Track the time you spend on toil weekly. If it exceeds 50%, you are a manual operator, not an SRE. Automate the highest-frequency tasks first.
Strong answers define toil clearly (manual, repetitive, automatable, without enduring value), describe measurement approaches (time tracking, ticket analysis), and give specific automation examples with impact metrics. Best candidates discuss the strategic importance of keeping toil below a threshold to preserve time for engineering work.
Fundamental SRE principle. Candidates who accept manual work as inevitable are not SRE-minded. Those who systematically reduce toil free themselves for higher-value reliability engineering.