ASE Interview Preparation:

Contents 1 Technical: 3 1.1 Explain Cloud Technology: 3 1.1.1 Advantages 3 1.1.2 Types of Clouds: 3 1.1.3 Layers of cloud computing: 3 1.2 What is computer networking? 3 1.2.1 What is TCP/IP? 3 1.2.2 OSI Model: 4 2 Behavioural: 4 2.1 Tell me about yourself? 4 2.2 Why Cisco? 5 2.3 What do you know about us? 5 2.4 Why should we hire you? 5 2.5 Describe a time when you were faced with problems or stresses at work that tested your coping skills. What did you do? 5 2.6 Provide an example of when you showed initiative and took the lead 6 2.7 Tell me about a situation where you have had to speak with an unhappy customer. 6 2.8 Give me an example of a time when you motivated others and how this led to a positive outcome 7 2.9 Give an example of a goal you set and how you reached it. 7 2.10 Give me a specific example of a time when you used good judgment and logic in solving a problem. 7 2.11 Tell me about a time when you had to use your presentation skills to influence someone's opinion. 8 2.12 Give me a specific example of a time when you had to conform to a policy with which you did not agree. 8 2.13 Please discuss an important written document you were required to complete. 8 2.14 Tell me about a time when you had to go above and beyond the call of duty in order to get a job done. 9 2.15 Give me an example of a time when you had to make a split second decision. 9 2.16 What is your typical way of dealing with conflict? Give me an example. 9 2.17 Tell me about a time you were able to successfully deal with another person even when that individual may not have personally liked you (or vice versa). 9 2.18 Tell me about a difficult decision you've made in the last year 10 2.19 Tell me about a time when you made a mistake. 10 2.20 Give me an example of a time when you motivated others. 10 2.21 Tell me about a time when you presented a bad news. 11 2.22 Tell me about a time when you delegated a project effectively. 11 2.23 What are your career goals? 11

Technical:
SPI vs UART vs I2C
Serial Peripheral Interface is a full duplex communication protocol. Consists of SDI, SDO, SCK lines. Requires three lines Or four lines when more than one slave is present. Advantage is simple, very fast data transmission; Different speed devices can talk on same line.
UART Universal Asynchronous Receiver Transmitter: is a full duplex communication protocol. Both communicating devices should be set to a specified baud rate in order to communicate with each other.
I2C Interface IC communication is a half-duplex communication. Master Slave configuration, Master Initiate’s communication and slaves acknowledges/reacts. Can be used to connect multiple devices using just two lines. Addressing is software driven.

Explain Cloud Technology:
Cloud technology can be defined as delivery of IT resources and services using the underlying network infrastructure. The services are provided on demand and at scale in a multi-tenant environment.
Advantages
It has several advantage: Cost – companies do not need to create, maintain their own IT infrastructure, in fact they can just rent it; Scalability – increase in workload will increase in resources; Elasticity: Companies can increase the resources on the go without any major investment; Core Competency- Companies can use their energy on what they do rather than thinking about their IT infrastructure; Sustainability.
Disadvantages/Trade-offs:
Techincal Issues - Possible downtime; Security – third party and Prone to attacks
Types of Clouds:
Private Clouds: Managed by companies for internal users. Can be located in Collocated facility or data centers.
Public Clouds: Provided by third party to consumers much like google amazon Microsoft.
Hybrid/virtual clouds: Ability to expand private clouds using public clouds when more resources are needed. Low security services maybe running on external cloud.
Inter Cloud: Cisco invisions that all clouds maybe interconnected in future just like internet providing wider range of services. Cisco is already working on Protocols in this domain.
Layers of cloud computing:
Cloud computing is basically comprised of three layers:
SaaS: Basically software services are provided over the network to the users like webex, google docs.
Platform as a Service: Platforms are provided to developer to develop applications such WebEx connect or Amazon Web services.
Infrastructure as a Service: Hardware is provided – dominated by Cisco.
What is computer networking?
An infrastructure that is used to transfer data between computers is called a computer network. The best known computer network till date in Internet which can be explained by two models: TCP/IP and OSI Model.
