Describe Linux and SQL experience
Company: Amazon
Role: Software Engineer
Category: Software Engineering Fundamentals
Difficulty: medium
Interview Round: Technical Screen
You are being assessed on your basic tooling skills as an engineer.
1. **Linux/Unix commands**: List the Linux (or Unix) shell commands you are comfortable with and briefly explain what each one is used for in your day-to-day work (e.g., file management, process monitoring, networking, development workflows).
2. **SQL skills**: Describe your experience with SQL. What types of queries can you write (e.g., filters, joins, aggregations, subqueries, window functions)? How do you usually approach translating an informal business or analytics question into a concrete SQL query?
Quick Answer: This question evaluates familiarity with Linux/Unix shell commands and SQL querying as core tooling competencies, assessing an engineer's ability to manage files, processes, networking and to perform data retrieval and aggregation within the Software Engineering Fundamentals category.
