Companies worldwide are continuously looking for DevOps engineers, as this profession is vital for effective communication and collaboration within IT companies.
If you have primary or above basic knowledge in development, coding, and operations management, or if you are a tech-savvy person in nature, you can start a great career in this fast-emerging field, too!
What is a DevOps Engineer, and what must you prove to know during an interview?
DevOps engineers are those professionals in the company who link the software development and operations teams to ensure a smooth collaboration between the two. DevOps engineers are responsible for automating every single step in this collaboration process, making it quicker to deliver the final product, and track the process, overall.
To successfully handle these responsibilities, DevOps engineers should at least be very well aware of both fields’ main tools and practices. Besides, some companies might also require you to have strong coding skills.
To be short, here are the three main skills that HR professionals usually check during the DevOps interviews.
- Experience working with automation tools like Windows PowerShell DSC, SaltStack, Puppet, etc.
- Fluent knowledge of some popular programming languages such as Python, Java, etc.
- Strong communication skills to successfully arrange collaboration between two different teams.
Though there is one concept of the DevOps engineer, different organizations perceive it differently. Therefore, we can’t say what questions HR people might ask you during an interview.
However, we can try to guess those questions based on the experience of previously interviewed DevOps engineers.
Actually, that’s what we did. We have collected the top 5 DevOps interview questions that are usually asked potential candidates.
Read below to ensure you have great answers to at least 10 popular DevOps interview questions that you might be asked during your next job interview.
Question 1: What is the difference between DevOps and Agile?
Answer. Agile is mainly responsible for software development, while DevOps also accounts for software deployment. If a company wants to test some ideas in the software sample, agile is the best way. However, due to agile, the product will be working only on the developers’ platforms and will not be accessible to the public.
If a company wants to test the developed software, it should have DevOps in place. A DevOps engineer will organize the safe and smooth deployment of the software.
Question 2: How does DevOps benefit the company?
Answer. DevOps engineers connect and control the working progress of development and operations teams. Therefore, its main benefit for the organization is to ensure the product development process is under control and the final result will be delivered in time.
There are two main aspects where businesses can benefit from DevOps, to be more specific.
- Technically, DevOps will ensure continuous software delivery and provide faster bug-fixing if necessary.
- From the business perspective, DevOps provides a company with a more stable operating environment, frees more time for the teams to add value to the products.
Question 3: Which management type is essential in DevOps and why?
Answer. It’s essential to have a configuration management system in place, which helps coordinate the development and design processes of the application.
Generally, configuration management refers to the type of management where all the changes are handled so that the core integrity of the system is not lost. As DevOps is about automation and its many changes, CM helps to organize all those changes smoothly;y for different teams.
Implementing gradual changes in the company means establishing consistency and improving company operations.
Question 4: Which DevOps lifecycle phrases do you know?
Answer. A DevOps lifecycle consists of all the steps starting from planning the requirements for the application to monitoring the final results. This lifecycle includes the following 7 stages.
- Plan: All the main details related to the application development, such as requirements, budget, constraints, etc., are discussed with the team.
- Code: The application’s backend is coded according to all the client requirements. The output of this stage is code units.
- Build: In this stage, the building of code units is finalized.
- Test: The first sample of the application is tested and sent back to the previous stage if there are bugs.
- Integrate: In this stage, developers integrate all the previously created code units.
- Deploy: Developers deploy the codeDevOpsNow in the client’s environment.
- Monitor: In this stage, the final monitoring takes place on whether the application was created based on the initial requirements.
Question 5: Which are the main KPIs that DevOps helps to reach?
Answer. Actually, well-organized development operations and tighter control over application development are the main goals that any DevOps engineer chases. However, there are also some KPIs that narrow down the main mission of DevOps in the company.
- Firstly, by smarter management over the application process, bug-fixing becomes easier. If there are issues that need to be solved, DevOps will help accelerate that process.
- DevOps takes the development process beyond just development. It also supports the deployment of the software. So, another KPI of DevOps is to increase deployment frequency.
- On top of what was just said, DevOps also is responsible for additional quality control and monitoring. Therefore, DevOps also reduces the percentage of failed deployments of the software.
Final thoughts
If you want to strike your interview, you need to know all the ropes of your chosen profession. You never know which questions you might be asked, which means you need to be armed with answers to more advanced questions as well.
So, don’t set the above basic DevOps interview questions as the limit of preparing for your next interview. Explore the profession as profoundly as possible, and take our free programming courses also to improve your coding skills.