What is TCP/IP?
It’s a model used to explain internet layers. According to this model Internet can be divided into five layers.
Physical Layer: Responsible of creating node to node connections ARP and transmitting frames on the physical medium. Ethernet, SONET, WiFi
Network Layer: Responsible of managing routing of packets in the network. IP addressing: IPv4 IPv6 and routing algorithms.
Transport Layers: Responsible for defining mechanism of how communication in the network is done. TCP UDP.
Application Layers: Consists of protocols used by applications such HTTP used by browser, FTP, SMTP used by mail service.
OSI Model:
Basically consists of 7 layers:
Physical Layer: Responsible for transferring bits on the physical link e.g basic electrical or optical signalling. Ethernet
Datalink Layer: This layer controls the flow of frames over the physical link and takes care of synchronization and error checking. MAC sublayer: It is responsible for establishing node to node connection between two machines on the network. PPP.
Network Layer: This Layer is responsible for IP addressing and routing algorithms that determine how packet flows from hop to hop and source to dest. IPv4 IPv6 MPLS
Transport Layer: UDP TCP
Session Layer: Port addressing, managing sessions, terminating, creating.
Presentation Layer: Encryption Decryption, translation
Application: User data interface.
What is a stub network?
A network that has only one in and out route of packets and does not lead to any further networks and have no knowledge of the rest of the internet is called a stub network. E.g you connected to ISP router where all traffic has single path for in and out.
What is BGP?
Its an exterior gateway protocol which means its used to route traffic between autonomous systems It’s a type of distance vector protocol. Usually uses policies instead of distances. Its very scalable and robust that is why it used as internet routing protocol. It exchanges information with its neighbours using TCP when the first connection is established. If the change in routing is detected only changed routes are updated. Only the most optimal path is exchanged.
What is OSPF?
Open Shortest Path First is an interior gateway routing protocol. Which means its used to route traffic with in an autonomous system. It’s a kind of Link State Routing protocol where each router has the info about the whole topology of the system. Periodic updates are exchanged between routers because of which it is highly adaptable and flexible protocol. Routing decisions are based on shortest calculated path using some algorithm such as Dijkastar or Bell-man ford.
What is RIP?
Routing Information protocol uses hop count as metric. It’s a distance vector routing protocol which has a hop limit of 15, which makes its scalability limited. Not a popular choice these days.
MPLS:
Refer notes.
What is ATM?
Asynchronous Transfer Mode was designed to increase the throughput of the network. Virtual Circuit was established between the destination and the source before the data transfer begins. This reduced the overhead required to route the packet using packet switching where every packet needs to routed on each hop.
What is Packet Switching?
Refers to protocols in which messages are divided into packets before they are sent. Each packet is then transmitted individually and can even follow different routes to its destination. Once all the packets forming a message arrive at the destination, they are recompiled into the original message.
What is a switch vs Router?
A switch is layer 2 device. It uses MAC address to transfer data. A router is a Layer 3 device and uses IP addresses to find destination.
What is a Software Defined Network?
It is an approach of computer networking where the control is decoupled from the hardware and given to the software called controller. It allows the network to be configured on the go and new services and applications can be deployed on the fly. With cloud computing evolving everyday, so is SDN. It allows network administrators to configure the network resources depending on the requirements of new services and applications. SDN Architecture is:
Directly programmable; Programmatically Configured; Agile; Centrally Managed; Open Standard based and vendor independent.
What is Big Data?
Exponential growth in the mechanisms of accumulating data and sheer need to analyze this data has given birth to the term big data. Three V challenges that drive big data are: Volume, Velocity and Variety.
Explain principal of cell phone operation.
Behavioural:
Tell me about yourself?
I can summarize myself in three words: Inspiring, creative and Flexible.
Inspiring: Because I can lead by exampleby stepping out of my comfort zone and excel. This motivates people around me to go an extra mile. University projects and shareholder of TTSi.
Creative: I have an analytical mind and I keep on analyzing how things are done around me and try to think of better ways of doing things to ensure efficiency and reliability: Automate Logs for FAQs and Stock Management.
