Generic Flashcards
Why Amazon?
Leader in cloud computing, Scalability and handling big data is a very real everyday situation, fast pace, goal and metrics driven. I can provide unique integration expertise
Tell me about yourself.
I’m passionate, goal driven. Independent since I was 16, which fields my passion to help others. I do this at Open Dental, leading teams for majority of small business dentists relying on us to operate.
Do you collaborate well?
Yes. Went remote due to COVID.
I researched pitfalls related to this move (communication)
Added teams to slack
1 open ended message per day
This had large impact due to no quantifiable drop in performance since moving remote, whereas other teams have mentioned performance slowing down
Tell me about a time where you had to solve a difficult problem.
Large customer using atypical setup needed support.
Galera clusters for db replication & Multiple application servers with thin client connections over VPN
Problem: database was in what seemed to be an impossible state, according to the code, and was impossible to reproduce
Over several weeks of repeatedly calling in
Pattern figured out
Researched conversion scripts
An edge case regarding data from old database provider from other software
Solved issue
Tell me about a challenging client-facing situation and how you handled it.
Goldman reported severe slowness across all of his offices.
2 MySQL servers
4 application servers
Customer was upset due to severe slowness after an update
Investigated all changes from prior version
Reassured we would resolve this before ending the call
Wasn’t related to code changes
Investigated server performances
Dead MySQL server was causing time outs for about half of all connections
Rebooted MySQL server and customer was overjoyed.
Tell me about a team project you worked on.
Our sign up process for eServices SaaS products was support intensive.
My team lead came to me to collaborate on ideas to solve this.
Decided on allowing customers to subscribe and unsubscribe for services themselves.
Being passionate about UI/UX, created mockups of entire process to show team/manager/ceo
Collaborated to make some tweaks, and had a few disagreements that were resolved
Reward for efforts were to oversee complete creation of front end application, with influence on backend data transfer.
Result: Improved sales by 20% (largely due to not having to call to sign up) and reduced support needs for eservices by 50%. People still call for set up help
Tell me about a time you failed and what you learned from it.
Team lead of multiple simultaneous projects
3 engineers in the same area of code
Communication breakdown on my part which resulted in engineers blocking each other and causing conflicts when committing.
Take away: Moved discussions to Slack, where conversations made could easily tag an engineer affected by discussions. This, plus Kanban boarding, allowed everyone to see everyone’s work and allowed me to easily see collisions before they happen.
Tell me about a decision you regret
Google OAuth implementation for SMTP instead of Google API
Failed and needed to be rewritten using Google API
Seemed like less changes, and an easier implementation, ended up being more work
Tell me about a time when you were not able to meet a time commitment. What prevented you from meeting it? What was the outcome and what did you learn from it?
Payment processor implementation before a major release
Limiting features was not an option
Insist on highest standard, with unit tests and thorough integration tests, as previous payment processors have been known to cause ambiguous issues that hurt our customer satisfaction on trust in the feature.
QA found issues, which caused me to implement more tests to prove this is fixed permanently.
Took an additional 2 weeks to release, and has become the #1 payment processor choice integrated in our software.
Sacrificing short term results for long term success
Communicate when things will take longer to achieve
Tell me about a time when you faced a problem that had multiple possible solutions
There are always multiple solutions to a problem.
Tell me about a time you were 75% through a project, and had to pivot the strategy
Secure Email project => Mass Email project
Tell me about a time you sacrificed short term goals for long term success
Selling house to purchase duplex for financial stability
Every penny we had
Calculated risk affecting my family
Mitigated risk by research and data analytics, ROI, cash flow
Lowered monthly mortgage contribution by 65%, and the new mortgage is 80% covered by 1 tenant (with pessimistic expense calculation)
Provide an example where you personally demonstrated ownership
Only engineer available for escalation
Replication problem between daisy chain of 8 nodes
Instead of saying “Let’s wait for so-and-so, the replication specialist who set them up”, I took this challenge to get customer up and running ASAP.
Got customer up and running after 30 minutes. Issue was due to db corruption on a table
Discussed methods with specialist, who confirmed my actions to be correct.
I soon became escalation point for replication related issues.
Provide an example where you personally demonstrated ownership
Only engineer available for escalation
Replication problem between daisy chain of 8 nodes
Instead of saying “Let’s wait for so-and-so, the replication specialist who set them up”, I took this challenge to get customer up and running ASAP.
Got customer up and running after 30 minutes. Issue was due to db corruption on a table
Discussed methods with specialist, who confirmed my actions to be correct.
I soon became escalation point for replication related issues.
What’s your biggest weakness?
Pressure myself to succeed
This has caused me to sacrifice work-life balance at times when I feel strongly about learning unfamiliar things, or am stuck on a problem at work.
I try to push my own limits, but am aware of other peoples’ limits and how/if I should push them.
