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DevOps Engineer Interview Path

Master DevOps engineering interviews with real-world use cases. Each scenario includes key topics, interview questions, and technical concepts you'll encounter at top tech companies.

8
Use Cases
40+
Interview Questions
8
Categories
100%
Production-Ready
🔄

Building a Multi-Environment CI/CD Pipeline

IntermediateCI/CD

Design and implement a complete CI/CD pipeline supporting development, staging, and production environments.

🎯 Key Topics to Master:

✓Pipeline Architecture & Design
✓Build Automation & Artifact Management
✓Automated Testing Integration
✓Environment-Specific Configurations
✓Deployment Strategies (Blue-Green, Canary)
✓Rollback Mechanisms & Safety Checks

💡 Common Interview Questions:

  • 1.How do you handle secrets and credentials in CI/CD?
  • 2.What strategies prevent bad code from reaching production?
  • 3.How do you implement zero-downtime deployments?
  • 4.What metrics track pipeline health and efficiency?
  • 5.How do you handle dependencies between services?

🔧 Technical Concepts:

Jenkins, GitLab CI, GitHub ActionsDocker image optimizationArtifact versioning strategiesPipeline-as-code (YAML/Groovy)Branch protection and approval gates
☸️

Kubernetes Production Cluster Management

AdvancedContainer Orchestration

Set up and manage a production-grade Kubernetes cluster with high availability and security.

🎯 Key Topics to Master:

✓Cluster Architecture & Components
✓Pod & Service Management
✓Auto-scaling (HPA, VPA, Cluster Autoscaler)
✓Network Policies & Security
✓Storage & StatefulSets
✓Monitoring & Logging Integration

💡 Common Interview Questions:

  • 1.How do you handle persistent storage in Kubernetes?
  • 2.What are the differences between Deployment and StatefulSet?
  • 3.How do you troubleshoot a CrashLoopBackOff pod?
  • 4.What security best practices should be implemented?
  • 5.How do you manage cluster upgrades with zero downtime?

🔧 Technical Concepts:

ReplicaSets and DeploymentsConfigMaps and Secrets managementIngress controllers and load balancingRBAC and service accountsHelm charts and package management
🏗️

Infrastructure as Code with Terraform

IntermediateInfrastructure as Code

Provision and manage cloud infrastructure using Terraform with best practices and team collaboration.

🎯 Key Topics to Master:

✓Terraform Architecture & State Management
✓Module Design & Reusability
✓Multi-Cloud & Multi-Environment Setup
✓Version Control & Collaboration
✓Testing & Validation Strategies
✓Cost Optimization Techniques

💡 Common Interview Questions:

  • 1.How do you manage Terraform state in a team environment?
  • 2.What are the benefits of using modules?
  • 3.How do you handle secrets in Terraform?
  • 4.What strategies prevent infrastructure drift?
  • 5.How do you test infrastructure changes before applying?

🔧 Technical Concepts:

Remote state backends (S3, Terraform Cloud)Workspaces for environment isolationData sources and outputsProvider versioning and lockingTerraform plan and apply workflows
📊

Observability & Monitoring Platform

AdvancedMonitoring

Design a comprehensive monitoring and observability solution for microservices architecture.

🎯 Key Topics to Master:

✓Metrics Collection & Aggregation
✓Distributed Tracing
✓Log Aggregation & Analysis
✓Alerting & Incident Response
✓Service Level Objectives (SLOs)
✓Dashboards & Visualization

💡 Common Interview Questions:

  • 1.What are the three pillars of observability?
  • 2.How do you choose which metrics to alert on?
  • 3.What is the difference between logs and traces?
  • 4.How do you reduce alert fatigue?
  • 5.How do you track service dependencies?

🔧 Technical Concepts:

Prometheus and GrafanaOpenTelemetry and JaegerELK/EFK stackRED and USE methodologiesService mesh observability
☁️

AWS Multi-Account Strategy & Landing Zone

AdvancedCloud Architecture

Implement a scalable AWS multi-account architecture with centralized governance and security.

🎯 Key Topics to Master:

✓AWS Organizations & Account Structure
✓Identity & Access Management (IAM)
✓Centralized Logging & Security
✓Network Architecture (VPC, Transit Gateway)
✓Cost Management & Billing
✓Compliance & Governance

💡 Common Interview Questions:

  • 1.Why use multiple AWS accounts instead of one?
  • 2.How do you implement cross-account access?
  • 3.What are AWS Organizations SCPs?
  • 4.How do you centralize billing and cost tracking?
  • 5.What security controls should be in the landing zone?

🔧 Technical Concepts:

Control Tower and landing zonesGuardDuty and Security HubCloudTrail for audit loggingAWS SSO and federationResource tagging strategies
🔥

Disaster Recovery & Business Continuity

AdvancedReliability

Design and implement disaster recovery strategies with backup, replication, and failover mechanisms.

🎯 Key Topics to Master:

✓RTO & RPO Requirements
✓Backup & Restore Strategies
✓Multi-Region Replication
✓Failover & Failback Procedures
✓Chaos Engineering
✓DR Testing & Validation

💡 Common Interview Questions:

  • 1.What is the difference between RTO and RPO?
  • 2.How do you test disaster recovery procedures?
  • 3.What are the different DR strategies (backup, pilot light, warm standby, hot site)?
  • 4.How do you handle data consistency in multi-region setups?
  • 5.What are the cost implications of different DR approaches?

🔧 Technical Concepts:

Database replication strategiesCross-region backupsDNS failover with Route53Automated recovery proceduresDisaster recovery runbooks
🔒

Security Hardening & Compliance Automation

AdvancedSecurity

Implement security best practices and automate compliance checks across infrastructure.

🎯 Key Topics to Master:

✓Security Scanning & Vulnerability Management
✓Secrets Management (Vault, AWS Secrets Manager)
✓Network Security & Segmentation
✓Compliance as Code
✓Security Incident Response
✓Container Security

💡 Common Interview Questions:

  • 1.How do you scan for vulnerabilities in container images?
  • 2.What is the principle of least privilege?
  • 3.How do you rotate secrets without downtime?
  • 4.What tools automate compliance checks?
  • 5.How do you secure communication between services?

🔧 Technical Concepts:

SAST and DAST toolsNetwork policies and firewallsCertificate management (cert-manager)Security groups and NACLsImage signing and verification
🔀

GitOps Workflow Implementation

IntermediateDevOps Culture

Implement GitOps principles for declarative infrastructure and application deployment.

🎯 Key Topics to Master:

✓GitOps Principles & Practices
✓ArgoCD or Flux Setup
✓Git as Single Source of Truth
✓Automated Sync & Reconciliation
✓Progressive Delivery
✓Rollback & Recovery

💡 Common Interview Questions:

  • 1.What are the benefits of GitOps over traditional CI/CD?
  • 2.How do you handle secrets in a GitOps workflow?
  • 3.What happens if Git and cluster state diverge?
  • 4.How do you implement approval workflows in GitOps?
  • 5.What are the challenges of GitOps at scale?

🔧 Technical Concepts:

Pull vs push-based deploymentsDeclarative vs imperative configurationRepository structure patternsMulti-cluster managementAutomated drift detection

📚 How to Use This Path

1. Study Each Use Case

Go through each scenario systematically. Understand the architecture, tools, and best practices.

2. Practice Interview Questions

Prepare answers for each question. Focus on explaining tradeoffs and decision-making processes.

3. Build Lab Environments

Set up hands-on labs for CI/CD, Kubernetes, and infrastructure automation. Document your approach.

4. Master Technical Tools

Gain practical experience with core DevOps tools. Be ready to discuss real-world challenges.