Rackspace Technology Windows Systems Administrator II interview questions

Cold application online. Had phone contact within a week. One phone interview with a Recruiter that was of a technical nature. Second phone interview with a Lead Tech that was pure technical. Brought in for a face to face which consists of 3 rounds of 2 interviewers with varying levels of technical content. All the typical stuff to feel you out as a person, as an employee and as an purveyor of IT skills. **Important item to note, in the end they place people based on test results. You will be quizzed on knowledge items from a script that is directly related to their environment and to which position you are applying. The environment is quite well segmented so the line of questioning will be very specific. The point being there are defined metrics used to place a new hire in a position rather than using intuitiveness and conversation to find out if a person has the knowledge and isn't communicating it or has the ability to produce said information without requiring a month long training course. An example that didn't happen to me but I could see occurring would be if you were asked to rattle off a sql select statement to delete records older than X days in a table. Not being a DBA this isn't usually on the tip your tongue but if an individual was able to communicate the general structure of a statement or even describe the administration interface for SQL, default databases and their use, default accounts and some permissions, tables, setting up jobs, any of that I would consider them knowledgeable enough to solve the issue in short order. At RS that would be anywhere from a 50-0% because the question was not answered and that could mean the difference between you getting a Level4, Level 3 or Level 2 position. This seems to work out well though for RS. Tons of applicants, tons of jobs, tons of growth. But something else you need to ask about during the interview process is the promotion process. You have to test up into the next level. Testing opens 2x a year in the summer and winter. But you aren't necessarily allowed to test, you have to be granted the opportunity. You also have to be in a position for a year before you can test up even though the officially they say 6 months. No-one I have spoken with knows of anyone doing it in less than a year. Depending on on your hire date you could be in a position for nearly 1.5 years before being able to promote. Not good to start low just to get in the door.

It took me three interviews to get hired, it did seem a little unorganized. They run through a lot of web hosting related questions and systems administration questions i.e. acronyms and ports. There is also a break fix with regards to IIS, MS SQL and active directory. They are also very concerned about company culture and examples of going "above and beyond" for customer service.