My philosophy of life is learn from the past, apply it in the present and keep on becoming a better professional with each progressive day.
I’m a highly motivated and passionate about my work. The thing that fuels this passion is the hunger of success. And it is because I’m so passionate and eager to prove myself, I have a can do attitude and this is the reason why have done so much at Tektrap in one year:
Technical Training: CBSA, Sandia National Lab.
Technical Support:
Testing and Development Work.
RFP Internal Audit of Technology.
Discussing the Technology with Customers and propoing solutions.
Out of all the roles, the last two are the ones I just love doing the most. And that is the reason I think I will be a great fit for this position.
During my time at TTS I have realised that the customer interaction is the most enthralling part in the technology world and that is where the ideas are generated and this is the reason I have decided to dedicate my future in the customer facing engineering role.
Why Cisco?
Cisco is one of the biggest names in IT world so it’s a previledge to work for Cisco.
Cisco is Global Organization therefore lots of learning opportunities, a career filled with big challenges, more chances to network around the world and an opportunity to become a global leader in the field.
Other than this Cisco have always been a leader in innovation: 1987 first commercial router that could support multiple protocols; 1996 MPLS was proposed a whole new way of switching IP networks; since then inventions have just kept on piling Cisco is owning more than 7000 patents at the moment with more than 9000 patents applications still pending.
What do you know about us?
It was founded in 1984 by Leonard Bosack and Sandy lerner. Name of the company is derived from the city it was founded in “San Francisco”. The logo of cisco depicts golden gate bridge. Since its inception cisco has been a leader in network technology, 1987 , 1996, 1998 Gigabit Switch Routers and list just goes on and on with more than 7000 patents to their name with 9000+ more in the pipeline. In 2006 cisc started a re-branding campaign to capture consumer market along with enterprise market with low end Linksys products. Currently Cisco also have realized the phenomenon of internet of everything is a major player in its enablement.
Curtiss Wright:
Was formed in 1929 with a merger of 12 subsidiaries of Wright and curtiss affiliated. Spent next 2 decades in aviation engine business. Was a major player in supplying engines in WWII.
In 1950 dawn of jet engines forced the company to move towards aniation simulators. One of the earliest aviation simulators made. 1970’s company made valves to be used in nuclear submarines and aircraft maintenance business. 1980 entered into commercial fossil fuel market. Though nuclear propulsion systems for US navy was the primary business during 1980’s. In 1990 CW provided control and actuators modules for companies like boeing airbus and Mcdonel douglas. In 1998, CW acquired drive technology which made drives and suspension for armoured vehicles and is a part of CW defense solutions.
Start of 2000 CW turned around its business strategy and raised the revenues from 300 million to 3 billion. Sensors and embedded computing business was now the new focus. Comercial Energy market was also expanded. Penny and giles ( sensors and black boxes for aviation and military) , Hybracon (electronic packaging for commercial aeroscpace and military), acra control (dat acquisition systems, networking and telemetry equipment for base stations military + commercial) and exlar corporation was acquired (actuators in motion control solutions for industry and military).
Why should we hire you?
I think the fact that I have been a part of a tech startup and I have been exposed to so many different roles makes me an ideal fit for this position. I have been an active part in sales, as we don’t have a sales staff. I have done technical support for clients, I have been involved in solution discussions, I have been involved in industrial collaboration with Sandia National laboratories and I have been part of R&D. Now all of these are core competence required for this job in which I have already demonstrated success. But other than I’m a person who aspires to be a global leader and wants to excel at the highest level and who belives in my inter-personal abilities. I’m a person who thinks how my job goals play part in organizational success. As an engineer, I’m passionate about technological innovation and keeps an open mind. I think all these qualities makes me an ideal fit for this position.
I have been a professional who has already experienced Interaction with customers to discuss solutions in simplistic terms, industrial collaboration in a multi-national environment, I have a can do attitude with an ability to make rational decisions and innovate at the same time,. As a professional I have a very positive and open mentality when discussing solutions with customers and as an engineer, I’m always passionate about new technologies and opportunities of innovation.
