Google Site Reliability Engineer Mock Interview
Master 30 Google SRE interview questions covering system design, incident response, and distributed systems.
Question 22 of 30
Walk me through the process of determining if a Google development team should work on new features or pay down technical debt.
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William Swansen has worked in the employment assistance realm since 2007. He is an author, job search strategist, and career advisor who helps individuals worldwide and in various professions to find their ideal careers.
Site reliability engineers need to ensure that DevOps works towards improvements to the applications, resulting in Google achieving its business objectives. You're constantly asked to choose between adding new features or solidifying and improving the ones already developed. One way these conflicts can be resolved is through objective analysis and defined metrics. However, the most talented SREs can also use subjective judgment when choosing between developing new features or paying down technical debt. Interviewers at Google are looking for candidates who demonstrate skills in both of these methodologies.
William Swansen has worked in the employment assistance realm since 2007. He is an author, job search strategist, and career advisor who helps individuals worldwide and in various professions to find their ideal careers.
"When asked to choose between developing new features or paying down technical debt, my first approach is to look at the metrics and see which activities will provide the greater return on investment. This objective analysis is easy to complete when the right metrics are available. However, my experience has taught me that I can also look at this issue subjectively to determine which effort would generate the best results, lead to future developments, and keep the DevOps team engaged. I try to balance the objective and subjective analysis to determine the right course of action."
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