Rackspace Linux Systems Administrator II Interview Questions & Reviews
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Interview questions and reviews posted anonymously by interview candidates.
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Difficulty Rating [?] Based on 5 ratings 
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Interview Experience [?] Based on 5 ratings
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Linux Systems Administrator II at Rackspace
Posted Oct 19, 2011 — 1 of 1 people found this helpful
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4.0
Difficult Interview
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Overall Neutral Experience
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Interviewed and No Offer
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Interviewed Oct 2011 (took 5 days)
Applied online and received an e-mail the next day to setup a screening call. Screening was 20-30 basic Linux/Networking questions, such as common port numbers, how to check disk usage, disk space. A couple were MySQL-specific, and a couple were RedHat/CentOS specific. Was contacted by recruiter a couple of days after screening to schedule a "break/fix" session, which was for the next day.
The break/fix was done over the phone with a systems administrator, where you're asked to SSH into a remote host to conduct the assessment. The person wasn't personable, outgoing or empathetic at all, which didn't exactly help with the nervousness of the interview process. I felt I did terribly in the session, despite having years of professional Linux Sysadmin experience. This was done on a CentOS system, so be sure to brush up on RHEL/CentOS. The break/fix had some easy scenarios and some that consisted of strange issues or caveats.
Tips for candidates: Be familiar with RHEL/CentOS (e.g. yum, where things are located, what they're called, etc). Be familiar with MySQL. Check the simple, easy things first. Be familiar with all components of the LAMP stack. Be familiar with using netstat, tcpdump, and iptables. I was never asked about my resume, past experience, anything personal, etc. It was strictly skills assessments, and I assume that more personal questions would have come later.
Interview Questions
Other Details
I Applied Online and the interview consisted of a Phone Interview and a Skills Test.
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
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Linux Systems Administrator II at Rackspace
Posted Jul 28, 2011
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4.0
Difficult Interview
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Overall Positive Experience
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Received and Accepted Offer
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Interviewed Nov 2009 in San Antonio, TX (took 4+ weeks)
After I went through a brief phone screening process I was flown to San Antonio for a full day of interviews. It was 3 groups of 3 people and each team interviewed me for about an hour. The questions were very technical and I had as good a feeling for who they were, as they had for who I am by the time I left. Because of the long flights, it was a very long day but very enjoyable.
Interview Questions
Negotiation Details
They weren't willing to budge on the initial offer
Other Details
I applied In-Person and the interview consisted of a Phone Interview and a Group/Panel Interview.
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Inappropriate?
Linux Systems Administrator II at Rackspace
Posted Sep 7, 2010 — 2 of 2 people found this helpful
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4.0
Difficult Interview
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Overall Positive Experience
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Received and Accepted Offer
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Interviewed Jan 2010 in San Antonio, TX (took 2 weeks)
I was contacted by phone by the HR recruiter to begin the process. I went through an initial phone screen consisting of about 20-30 very, very easy technical questions, though it was quite obvious the recruiter was simply reading a sheet and looking for the written down answer. After this, a more in depth technical phone screen with a lead tech was scheduled. This call took about 30 minutes and covered more in depth but still easy questions.
From here, as I was located on the other side of the country, we set up an interview time over Skype. I was on time and ready to go only to never hear anything. After several calls to my recruiter, I finally got a call a few hours later saying that she had totally forgotten about the interview. Great. It was rescheduled for the next day.
This interview consisted of the lead tech who had screened me earlier plus another senior technician. The majority of the questions were technical in nature and many were quite difficult. As far as I can tell, this is just to gauge exactly where you're at technically. After about an hour to an hour and a half of this, the first two interviewers left and I had two new guys: a different senior technician and the senior manager for the department I was interviewing for. This interview didn't have as many technical questions, but there were still quite a few. Many of these focused more on personality questions.