Last but the most important one I think is my ability to improve personally and professionally from my mistakes and experiences.
Provide Technical Support to Account teams Virtually.
Proof of concept.
Global briefing centers to give expert info to sales and customers.
Describe a time when you were faced with problems or stresses at work that tested your coping skills. What did you do?
The worst situation as a Professional was faced at Sandia National Laboratories. All tags were shipped to Lester our sales guy. I was to fly two day early to makes sure the tags work flawlessly in NM and Lester was supposed to be already there before my Arrival. Lesters Plan got hit by bird his flight was delayed 7 hours. He reached later and his luggage was put on another plane which arrived 26 hours later so we received the tags at 1 am
Provide an example of when you showed initiative and took the lead
Situation: We were having trouble closing the sale for City of St-Eustache for iSewer System –WiFi Project.
Initiative: I proposed integrating an Off the shelf Wi-Fi chip as a proof of concept.
Action: Provide a lead time.
Get PO for the Test site.
Find the chip.
Integrate it.
Write the code.
Test it.
Deploy it.
Results: Because of good planning I was able to complete the task before the deadline. Project lead to Wi-Fi based Reefer infrastructure in Jan 2015.
Tell me about a situation where you have had to speak with an unhappy customer.
I remember when I was working at the NOC:
Situation: A site in schedule was not filled.
Kashan from Huawei called and was very angry as the site was down for 30 mins and Telenor was to penalize them
Action: I listened to his problem.
Empathized and assured him that the problem will be resolved at the earliest possibility and the site will be re-fuelled today.
I informed our manager of the situation.
I called the fuelling team manager and queried why the site wasn’t fuelled.
Guard was absent access to the site was not granted.
Made sure in future, I’m made aware of any such situation so that an appropriate action is taken in a timely manner.
Followed up with the client and explained him why the site was not fueled.
Result: A standard practice was made to call guards before reaching the site to make sure guard is present.
In a failure situation, an ASAP information is forwarded to me so that I can forward it to the clients in advance.
Give me an example of a time when you motivated others and how this led to a positive outcome
Situation: At TTSi, there is a tendency of saying since we have most of the things we don’t need the others. When we were selected to be tested for crada, a proposed test plan arrived that would test the ability of the device was released. After I audited the technology and identified the short coming along with projected development work. We held a meeting to set/define the course of action. We started the meeting the same TTSi style but half way in the meeting I took the initiative and said “ we are already hanging by the tips of our finger nails and this is an opportunity that can be big in the future. Therefore we should make sure all the requirements are met not most”.
Outcome: Successful Crada trial and right now only 2 out 50 vendors.
Give an example of a goal you set and how you reached it. * Tell me about a time when you had too many things to do and you were required to prioritize your tasks.
Situation: Last fall we had several projects happening at the same time. A new firmware was released for cargokeeper, Crada was initiated, Two new iSewer sites needed to be deployed. And I was leaving for vacations in OCT. One out of two Technologists had been fired a week before.
Task: was to complete all of this work before I had left for the vacations and I had to make it all happen in 6 weeks.
Action: I prioritized the projects based on which one needed my supervision and which one’s I can do remotely. Created a Timeline for each projects and distributed the time needed for each stage completion of each project. E.g For Mirabel: time to prepare hardware, pre-test it and deployment. For St Eustache: time for R&D, testing and deployement. For firmware: No of tests and time needed for each test and results submission. For Crada: Defining short coming and I asked Rene to prepare an implementation plan. Each week I realized I had to work 10 extra hours. However thankfully all the plan and timelines came very handy and I was able to complete all the work before my vacations.
Results: Always take time out to plan things it creates efficiency in the system. Importance of delegation of work, team work and organizational skills.
Give me a specific example of a time when you used good judgment and logic in solving a problem.
Sandia National Laboratories
Situation: I had an option to ask for a delay in trial by one day or try figuring out what the problem was.
Task: So me being the on spot technical person had to make a call and decided to try to solve the now or delay the trial by one day.
