a "tell us about yourself" type question and from then on it became technical. They were impressed with my certs too, asked me about my lab. I took a detailed Visio diagram of my current and past lab setup and showed it to them, with a stroke of luck I had taken 5 copies of each diagram and was able to give them one each.

From there, it went on to open-ended questions. One was - what's VMware HA and how is it different from stateful things like MSCS. 2nd question was about resource pools and their use as folders. Then I was asked about how I would go about troubleshooting performance problems. Next up was a long discussion about how they would design a new environment they were looking for someone to build. I talked at length about cluster/host/storage/VM/security design, blew their socks off really - they appreciated the detailed and comprehensive response. Then came up questions about SRM design, how they wanted to go from SRM 3.something to 5.5. I was able to talk SRM too having done a DR test at my work - told them about separating applications into their own datastores, the need for replication and folders. Finally, we talked about NUMA nodes/boundaries and how vCPU's and pCPU's work and how over-allocation had a detrimental impact. Lastly, I was asked about Storage DRS and auto-tiering.

Loved the format of the interview. It was more discussion-oriented than them asking a set of questions. I reckon this is a great way to judge a candidate's depth and breadth of knowledge. You dont want to ask a candidate trivia questions, you know things like - what's the max number of VM's supported per 5.5 host. Chances are the candidate wont know. Such things are easily looked up, this is what the config maximum's documents are for, right?

I thanked them for their time and the opportunity to meet with a group of highly skilled people. I made sure I wasnt kissing a.. too, you never want to come across as doing that. Now the wait to hear the decision..!! And thanks for reading!

EDIT: I used the whiteboard too to further articulate my ideas and show I was not afraid to stand up and speak.

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Comments

Essendon

Thanks gents! As much as I have said it in the past, but TE and its members are half the reason where I currently am at in my career!

You guys are beyond awesome with the knowledge, inspiration and motivation you constantly provide.

Deathmage

Essendon wrote: »

Thanks gents! As much as I have said it in the past, but TE and its members are half the reason where I currently am at in my career!

You guys are beyond awesome with the knowledge, inspiration and motivation you constantly provide.

I concur. One year on here has made me do IT differently and made me realize my potential.

tomtom1

Essendon wrote: »

@cyberguypr – No need to give them a ring! I GOT IT!!

I got the verbal offer from the recruiter just before I met up with the awesome UnixGuy for a coffee this morning! The recruiter told me he had got the background check process started and a written offer would be sent after the check comes in. I told him firmly that I wasn’t turning my notice in till I had the offer in my email to which he agreed wholeheartedly. Some details:

- 6 month rolling contract upto a maximum of 18 months after which they either make me permanent or let me go.
- Very decent jump in pay which is kind of a given in contracts considering there’s no PTO/bennies
- The chance to work with and learn off some awesome folks (probably the biggest perk!)
- Some interesting projects (move them from vSphere 5 to 5.5, a new VDI implementation, migrate to new storage [unknown vendor], general performance improvements, upgrade SRM to 5.5, other bits and pieces)

Pretty much my dream job (for now, at least). I’ll be leaving a comfortable, decently paying permanent job that I could've stayed at forever. And stagnated! Big risk you may think, and I agree to some extent. But I needed something like this to push me to the next level. I had plateaued over the last 6-7 months and definitely needed a challenging gig. You gotta take a risk sometime, otherwise you’d never know how high you could've gone. "What if” never went to the arena!!

Congratulations man! Happy for you

Kinet1c

Congrats, sounds like an awesome opportunity. Best of luck with it!

dave330i

Congrats! Sounds like a great gig. I guess this means I'm not getting the referral bonus.

Essendon

Cheers guys! Thats right Dave, I didnt get a call from your employer..

JoJoCal19

Congrats on the new job! Have any room over there for American refugees?

kj0

dave330i wrote: »

Congrats! Sounds like a great gig. I guess this means I'm not getting the referral bonus.

I'll let you know when you will receive it next

Congrats again M. I expect once you've settled in to see that VCDX accelerate!

zxbane

Congrats and loving the Greg Plitt quote! (At least that is who I think it is with "what if never went to the arena")

anoeljr

Congratulations Essendon! You have a bright future ahead of you!

sasnimrod

Congratulations and all the best for your new job

MrAgent

Congrats Essendon!
Here's a suggestion for the storage piece

All Flash Storage Appliance :: ION Accelerator :: Fusion-io

lsud00d

MrAgent wrote: »

Congrats Essendon!
Here's a suggestion for the storage piece
All Flash Storage Appliance :: ION Accelerator :: Fusion-io

:: drools ::

Essendon

Thanks again all!

@zxbane - Dunno who said it, I read it somewhere. Great quote nevertheless!
@MrAgent - that's been bookmarked and will keep in mind.

Now gotta get back to prepping for the DTA!

jabney

congrats good luck in the new position

coffeeluvr

Congratulations!!! Sounds exciting!