Amazon Interview Question Testing / Quality Assurances
Country: United States
Interview Type: In-Person
Very well comprehended, in my opinion.
I would add, I would also try another website(s) to eliminate (1) & (2). Also launch speedtest in parallel ( for 2)
This is an open ended question. I am sure that's the intention and it's expected of the interviewee to discuss various reasons. This is open ended because the latency could be anything (see Wikipedia Latency_(engineering) ) for various types of latencies).
First I'd ask for more clarification: Is the specific website is slow or all the websites that you're visiting that day is slow?
If yes, then it could be the computer, the browser, and/or any other nodes between you and your ISP (e.g., the routers, DNS server, your network equipment, etc.). In this case it's hard to tell if there is a server latency. You can still use traceroute command to see the latency between the routers/gateways between your computer and the web server.
If no, then there is a a server latency and/or network latency between your ISP and the server. Then you can discuss the possible reasons for server latency and/or network latency.
It's also a good idea to discuss the networks tools, such as ping, traceroute/tracert, etc., that you can use to pinpoint the specific issue.
At a high level there are 3 things one or more of which may be slow:
- vj May 22, 201301. Your computer, 02. internet connection, 03. the server
01. Your computer it can be slow because of some anti virus scan, some process using high processor/network, HDD may be full, your computer may be virus infected, and thousands other possible reasons.
02. Internet: Your proxy setting may be using a slow proxy, your ISP may be slow, the server may have failed over to a different Geo so it is taking long time to route the calls, etc.
03. Slow server: Server might be under DOS attack, All the instances may not be up, because of festival season/deal/new offering much more than usual # of people are using the site, servers running out of space, Networking issue in data center, slow or dead partner servers, etc. to name a few.