Top 50+ DevOps Interview Questions and Answers 2021

We all know that a DevOps engineer is one of the most sought-after professionals in the industry. If you’re looking to hire one, then it’s important to understand what they do and how they can help your company. Below, we’ll discuss some common DevOps interview questions and provide detailed answers for each question.

DevOps Interview Questions and Answers

What is DevOps?

DevOps is a software development and delivery process that strongly focuses on automation, collaboration, and integration between different departments. It enables the developers to take more responsibility for writing quality code, deploying it faster, and ensuring that business applications can keep up with increasing demands.

The main goal of DevOps is to improve communication in order to solve problems quickly. By using a variety of tools, methodologies, and techniques combined into one process, teams can achieve this goal better than ever before.

DevOps answers questions such as: How do we ensure our product works well on all platforms? What happens when requirements change or new features are added? When should we perform load testing? And many others.

Why do companies need to adopt DevOps practices?

In today’s highly competitive business world, companies need to be as efficient as possible to succeed. Competition is so tough that even a minute delay can cause you to lose out on money and customers.

One of the biggest issues with software development until now has been communication within an organization. Problems were solved slowly, and it was difficult for teams to understand what other groups had already tried or accomplished—which often led them to reinvent the wheel instead of using best practices from their colleagues (which they might not even know existed).

Here are three reasons why companies need to adopt DevOps practices:

  • The speed, quality, and stability of new code releases can be improved by reducing the time needed for feedback.
  • More frequent software deployments lead to faster identification and resolution of technical problems.
  • Developers have increased responsibility in making sure that their products work well with other systems within the company or external clients’ environment.

By adopting DevOps practices, you can achieve your company’s goals of better communication between departments and faster time to market for new products.

How does one become a DevOps engineer?

DevOps engineers are professionals that have a lot of experience in agile development, continuous delivery pipelines, and infrastructure as code. They are experts at working with different automation tools and can implement feedback loops between developers and operations teams.

These engineers also need to be able to communicate effectively with stakeholders within an organization about changes made by either group—and how those decisions impact other departments’ responsibilities.

To become a DevOps engineer, one needs to have experience with different programming languages and tools. A background in networking, system administration, or operations will be beneficial as well since automation is becoming increasingly important for companies to succeed.

Which are the most common tools used in DevOps?

There are so many different tools used in DevOps that it’s difficult to name them all. The most common, however, include Git for version control and continuous integration tools like Jenkins or Travis CI.

Other important automation tools are Puppet/Ansible/Chef/SaltStack for configuration management; monitoring solutions such as New Relic, Nagios, or DataDog; and different deployment tools such as AWS CodeDeploy, Google Cloud Deployment Manager, Capistrano, etc.

Other tools that can help a company implement DevOps include chat applications such as Slack or HipChat for intra-team communications and products like Jira for backlog management.

How do you hire a DevOps engineer?

It can be challenging to hire a DevOps engineer because the industry is relatively new. Plus, the demand for these professionals has grown significantly in recent years as companies struggle to compete on a global scale.

To assess a potential candidate, you need to first consider what your company’s technical needs are. Do you need someone who has experience with Windows, Linux, or Mac computers? What about networking and storage technologies?

Next, use DevOps behavioral interview questions to assess the candidate’s personality traits. Do they seem like a problem solver that can lead a team of developers to success? If so, it might be worth finding out more about their experience with your company’s stack to see how well they can handle the technical tasks.

More tips for hiring a DevOps engineer:

  • Look for professionals who have been in different positions—not just as developers or system administrators. These people will be able to understand problems from both perspectives.
  • When you get to the interview stage, make sure that candidates are able to explain technical problems in a way that non-technical employees can understand. This will let your team know if they would be comfortable working with this person or not.
  • Be sure to ask the right DevOps assessment questions to determine if the candidate is a good fit. (Hint: Use these Top 50 DevOps interview questions.) An example of DevOps interview questions for freshers might be: “Have you worked on a release before and how did it go? What were some of the things that could have gone better about it?” Whereas DevOps interview questions for 5 years experience might ask: “What are the biggest challenges you have faced in your career so far?”

Is there any downside to adopting DevOps processes and tools?

There’s no doubt that DevOps processes and tools have changed the IT industry for the better.

However, as with any new technology or methodology, there are still some struggles companies need to overcome before they see a real improvement in their development process.

For example, many developers feel overwhelmed by having so much responsibility now because they’re not just creating the code, they’re also responsible for deploying it and making sure that all systems are up-to-date.

Another downside to adopting DevOps practices is that some companies lack in-house expertise—which makes them turn to less experienced third parties instead of their own teams when something goes wrong. This can have a serious impact on business continuity.

That’s why having an experienced engineer on your team is so important. Not only will they help your company adopt DevOps, but their expertise and problem-solving skills can also reduce the risk of issues.

How to crack a DevOps interview

As the hiring manager, it’s your responsibility to choose the best candidate to join your team. To do this, you need to be familiar with DevOps interview questions and answers so that you can assess candidates’ qualities on an even playing field.

By asking job seekers DevOps assessment questions during phone screens, hiring managers can get a better idea of their skillset—and whether or not they’re a good fit for the role. Then, using Woven’s interview assessment platform, you can see how well they perform in a real-world situation.

Take the next step toward finding your perfect DevOps engineer by starting a free trial of Woven’s software today!

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