The Quest

[BigV]

Just got a call from some outfit called Amazon.com...

Phone interview Monday, 06 Feb 2006, 1 pm PST. Expect to last 1 hour, may be coding samples required, have resume, pen and paper handy, etc.

Here's the Job Description:

Amazon's Corporate Helpdesk is looking for Senior Support Engineers with the ability to deep dive on a process, script a tool to automate it, then handle a Senior VP needs the next. We want seasoned support engineers who can maintain pleasant demeanor under load, have extremely broad experience, who can script (Perl and/or VBS), and have a vision for what support ought to look like. Must have deep knowledge of both Windows and Unix. If you know Apple as well, that's a plus. We own a huge piece of the corporate business logic in in a highly diverse technical environment where the opportunities to learn and expand your knowledge are endless. The ability to work swing shifts on a rotational basis is required. 3+ years direct Helpdesk/SA experience is necessary

My task now is to research as much a possible about the company, the job, and the tasks described as I can. I wish to be well prepared for this interview. Support is my long suit, but I'm stressing some about the coding quiz... What could that be about? Hi, help desk? I have a problem, and I want you to write a script to fix it... Ditto the Unix support questions.Any suggestions out there? Any help desk jockeys willing to give me clue? I'd sure appreciate it.

See, this is one of those times when I shot for the 80% I could do, and I'm twigged about the missing 20%. (breathe ya dope, breathe).

That's your update. We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.