They seemed impressed and told me that they'd be in touch. A few days later, I was again contacted by the recruiter. She set up another Skype interview with another team that wanted to speak with me. When that day came around, I found myself in front of two senior technicians and a team lead. The majority of the interview came from further technical scenario based questions from the two techs as well as a good chunk of personality/scenario (If you had a problem with a teammate, how would you handle it?) questions from the team lead.
The next day, I got a call from the recruiter offering me the position. All in all, it was exactly 14 days from first contact to offer in hand. Including phone screens and Skype interviews, I think I topped 8 hours total time spent. They definitely try very hard to make sure candidates are a good fit.
Interview Questions
Other Details
The interview consisted of a Phone Interview, a Group/Panel Interview and a Background Check.
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Inappropriate?
Linux Systems Administrator II at Rackspace
Posted Jul 27, 2010 — 0 of 1 people found this helpful
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3.0
Average Interview
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Overall Negative Experience
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Received and Accepted Offer
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Interviewed Oct 2008 (took a day)
It was painfully long
Interview Questions
Other Details
I Applied Online and the interview consisted of a Phone Interview, a 1:1 Interview and a Skills Test.
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Inappropriate?
Linux Systems Administrator II at Rackspace
Posted Apr 28, 2010 — 1 of 2 people found this helpful
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3.0
Average Interview
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Overall Negative Experience
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Interviewed and No Offer
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Interviewed Apr 2010 in San Antonio, TX (took 2 days)
Job descriptions: DNS/Network fundamentals, diagnostics w/ Unix tools, RHat ,Solaris, Apache, Sendmail, DNS. Given simple questionnaire. Interview w/ lead tech: Noisy background, flurry-rushed questions covering basic commands: list services, who, head. Very chaotic. Terrible atmosphere for interview. Didn't seem to have time to talk. VERY uncomfortable. After 15 years of linux experience, this job should be a cakewalk, however considering the way the interviewer presented himself (Rushing the questions, interruptions during answers, and the disruptive nature of the background noises, the interview was a nightmare. My suggestion would be to make enough time (more than 10 minutes) for the process. And proceed in a quiet atmosphere. Some of the questions asked during the interview:
Q: What is RAID?
A: data spread across different harddrives so in case you lose a harddrive, you don't lose your data.
Q: What is the difference between a TCP and UDP?
A: TCP is secure, using ACK's, UDP is unreliable.
Q: Default file system on Linux?
A: EXT3, or EXT4
Q: How do you see the top ten lines of a file?
A: head -10 filename
Q: User has lost root password, how do you reset?
A: Not sure.
Q: port #'s for SNMP, MySQL, and HTTPS I'm almost sure he said HTTPS, but it could have been SFTP, in which case the port would have been115
A: 161, 156, and 443
Q: What are different runlevels?
A: 1,2,3,4,5, with 5 being GUI, 2 single user(wrong, should be 1), 3 is command line with networking.
Q: Define "Hot Swapable"
A: The ability to add/remove Hardware w/o taking the machine down
Q: Define the difference between a hub and a switch.
A: Mumble, Mumble.... I knew years ago, but could google and have answer in 10 seconds.
I studied for 5 days on DNS (MX records), Sendmail, Apache, RH admin, Well known ports, MySQL, IPTABLES, and Solaris. If I had it to do over, I would ask the interviewer to please reschedule when he had the time. He was harried, rushed, and talked so fast it was sometimes hard to make out what he was asking. To much activity going on in the background. It seemed he was at a meeting and shoved me into a 10 minute time slot, sometimes interrupting my answers. This made the process unnerving and I had a hard time focusing on what was expected of me. The payrate they are willing to offer is less than what the job should pay. I left an 80K job that was much more professional. Only to be rejected at a chaotic work environment for 45K. The laid back atmosphere didn't seem to apply here.
Interview Questions
Other Details
I got the interview through a Staffing Agency and the interview consisted of a Phone Interview.
Helpful Interview?
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