> If you ask me "how does the internet work" and what you really want is details on the underlying protocols, at around the range of TCP/IP, why aren't you actu

> If you ask me "how does the internet work" and what you really want is details on the underlying protocols, at around the range of TCP/IP, why aren't you actually asking for that? Because the more specific the question, the less likely any interviewee is going to be able to answer it correctly. > If that's not relevant for the position (it's almost certainly not for most "full-stack" engineers), switch to asking questions that are relevant to the work they'll actually be doing. A full-stack engineering position is really broad in scope. You need to be able to handle any type of web-related task they throw at you. From architecting new features to troubleshooting slowness. You're expected to be a hammer they can swing at all their technical problems, which all look like nails to them. Don't like it? Too bad, that's the job. Where a general "how does the Internet work" question fits in is, ok, you've got complaints coming in from customer service about site slowness. How do you start to troubleshoot this problem? At what point can you just say, "oh, it's not us, it's with the Internet," and will you be able to explain why it's not us to the satisfaction of the people paying you to know about these things? The more abstract, fundamental knowledge you have about how the Internet works, the more you can start to nail down the scope of the problem. Also, some problems will have you writing custom protocols. It helps to not get lost.