-----Original Message----- From: owner-nanog@merit.edu [mailto:owner-nanog@merit.edu] On Behalf Of Michael.Dillon@radianz.com Sent: Monday, November 10, 2003 6:03 AM To: nanog@merit.edu Subject: Re: This may be stupid but..
<snip>
When I interview, I start out by asking one or two key questions that help me quickly get to the truth. For instance at one company, when I has hiring NOC folks, I started by asking them to explain traceroute to me. The answer that I wanted was one which showed that they had a detailed understanding of what was going on at the protocol level as the packets flowed through the network because that view of the network is needed to effectively troubleshoot problems. It did lead to one awkward situation with a 16 year-old who immediately started talking about ICMP echos with varying TTL and routers sending back ICMP echo-replies. I wanted to end the interview and hire him on the spot but it seemed unfair to give this young guy the idea that job interviews are that short.
Especially since not all traceroutes use ICMP and the reply from the routers is typically NOT ICMP echo-reply. :-) <snip>
--Michael Dillon
-Wayne Gustavus