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Network Engineer Interview Questions

Network engineers design and build computer networks. Employers are looking for strongly skilled individuals to design their networks on a high level, leaving support and maintenance to network administrators. During the interview process be prepared for many technical questions encompassing all of network theory.

Top Network Engineer Interview Questions & How To Answer

Question 1

Question #1: What are your strengths as a network engineer?

How to answer
How to answer: The hiring manager is analyzing whether your attitude and aptitudes match the job requirements. To speak about yourself effectively, talk about your qualities, education, and experience related to the employer's expectations. For example, you can describe personality traits, such as accuracy and communication; education, such as a CompTIA Network+ Certification; and work experience, such as two years of work experience, that make you a high-performing employee.
Question 2

Question #2: Can you provide us with a summary of your work experience in network engineering?

How to answer
How to answer:The interviewer uses this question to assess your expertise with network engineering. Provide examples of your expertise by identifying your experience-based achievements that best showcase the skills the hiring manager seeks. For example, discuss an event that conveys your TC/IP and Linux expertise or highlights your attention to detail.
Question 3

Question #3: What roles or functions have you performed in collaborative networking projects with others?

How to answer
How to answer: This question focuses on whether you're an effective team player. Teamwork skills are essential since a network engineer works with senior workers, such as a network administrator, and professionals from various departments who use computer networks to complete job duties, such as accountants, researchers, engineers, and marketers. Summarize your group projects, highlighting your successes and providing examples of interpersonal and conflict resolution skills.

13,715 network engineer interview questions shared by candidates

Example: Are TCP sequence numbers random or do they start at the same number. many other questions were asked in two one hour phone interviews. Study and memorize the RFC's pertaining to BGP, MPBGP, TCP, HTTP, HTTPS, MPLS, OSPF, ISIS, and you will do just fine.
avatar

AWS Infra/Network Engineering

Interviewed at Amazon

3.5★
Apr 6, 2016

Example: Are TCP sequence numbers random or do they start at the same number. many other questions were asked in two one hour phone interviews. Study and memorize the RFC's pertaining to BGP, MPBGP, TCP, HTTP, HTTPS, MPLS, OSPF, ISIS, and you will do just fine.

Phone Interview: 1. What is a beacon frame? It is a management frame sent out by an AP that is used to keep the devices on a wireless network associated with it, in sync. This is essential for CSMA/CA 2. What is the difference between 2.4 GHz and 5 Ghz frequencies on a wireless network? Higher Frequencies have more attenuation through Free space. 2.4 GHz can travel further. 5 GHz is a less crowded frequency band. Therefore less prone to interference 3. What are the non-overlapping channels in the 2.4 GHz frequency band? Channels 1, 6 and 11 4. How do packets travel across a network? ( Explain using an ICMP example, use all the protocols. that are involved. DHCP, ARP etc. Keep in mind the OSI model) 5. What is the difference between STP and RSTP? Technical Interview: 1. If you were to take an RF Wireless survey, would you do it when there were people in the room or when the room was empty? Always when people are in the room, humans are 60-70% water and that means more attenuation. This will be an efficient survey, only if people are in the room. 2. What happens when you type www.google.com into your computer? 3. What does the 's' in https signify? SSL communication between host and server 4.(Scenario Based) A host is trying to connect to a computer across a VPN tunnel but unfortunately it cannot access the resource. What could be the problem,assuming that the VPN tunnel is setup correctly? The correct answer is the hosts file on the computer has an incorrect mapping of the name to ip. You will know this when you ping the name of host and it resolves to a different ip. 5. (Scenario Based) A firewall in a corporate environment was one day replaced with a Meraki firewall. Now clients are no longer able to access the web server, The configuration on the different firewalls are identical. What could be the problem? The ARP cache on the modem still points to an old mapping of the Firewall. The MAC address had now changed, Therefore in order to rectify the problem, power off and power on the modem. 6. What is gratuitous ARP? 7. What are the different modes with IPSec? What is IKE Phase 1 and IKE Phase 2? main mode and quick mode 8. (Scenario-Based ), three switches are connected together in a triangle design, A, B and C, Who becomes the Root bridge? What is the default priority on Cisco switches? Can a switch have a priority of 0? When the speed of the links are changed, does the root port also change? 9. What is the difference between PVST and PVST+? 10. Name one channel in a 5 GHz band? 11. Explain to me how DNS works? Cultural interview: 1. (Scenario-based) There is a set of core and distribution switches, there are three VLANs spanned across all switches, RSTP is functioning correctly, a user connected to VLAN 2 cannot access the internet, what could be the problem? Ans: you must deduce that if everything is configured correctly and there are no physical issues with the network, the correct answer is that there is a rogue DHCP server in VLAN 2. You need to shutdown the port connected to the rogue DHCP server. First, find out the MAC address of the rogue DHCP server from the arp cache of the host computer. arp -a. Secondly, from the CAM address table of the switch, see which port is associated with the MAC address. Thirdly, block the port.Fourthly, ipconfig /release and ipconfig /renew on the host computer to get a legitimate IP address from the real DHCP server in VLAN 2. Alternative solution would be to enable DHCP Snooping. 2. if the logs on a linux apache server are suddenly not being written to ? what could be the problem? a. permissions issue b. disk space requirements c. is apache service running? d. has the location of the log file been changed on the apache configuration file? e. Check the logrotate feature.
avatar