Action: Explained the Glitch to the Sandia Staff, Apologized and asked for some time to fix the problem.
I went through the troubleshooting steps. Found the problem got together with Rene and implemented the fix.
Result: The trial was successful and I learned never to place bet on one stake in the future.
Tell me about a time when you had to use your presentation skills to influence someone's opinion.
Situation:
In November we had this internal meeting to discuss where we were with respect to the sale to Mirabel Municipality. Since Mirabel was in French so Andre was the one who had more details and he started explaineing what they wanted. Listening to their requirements, everyone said yes we can do that.
Action: At this point, I emphasized on the point that we should try to push the city of Mirabel in buying GSM solution and present them with the fact how it would be cheaper for them in the long run. I brought to the attention of the team that using a person to collect data would be more expensive + the commuting at site.
Result: Everyone agreed and appreciated the reasoning and sense behind the sale.
Idea was pushed to the municipality. They agreed with the fact but internal politics with in the municipality could not allow the engineer to pass the PO.
We had an issue with a hardware, where one of the power components was not up to the mark. I brought the problem up in our weekly meetings and explained the problem I was facing. The problem was
Give me a specific example of a time when you had to conform to a policy with which you did not agree.
Situation: Early in my days in Canada, I was working at Mac’s Convenience store to support my monthly expense. I was doing night shifts during which there wasn’t much customer traffic so I used to take my laptop with me to do some university work. But my manager was not very pleased about that and asked me not to use laptop during work. Although I did not agree with his policy but still respected his policy conformed according to his store culture.
Please discuss an important written document you were required to complete.
I have completed several docs and reports at Tektrap. Some were internal such as Functional specs, testing procedures, test reports and some of them were public such as CargoKeeper software guide but the most important one was I believe the Web interface guide for users:
It was most challenging as the audience of such a document can be any person technical or non technical. Challenge is for the guide to be as concise and simple as possible and yet self explainatory. I used the approach a picture speaks a thousand words in this document. Guide was divided into two parts data representation portion: In with with the help of pictures I explained each of the data field that was shown to the customer and second portion was device configuration: which was again explained using a good balance of figures and words.
Tell me about a time when you had to go above and beyond the call of duty in order to get a job done.
As a person I have always been the sort of guy who gets excited while helping people. Even during my university time I was the person teaching the whole group of fellow students before fials nut recently at TekTrap I think I have really gone beyond the call of duty. Because of a conflict between Andre and Chris, chris was fired. I was left with no technologist to build the material. Therefore for the last six months I’m not only doing my work but I’m carrying Chris’s load for the greater interest of the Organization and hoping to get better financially so that we can finally hire a electronics technologist to lighten my load.
Give me an example of a time when you had to make a split second decision.
Situation: Defense research and development Canada was funding satellite CragoKeeper development. Martin Dufresne started presenting the progress but Dr Zhao did not seem to be interested in marketing and sales stuff, after the presentation he was not too impressed and it seemed to me. Since I was involved in development as an engineer, and keeping in mind Dr Zhao was also an engineer I decided infact not to present him with what engineering work was done but infact give him a live a demo instead. I had not planned on it but to make the audit team happy, I took a hunch and they were really pleased with the work that had been accomplished.
What I learned from the experience was to always research on whom are you presenting and present it in a way that interests them.
What is your typical way of dealing with conflict? Give me an example.
Situation: In July, I received a sales call from casino lac leamy. Where they required 5 tags in I asked for a one week lead time and they said we need to have them in 3 days. I agreed to the sale knowing it will be a lot of work for 3 days. I went to Clem, my technologist who I had been pushing too hard for a week now and he lashed out on me explaining how overwhelmed he was.
Action: At first it was a novel situation for me. But a few seconds into listening I decided to remain calm and hear me out.
Me listening patiently, calmed him down a little and that point I said, “Clem would you calm down and hear me out atleast”.
At this point, I explained him the importance of this sale as a corporation. And I sympathized with him and offered him my help. I moved the deadline of a couple of other tasks that he was doing.
Eventually we agreed on the terms of me helping him and moving the deadlines of some other work.
