Hiring cloud engineers could be a challenge, especially when you do not have the same level of expertise that you are looking for in a candidate. To assess the candidate accurately, you’d need to ask the right questions.
These questions wouldn’t only assess the level of technical dexterity they have, but also whether or not they are the right fit for you.
Here are a few questions that will ease your process of cloud computing recruitment and help you in creating adept cloud computing tests. These questions are divided into two broad categories: technical and non-technical questions.
Technical Questions: Ideally, while hiring cloud engineers, recruiters need a candidate who is not only good at managing technologies but is willing to do a little extra to expand their knowledge and experiment to stay abreast with the technological developments. Although technical questions are quite generalized, it is important that candidate knows the answers of these questions. We have listed a few for you:
- Check their definition of cloud computing and what it means to them.
When you begin by asking technical questions. The first and obvious question can be what is cloud computing? Many of the candidates will give a definition that they have learnt in their colleges, but only a candidate who has a thorough understanding will rather try to explain you what cloud computing is instead of stating the technical definition.
- What are the benefits of cloud?
Some common benefits of cloud are backup and storage of data, providing powerful server capabilities, and increasing productivity. It is also cost-effective and saves time. Here, after asking about benefits, ask how they will use cloud to benefit the organization.
- What cloud services have they worked on?
The three main cloud services are Infrastructure, Platform, and Software. It is important that the candidate knows the difference and uses.
- What is cloud deployment? What are cloud deployment models?
Cloud deployment is enablement of SaaS, IaaS, and PaaS that may be accessed by users. Cloud deployment models are private cloud, public cloud, hybrid cloud, and community cloud out of which Hybrid cod model is more popular and thus candidate needs to know more about it.
- Ask them to enlist a few cloud service providers.
Some of the best cloud service providers are AWS, Google cloud, Salesforce, IBM, VMware, etc.
- Components of Microsoft Azure?
Components of Azure are Cloud, SQL Azure, and App fabric that allows fabric cloud. Ask questions about Azure since it is one of the most widely used cloud services and the candidate must have a good knowledge of it.
- What are the examples of open source computing?
Expect candidates to talk about OpenStack. Open source platforms are cost efficient and therefore are more preferred by businesses.
- Check their knowledge of cloud security.
The concept of cyber security emerged due to cloud computing. Hence, for a cloud engineer, basic knowledge of maintaining security and assessing threats is essential even if your organization has a cyber security expert.
However, even if they know the answers of these questions, you cannot determine if they are suitable for your organization. To know this, you need to ask non-technical questions to see if they possess the soft skills that can make them a great employee.
Non-technical Questions to Assess Soft Skills: A cloud engineer needs to be someone who is willing to make extra effort to provide software solutions to complex issues. To know about how they would perform as an employee, you can ask these questions:
- What skills would you add to our team?
If a candidate speaks about the cloud computing skills, that would be acceptable. But a desirable answer should be where they speak about their uniqueness and have expertise in certain things that will be an added advantage. What you should be looking for here is why they think they are a better choice than other candidates. For example, if they are going to be part of a team that handles customers, can they manage these clients, communicate well, and provide solutions. This question shows how aware candidates are of their abilities.
- Describe one thing you did that helped your previous organization.
AWS tools work the best when there is someone who knows how to make the best use of them. Since you are looking for a candidate who can think outside the box, this question can give you a fair idea of the creativity and curiosity levels of the candidate.
- Ask about an instance where they have dealt with customer complaints.
This question can make a candidate sweat, but will also give you a fair idea about how they perform under pressure. In the field of cloud computing, an engineer has to deal with many such instances as technologies change and can cause glitches in work. Their response will show you if they can anticipate such scenarios and push back on timelines. It also shows how persuasive and empathetic they are as these are some essential soft skills required to be a good cloud engineer.
The interview questions to hire cloud engineers need to be designed as per the level of expertise of the candidate. These are just few important questions any good cloud computing expert should be able to answer.