Network Support Engineer

Interviewed at Meraki

3.8★
Sep 17, 2014

Phone Interview: 1. What is a beacon frame? It is a management frame sent out by an AP that is used to keep the devices on a wireless network associated with it, in sync. This is essential for CSMA/CA 2. What is the difference between 2.4 GHz and 5 Ghz frequencies on a wireless network? Higher Frequencies have more attenuation through Free space. 2.4 GHz can travel further. 5 GHz is a less crowded frequency band. Therefore less prone to interference 3. What are the non-overlapping channels in the 2.4 GHz frequency band? Channels 1, 6 and 11 4. How do packets travel across a network? ( Explain using an ICMP example, use all the protocols. that are involved. DHCP, ARP etc. Keep in mind the OSI model) 5. What is the difference between STP and RSTP? Technical Interview: 1. If you were to take an RF Wireless survey, would you do it when there were people in the room or when the room was empty? Always when people are in the room, humans are 60-70% water and that means more attenuation. This will be an efficient survey, only if people are in the room. 2. What happens when you type www.google.com into your computer? 3. What does the 's' in https signify? SSL communication between host and server 4.(Scenario Based) A host is trying to connect to a computer across a VPN tunnel but unfortunately it cannot access the resource. What could be the problem,assuming that the VPN tunnel is setup correctly? The correct answer is the hosts file on the computer has an incorrect mapping of the name to ip. You will know this when you ping the name of host and it resolves to a different ip. 5. (Scenario Based) A firewall in a corporate environment was one day replaced with a Meraki firewall. Now clients are no longer able to access the web server, The configuration on the different firewalls are identical. What could be the problem? The ARP cache on the modem still points to an old mapping of the Firewall. The MAC address had now changed, Therefore in order to rectify the problem, power off and power on the modem. 6. What is gratuitous ARP? 7. What are the different modes with IPSec? What is IKE Phase 1 and IKE Phase 2? main mode and quick mode 8. (Scenario-Based ), three switches are connected together in a triangle design, A, B and C, Who becomes the Root bridge? What is the default priority on Cisco switches? Can a switch have a priority of 0? When the speed of the links are changed, does the root port also change? 9. What is the difference between PVST and PVST+? 10. Name one channel in a 5 GHz band? 11. Explain to me how DNS works? Cultural interview: 1. (Scenario-based) There is a set of core and distribution switches, there are three VLANs spanned across all switches, RSTP is functioning correctly, a user connected to VLAN 2 cannot access the internet, what could be the problem? Ans: you must deduce that if everything is configured correctly and there are no physical issues with the network, the correct answer is that there is a rogue DHCP server in VLAN 2. You need to shutdown the port connected to the rogue DHCP server. First, find out the MAC address of the rogue DHCP server from the arp cache of the host computer. arp -a. Secondly, from the CAM address table of the switch, see which port is associated with the MAC address. Thirdly, block the port.Fourthly, ipconfig /release and ipconfig /renew on the host computer to get a legitimate IP address from the real DHCP server in VLAN 2. Alternative solution would be to enable DHCP Snooping. 2. if the logs on a linux apache server are suddenly not being written to ? what could be the problem? a. permissions issue b. disk space requirements c. is apache service running? d. has the location of the log file been changed on the apache configuration file? e. Check the logrotate feature.

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