PowerShell interview questions are set to evaluate your proficiency in the command-line shell and the associated scripting language. You must thoroughly practice basic and advanced PowerShell concepts. Introduced 15+ years ago, PowerShell continues to prominence in today's tech world. Top tech companies, including Netflix, Target, and DoubleSlash, have deeply integrated PowerShell into their architecture and design.
Read ahead to discover the important PowerShell interview questions and answers for interns, experienced software engineers, and tech leads. Going through these PowerShell interview questions will help you self-assess your preparation and give you insights into the most anticipated questions in the technical interview rounds.
If you are a software engineer, coding engineer, software developer, engineering manager, or tech lead preparing for tech interviews, check out our technical interview checklist, interview questions page, and salary negotiation ebook to get interview-ready!
Having trained over 11,000 software engineers, we know what it takes to crack the toughest tech interviews. Our alums consistently land offers from FAANG+ companies. The highest ever offer received by an IK alum is a whopping $1.267 Million!
At IK, you get the unique opportunity to learn from expert instructors who are hiring managers and tech leads at Google, Facebook, Apple, and other top Silicon Valley tech companies.
Want to nail your next tech interview? Sign up for our FREE Webinar.
Here's what we'll cover:
If you are a DevOps professional or a system admin, you will come across PowerShell listed in the job description. The following Shell interview questions and answers will help you get well-versed in the basic PowerShell concepts before your next DevOps interview.
PowerShell is an extendable, cross-platform command-line shell. It is a scripting environment built on the .NET framework.
Multiple system administrators depend on Powershell's command-line tools to manage, simplify, and scale tasks in operating systems and processors. Microsoft introduced PowerShell to make system tasks automatic, such as batch processing. The PowerShell language is similar to Perl and provides different ways to automate tasks.
PowerShell interview questions often require you to elucidate one of the following features: script debugging, tab expansion, error handling, background job, scheduled job, steppable pipeline, constrained run spaces, remoting, and network file transfer. The primary features of PowerShell are as follows:
Execution policies are recruiters' favorite topic for PowerShell interview questions. Execution policies control the conditions under which PowerShell loads the configuration files and executes scripts. The six types of execution policies are as follows:
A series of statements connected by the pipe '|' operator is referred to as a PowerShell pipeline. So, whenever you have to join two command statements, you require the PowerShell pipeline technique. In such a case, one command statement's output becomes the second command statement's input, and thus, each pipeline operator sends the output/result of the preceding command to the next command. The syntax of a pipeline is as follows:
Command-1 | Command-2 | Command-3
You should be prepared for PowerShell interview questions on merits and demerits. Consider the following points while enumerating the main drawbacks of PowerShell:
PowerShell brackets fall into the following three categories:
A variable is a unit of memory used to store the data in PowerShell. It can contain integers, strings, and objects.
Declare: You can declare a variable using the $ (dollar) sign at the beginning of the variable name as represented below:
$ <variable_name>
For example: $var
Create: You can create a variable by using the assignment operator to assign the value to a variable. The syntax to create a variable is as follows:
$ <variable_name> = <value>
The three main types of variables in PowerShell are:
The different types of operators in PowerShell are:
You should be prepared to answer PowerShell interview questions on different types of loops. The concept of loops is useful in PowerShell when you need to execute the block of commands or statements several times. Following are categories of loops in PowerShell:
Here is a list of advanced PowerShell interview questions for DevOps engineers and other software developers.
The commands written in a .NET language such as VB or C# that return the object of the Microsoft .NET framework to the next commands in the pipeline are referred to as cmdlets. They follow the verb-noun pattern, like get-help, set-Item.
The Get-Command cmdlet acquires all commands performed on the computer. It includes functions, cmdlets, applications, aliases, filters, and scripts. It fetches the commands from other PowerShell modules and commands imported from other sessions.
If you have constructed a web part using VS 2010, you can deploy it with the help of ctrl+f5. You can document a PowerShell script (.ps1) to activate the web part component and run it after deployment.
The Get-ServiceStatus function allows filtering of window services. PowerShell takes note of the services' Running' and 'Stopped' during scripting. When the Get-Service is operated without parameters, all the local computer's services are returned. You can obtain only certain services by selecting the display name or service name, or you can pipe service objects to this cmdlet.
PowerShell changes the name of a variable through its value when it is added to double-quoted strings. This PowerShell feature is known as variable interpolation.
Learn How to Become a DevOps Engineer with expert tips.
Need some more PowerShell Interview questions for practice? Here are some common questions that you can expect in your upcoming interview.
Practice these PowerShell interview questions and get enrolled in mock interviews to learn from hiring managers of FAANG companies and nail your next tech interview.
Q1. What topics should I prepare for PowerShell interview questions?
You should have complete knowledge of pipelines, execution policies, operators, cmdlets, and loops in PowerShell. You can also find the most important topics from the key requirements section of the job description of the position you are applying for.
Q2. What job positions entail PowerShell interview questions?
Job positions that require PowerShell fall into three main categories: administration, scripting, and engineering. PowerShell scripting positions are the most common ones in top companies that need custom code to get PowerShell work on their systems.
Q3. Are PowerShell interview questions hard?
PowerShell interview questions are comparatively easier than questions on other technical frameworks because PowerShell is one of the easiest languages. If you go through the important concepts and practice the most frequently asked PowerShell interview questions, you will be able to ace the interview rounds with perfection.
Q4. What popular tools integrate with PowerShell?
Microsoft Azure, .NET, Microsoft SQL Server, Linux, Starship, Azure Cognitive Search, and ConEmu are popular tools that integrate with PowerShell.
Q5. How much does a PowerShell developer make?
The average salary of a PowerShell developer in the United States is $112,250 per year or $57.56 per hour. While entry-level positions begin at $99,750 per year, experienced workers make up to $127,975 per year (source: talent.com).
Preparing for technical interviews, especially the challenging ones, steers you on the path to becoming a better software professional with improved coding, problem-solving, and behavioral skills. You become more confident at taking and cracking interviews.
Interview Kickstart offers interview preparation courses taught by FAANG tech leads and seasoned hiring managers. We have trained thousands of software engineers to crack the toughest interviews at Google, Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, and other top tech companies.
Register for our FREE webinar to know more!