DevOps Engineer Interview Questions

The goal for a successful interview for a DevOps Engineer is for the candidate to effectively demonstrate their knowledge and experience with continuous integration and delivery, automation infrastructure, and cloud computing technologies.

Situational interview questions

• Imagine that one of your virtual servers suddenly stops working. What are the steps you would take to investigate and resolve the issue?
• Suppose that the development team wants to pursue a new software delivery approach, but the existing infrastructure does not support it. What solutions would you propose to enable the new approach without disrupting the existing one?
• Let’s say that one of your containerized applications is experiencing performance issues. How would you diagnose the problem and identify the root cause?
• Imagine that your team is implementing a new DevOps tool, but the team members are not familiar with it. What are the steps you would take to ensure that everyone is trained and comfortable using the new tool?
• Suppose that there is a security breach in one of the applications hosted on your platform. What are the immediate steps you would take to contain the issue and prevent future breaches?

Soft skills interview questions

• Can you tell me about a time when you successfully communicated complex technical information to a non-technical team member or stakeholder?
• How do you approach collaborating with team members who have different skill sets or personalities from your own?
• Can you describe a time when you had to quickly adapt to changing priorities or expectations in a project? How did you handle it?
• How do you manage your time and prioritize tasks when faced with multiple competing priorities or projects?
• Can you give an example of a time when you identified a problem or challenge within a team or project and took proactive steps to address it?

Role-specific interview questions

• What experience do you have in containerization, including which platforms have you used?
• Explain your understanding of continuous integration and delivery, including the tools you have used to implement them.
• Can you describe a complex infrastructure problem you’ve solved in the past and how you went about addressing it?
• Explain how you have implemented security best practices while setting up a new environment or application.
• How do you monitor and maintain application and server performance, and what tools do you use to accomplish this?

STAR interview questions

1. Situation: Can you describe a time when a project you were working on faced a critical issue?

Task: What was your role and responsibility in that particular project?

Action: What steps did you take to address the issue, and how did you go about resolving it?

Result: What were the end results of the actions you took, and how did it impact the project overall?

2. Situation: Can you tell me about a time when you had to work with a challenging team member?

Task: What was your role in the project, and what was the team member’s role?

Action: How did you approach and communicate with this individual to resolve any issues or conflicts that arose?

Result: What were the results of your efforts, and how effective were your communication and teamwork skills?

3. Situation: Describe a time when a release or deployment did not go as planned.

Task: What was your role, and what was the specific problem with the deployment?

Action: What steps did you take to fix the problem, and how did you communicate the issue to the team or stakeholders?

Result: What were the outcomes of the issue, and how did you ensure that it didn’t happen again in the future?

4. Situation: Can you give an example of how you have automated a task or process to improve efficiency?

Task: What was the task or process you automated, and what were your responsibilities surrounding it?

Action: What methods or tools did you use to automate the task, and how did you test and verify its success?

Result: What were the outcomes of the automation, and how did it impact the team or company’s efficiency overall?

5. Situation: Can you describe a time when you had to manage a project with multiple stakeholders and competing priorities?

Task: What was your role, and what were some of the priorities and opinions of the stakeholders involved?

Action: How did you effectively manage and balance those priorities, and what steps did you take to ensure that everyone’s needs were met?

Result: What were the results of the project, and how did your management skills impact its success?