1 What Your Server OS Says About You?
2 ===================================
3 :author: Aaron Ball
4 :email: nullspoon@oper.io
5
6
7
8 I've been interviewing a lot of people recently for a position on our team. One
9 of the questions we typically ask is...
10
11 What operating system(s) does your server at home run?
12
13 HINT: For a systems engineer position, we're hoping you'll say something about
14 a server you have at home (duh).
15
16 The point of this question is simple. A good engineer is more than learned
17 technical skills. The best engineers have the mindset to constantly learn more;
18 to venture outside their known world. They're curious, driven, and know they
19 don't hold the keys to the universe. They want to explore other ways to do
20 things. This teaches them the "how", the "why", and the "why not".
21
22 I don't want to undersell schooling, but some of the brightest Linux engineers
23 I've worked with were self-taught (one had a degree in jewelry, believe it or
24 not). Schooling has immense value in condensing *best practice* into a
25 single-path program. It just doesn't usually teach all the alternatives and why
26 we do or do not use them. Experimentation teaches this, which is probably why
27 graduate-level programs require a thesis project.
28
29 All that said, I've heard a lot of answers to this question, each of which
30 tells me something about the person.
31
32 NOTE: Please keep in mind, this is written from my opinion. Don't get hurt if
33 you don't agree. You are entitled to your opinion as much as I am mine.
34
35
36 Answers
37 -------
38
39 I don't have a server at home
40 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
41 We'll start off with just about the worst answer, though not necessarily bad.
42
43 This is a red flag to me. I do understand that most people have lives (which
44 often includes family, children, and non-technical hobbies). However, the
45 really good engineers typically experiment as a hobby because it is fun. These
46 are the folks who have "link:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8vHhgh6oM0[the
47 knack]". While no server at home isn't an immediate writeoff, it makes me a bit
48 skeptical. Usually, I'll ask about your hobbies if you give me this answer
49 (some folks prefer to learn about cars, woodworking, gardening, cooking, etc in
50 their spare time).
51
52
53 Windows
54 ~~~~~~~
55 You don't experiment much (at least not where we are interested), or you are
56 more of a Microsoft person (which is fine, we're just looking for Unix/Linux
57 folks).
58
59
60 Red Hat
61 ~~~~~~~
62 You probably use this at home because it is what most companies use. Not very
63 curious, but driven to be better. I find these folks either currently work for
64 RedHat, did work for RedHat, or are very book-oriented; typically more
65 interested in a defined path than forging their own. There are of course
66 exceptions, this has just been my experience so far.
67
68
69 Suse/OpenSuse
70 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
71 Perhaps a little more adventurous than the run-of-the-mill RedHat person.
72 Still, not super curious, but still driven to be better at what they do. Again,
73 there are of course exceptions (one of the best people I've worked with used
74 almost nothing but OpenSuse).
75
76
77 FreeBSD
78 ~~~~~~~
79 While this isn't running the Linux kernel, it still uses mostly the GNU tools,
80 with some differences. Anyone who knows why they like FreeBSD is okay in my
81 book, even if we might not completely be on the same page.
82
83
84 Arch
85 ~~~~
86 Good answer. This used to be a really amazing answer before Arch made it to the
87 top 10 of DistroWatch. Nowadays a casual Arch user might just be looking for a
88 popular but technical distro; or they're really amazing at Linux. It used to
89 say "bleeding edge, fearless, plenty of spare time, cat person". Regardless,
90 still a good answer. Arch is just different enough that this answer shows
91 creativity, curiosity, drive, persistence, and aptitude.
92
93
94 Arch + Custom Kernel
95 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
96 Getting warmer (same as "Arch", but +10 points for being extra nerdy)
97
98
99 Source-based Distro (Slackware, Gentoo, Crux, etc)
100 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
101 Better answer. This is a particularly great answer because it tells me you
102 don't scare easily [from technical challenges at least]. It also tells me that
103 you don't mind forging your own path to learn or have a better system. I find
104 these people to be the most learning-oriented of these groups. When asked how
105 to learn how a command works, they typically answer "man" before "Google".
106
107 On a more practical note, this answer also tells me that you've been deep
108 enough in the bowels of Linux that you could likely learn any distro we have at
109 our company (which is two, but still...). If you have this and minimal to no
110 RedHat/CentOS/Suse/Debian, I won't mind. It also says that you know most of the
111 tools to troubleshoot just about everything, from runtime issues in binaries,
112 to kernel parameter tweaking.
113
114 NOTE: I'm a bit biased on this one as I run a source-based distro. Pretty much
115 anyone I've interviewed with this though (I've only interviewed 4 or so I
116 think) lives up to the description I just gave.
117
118
119 Obscure-Distro-We've-Barely-Heard-of
120 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
121 While a good answer, it does throw up a little yellow flag for me. Some people
122 are distro-junkies (this used to be me) and like to jump around because it's
123 fun and/or they have commitment issues. While this is a good trait (jumping
124 around, not commitment issues) in many cases, it hints to me you might make
125 tech decisions because they are cool, new, or just different - hence the yellow
126 flag. Making long-term decisions because something is shinier than the other
127 thing is often a foolish mistake.
128
129
130 LFS
131 ~~~
132 You're hired
133
134
135 Depends on what day you ask me
136 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
137 Also a great answer, but with the caveat of the obscure distro. I don't want
138 finicky people making long-term decisions for the team (does anyone here have
139 that guy at work that pushes for Oracle databases inside of Docker
140 containers because "Docker"?).
141
142
143
144 Summary
145 -------
146
147 All of what I just wrote should be taken with a grain of salt. Every single one
148 of those answers would not make me write a person off, but the right answer
149 might give them extra points.
150
151 All that said, if I ever interview you and you give me a "good answer" from
152 this blog post, keep in mind that my followup question is "so what do you do
153 with that server at home?". I won't write a blog post that gives away the right
154 answers to that one. :)
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157 [role="datelastedit"]
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