Result: I was able to diffuse the situation. Next day he came apologising about he loosing it
We were able to meet the deadline with us putting some extra time together.
Tell me about a time you were able to successfully deal with another person even when that individual may not have personally liked you (or vice versa).
I personally do not judge people. I think no one person have the ability to be like by everyone. But I think Chris was an old employee and the fact I as a new grad and hired employee was supervising him bothered him, as he was not accustomed to it.
Action: But gradually, respecting his seniority and knowledge I always kept him in the decision making process. He inturn was also very professional and respectful of my decisions. I had concerns as well on the casuality he handled the electronics with but he respected my concerns
Tell me about a difficult decision you've made in the last year
In the recent FPS trial. We were told to supply the material for testing in a very short period of time. The situation called for testing the units on the go. I targeted to complete 7 units as 5 were to be transferred. Unfortunately on the last day before shipment I realized I have only 4 functional units and three units that were intermittent problems.
Task was to decide whether we should stick with 5 units or go ahead with four units
Action: I brought the problem to Andre. Presented him with the testing data and probability of the fifth unit failing during trial.
I also presented him with alternative of using one of the Old units that were ready available. Or shipping four units for now and shipping the fifth unit a aday after.
Result: based on our discussion, Andre approved me of reaching out to the Client and ask him if he was ok with four devices for now. Since it was a trial they said they are ok with four.
In the end the decision was made to send just these 4 units.

Tell me about a time when you made a mistake.
Humans are prone to mistakes. However what evolves a person is the ability to learn from the mistakes. My manager once told me about the site that needed to be deployed and asked me to prepare the material. He did not gave me a deadline and I assumed that it was not a priority. However, in reality my follow up question should have been hwen are we suppose to deploy the site.
Action: Later on Thursday, he came to my office to my office and asked me; “ SO are we ready for tomorrow?”. And I was all confused about what he was talking about. And then when mentioned the iSewer site, I told him no deadline was given, however he argued that Friday was told. Anyways I realised that there was no point on arguing.
I started preparing the plan for order completion.
Delegated the required work to be done on assembly to Chris and Clem.
Stayed late in the office for testing.
Came early next morning to insure the test results were good.
Luckily everything worked well.
And I learned a very important thing, “Never to assume anything”.
Give me an example of a time when you motivated others.
As a person, I have always been decisive in the fact that I want to stand out in the crowd. This fact alone always brought a lot of excitement and passion in the work that I did.
Meeting where I inspired. Also the WiFi solution, explained that it wasn’t a lot of work and lead the project.
My friend, even my girlfriend.
Tell me about a time when you presented a bad news.
Usually due to the nature of my work the bad news are always related to clients. During the FPS trial the tags had intermittent
Tell me about a time when you delegated a project effectively.
I think while delegating any work it is important to keep following things in mind.
Define the task
Select a suitable individual
Explain the scope of work and expectations.
Take feedback and discuss resources required, deadlines etc.
Support, communicate to be up to date.
Feedback: Appreciation and further guidelines.
Situation: I was generating the site maintenance schedule weekly. I realized that it wasn’t a very good use of my time. So idecided that I will automate this process and delegate this task to the technologist that does this job.
Action: I wrote a simple software.
Selected Clem. Explained him the scope of work and what was expected of him.
Discussed the deadlines and weekly meetings.
Kept an open communication channel to remain up-to-date.
What are your career goals?
I believe success comes in stages therefore I divide my career goals in stages aswell:
In early stage of my career my goal would be learn, accumulate knowledge and apply it in order to prove myself as a top professional. Earn the respect of my peers and managers and establish myself as an effective ICT professional. I would like to use the on job training to polish my technical and managerial skills and also grow my network of clients and peers using this global opportunity at cisco. Knowledge and resource sharing plays a major role in business success. Three years from now if higher managers comes with a major project and nominates me as a person to lead it, I would be satisfied myself.
In long term, 10 years from now I would like to see myself as a part of management that runs the corporation. I hope to be a part of a managerial team that decides the direction of the organization, defines the strategies of operation.