AWS Cloud Technical Questions Interview Questions
10 curated questions with evaluation guidance for hiring managers.
Explain the AWS Well-Architected Framework. How do you apply its pillars in practice?
Should discuss operational excellence, security, reliability, performance efficiency, cost optimization, and sustainability. Look for practical application examples, not just framework memorization.
How would you design a scalable, fault-tolerant web application on AWS? Draw the architecture.
Should mention multi-AZ, ALB, Auto Scaling Groups, RDS Multi-AZ, ElastiCache, CloudFront, and Route 53. Look for understanding of each component's role and failure modes.
Compare EC2, ECS, EKS, and Lambda. How do you decide which compute service to use?
Should explain trade-offs: control vs. operational overhead, scaling characteristics, cost models, and use case fit. Look for pragmatic decision framework over service advocacy.
How do you secure an AWS environment? Walk me through your security best practices.
Should discuss IAM least privilege, security groups, NACLs, encryption at rest and in transit, CloudTrail, GuardDuty, and the shared responsibility model. Look for depth beyond basic setup.
Explain VPC architecture and networking in AWS. How do you connect on-premise networks to AWS?
Should discuss subnets (public/private), route tables, NAT Gateway, VPC peering, Transit Gateway, and VPN/Direct Connect. Look for practical networking knowledge.
How do you design for cost optimization in AWS without compromising reliability?
Should discuss right-sizing, Reserved/Savings Plans, Spot Instances, auto-scaling, S3 lifecycle policies, and cost allocation tags. Look for real-world cost optimization experience.
Describe different AWS storage options (S3, EBS, EFS, RDS, DynamoDB) and when to use each.
Should explain block vs. file vs. object storage, SQL vs. NoSQL, and performance characteristics. Look for understanding of access patterns and consistency requirements.
How do you implement disaster recovery on AWS? Compare RPO and RTO considerations.
Should discuss backup/restore, pilot light, warm standby, multi-region active-active architectures, and how business requirements drive DR strategy. Look for cost-aware DR planning.
What is Infrastructure as Code and how do you implement it with AWS?
Should discuss CloudFormation or Terraform, benefits (repeatability, versioning, drift detection), and challenges (state management, team collaboration). Look for real IaC implementation experience.
How do you monitor and troubleshoot performance issues in an AWS environment?
Should mention CloudWatch, X-Ray, VPC Flow Logs, and third-party tools. Look for systematic troubleshooting approach: identify bottleneck layer, gather relevant metrics, correlate events.
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