Just reading responses to "What is DevOps?" is enough to make your head spin if you don't have a technical background... This buzzword—short for Development & Operations—has gained so much traction in the last few years that it's hard to keep track of exactly what it means.
In spite of all the DevOps job postings out there, DevOps isn't really a position so much as a way of working. And to land a DevOps engineering role, you need to have a solid understanding of the DevOps model.
Because DevOps is continually evolving and hard to pin down, it can make testing your DevOps knowledge and prepping for interviews particularly challenging.
That's why we asked our partner companies to share the DevOps interview questions they love to ask and what they're looking for in an answer. Read on and get ready to crush your next DevOps interview!
5 DevOps Interview Questions You Need to Know
1) uShip asks, "With the nature of our industry in constant flux and paradigm changes, how do you keep up?"
Answer:
"I'm looking for folks trying to be involved with DevOps communities by either participating in meetup groups, message boards, internet groups & conferences. The overall goal of the question is to gauge the level of engagement into their craft and find out how the candidate constantly learns and grows as a DevOps engineer." — DevOps Manager, uShip
Sick of working like a dog & ready to work with your dog instead? Check out uShip's open roles here.
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2) OneLogin asks DevOps candidates to "Design a highly available system."
Answer:
Ready to work somewhere over the (double) rainbow and enjoy that view? Apply to be a DevOps Security Engineer.
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3) Braintree doesn't have a single question they ask, but rather a set of questions that help them understand how you get work done both individually and collaboratively with other people and teams.
Answer:
"At Braintree we have three core values (Ask Why, Care A Lot, Solve Together) and we look for candidates that demonstrate these qualities above and beyond just their technical knowledge. When we are interviewing you for a DevOps position it is of critical importance that we find candidates that are open to collaborating at a high level and contributing to a vast body of work with high quality results for our merchants." —Ben Hatfield, Hiring Manager at Braintree
Want to join a team you'll be proud of? Check out these open DevOps roles at Braintree.
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4) Wayfair says, "We often look for (without directly asking) how someone defines DevOps."
Answer:
"Our preferred answer is that it's both a process and a culture. Without the cultural/mindset piece, the process will fail." — Karen at Wayfair
Want to strike a pose with the Wayfair team? Check out their open DevOps Roles.
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5) PowerToFly asks, "What tools do you think should be in every DevOps' belt?"
Answer:
Our DevOps guru Emiliano looks for an answer that includes tools like:
- Docker
- Continuous Integration
- Automation
- Infrastructure as Code (Terraform, CloudFormation)
- Configuration as Code (Ansible, Puppet, Chef, Saltstack)
- Scripting Languages (Bash, Python, Perl, Go, Ruby)
- Source Code Management (Git)
- Monitoring (Prometheus, CloudWatch, Kibana, Grafana, Nagios)
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What are you waiting for? Get applying!! Good luck.
- 1) uShip asks, "With the nature of our industry in constant flux and paradigm changes, how do you keep up?"
- 2) OneLogin asks DevOps candidates to "Design a highly available system."
- 3) Braintree doesn't have a single question they ask, but rather a set of questions that help them understand how you get work done both individually and collaboratively with other people and teams.
- 4) Wayfair says, "We often look for (without directly asking) how someone defines DevOps."
- 5) PowerToFly asks, "What tools do you think should be in every DevOps' belt?"
