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Master DevOps interview questions with insights on CI/CD, cloud, automation, and containers to boost your skills, confidence, and career growth.
Published on: September 7, 2025
OVERVIEW
DevOps is a key practice in modern software development, combining tools, processes, and culture to bridge development and operations. For professionals aiming to advance their careers, DevOps interview questions helps candidates enhance their technical knowledge, problem-solving skills and gain a clearer understanding of how automation, continuous integration, and deployment shape effective software delivery.
Note: We have compiled all DevOps Interview Questions for you in a template format. Feel free to comment on it. Check it out now!
This section covers basic DevOps interview questions that help interviewers assess your understanding of core DevOps concepts, practices, and tools. Whether you're new to the field or brushing up on essentials, these questions form the foundation for deeper discussions during your interview.
DevOps is a combination of cultural practices, tools, and philosophies that aim to unify software development (Dev) and IT operations (Ops). It focuses on automating and streamlining the processes of software delivery and infrastructure changes, enabling teams to build, test, and release software faster and more reliably.
For more details, check out this DevOps guide.
A DevOps engineer is someone who works across both development and operations teams to make sure software gets built, tested, and released smoothly. They focus on automating repetitive tasks, setting up tools that help with continuous integration and delivery, and making sure the systems run reliably. Their job is to bridge the gap between writing code and running it in production, helping teams work together more efficiently.
DevOps offers several impactful benefits that significantly improve software delivery and team performance:
The most popular DevOps tools include:
Note: Automate tests across 3,000+ browsers & devices directly in your DevOps pipeline. Try LambdaTest Now!
Continuous Integration (CI) is the practice of frequently merging code changes from multiple developers into a shared repository. Each merge triggers an automated build and test process. This ensures that integration issues are detected early, reducing the risk of bugs piling up over time. CI promotes collaboration, improves transparency, and maintains a consistently working codebase.
Continuous Deployment (CD), on the other hand, takes automation one step further. Once code changes pass automated tests, they are automatically deployed to production without manual intervention. This approach reduces lead time, enables faster feedback from users, and ensures that new features and fixes reach customers quickly and reliably.
The key difference is that CI focuses on integrating and testing code continuously, while CD automates the release process to production. Together, they create a streamlined workflow that minimizes errors, speeds up delivery, and enhances overall software quality.
To know more, check out this blog on Continuous Integration vs Continuous Deployment.
In DevOps, SSH plays an important role in assisting with safe and automated remote management, infrastructure, and deployment. It ensures that communication between systems is encrypted and authenticated, a must-have for modern DevOps workflows.
Key Uses of SSH in DevOps:
This is one of the commonly asked DevOps interview questions. CAMS stands for Culture, Automation, Measurement, and Sharing, a core framework that defines the values and practices needed to successfully implement DevOps.
The various phases of the DevOps lifecycle are as follows:
Continuous Testing is the practice of running automated tests throughout the software lifecycle, providing developers real-time feedback on code quality and functionality. Instead of waiting until the end of development, tests run continuously every time code is integrated or changed. This early detection reduces bugs, mitigates risks, and ensures stable software releases.
This is one of the frequently asked DevOps interview questions. The three most common DevOps Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) used to measure the outcomes of DevOps practices are:
Configuration management in DevOps is the process of handling system resources and maintaining consistency across infrastructure.
This is one of the popular DevOps interview questions. AWS plays a major role in DevOps by providing scalable, on-demand cloud services that simplify automation, infrastructure management, and application deployment. It supports the core DevOps principles of continuous integration, continuous delivery, and rapid feedback.
Scaling is about adjusting resources to handle increased traffic or workload. Horizontal and vertical scaling differ in how they achieve this capacity increase.
This is one of the commonly asked DevOps interview questions. Key differences between DevOps and Agile:
Aspect | DevOps | Agile |
---|---|---|
Focus | Software delivery, deployment, and operations. | Method for software development. |
Purpose | Reliable, frequent, and automated testing and deployment. | Continuous development improvements through feedback. |
Scope | Deployment, operations, and infrastructure management. | Applied across departments with flexible practices. |
Approach | Combines development and operations for faster delivery. | Iterative and collaborative development. |
Key Activity | Continuous testing, integration, and delivery. | Continuous development improvements. |
Software Handling | Uses pre-built, stable software for deployment and monitoring. | Builds and updates software incrementally. |
Infrastructure as Code (IaC) is the practice of managing and provisioning infrastructure using machine-readable configuration files instead of manual processes. It treats infrastructure setup like software code, enabling automation, repeatability, and consistency.
Some common IaC tools include:
Puppet is an open-source configuration management tool widely used in DevOps to automate the provisioning, configuration, and management of servers and infrastructure. It follows a declarative approach, where you define the desired system state, and Puppet ensures it is achieved and maintained.
This is one of the frequently posed DevOps interview questions. Docker is a container platform that packages applications with all dependencies. Key benefits:
Ansible is an open-source automation tool used in DevOps for configuration management, application deployment, and task automation. It is agentless and communicates with systems over SSH, making it lightweight and easy to use compared to other tools.
Automation testing uses scripts and tools to run tests automatically. Benefits:
Common tools include Selenium, JUnit, TestNG, and Cypress.
Some popular automation testing tools are:
Here are the core components of Selenium:
To know more, head over to this tutorial on what is Selenium.
A Virtual Machine (VM) is a compute resource that uses software instead of physical hardware to run programs and deploy apps. One or more virtual “guest” machines run on a physical “host” machine, each with its own operating system and functioning independently. Virtual machines are widely used in both on-premises and cloud environments for cost-efficient and flexible compute resources.
This is listed among the top DevOps interview questions. In Git, both Merge and Rebase are used to integrate changes from one branch into another, but they handle history differently:
Aspect | Git Merge | Git Rebase |
---|---|---|
Purpose | Combines changes from one branch into another. | Moves or reapplies commits from one branch onto another. |
Commit History | Preserves original history and adds a merge commit. | Rewrites history to create a linear commit structure. |
Complexity | Easier to understand with full commit trace. | Cleaner history but can be confusing if not used carefully. |
Use Case | Collaborative work where preserving history is important. | Cleaning up feature branch history before merging. |
Resulting History | Shows a merge commit and diverging history. | Shows a straight line of commits (linear history). |
Once you're comfortable with the foundational concepts of DevOps, it's time to explore more in-depth topics that test your practical understanding. This section on intermediate DevOps interview questions dives into tools, workflows, and real-world scenarios that professionals often encounter in modern DevOps roles.
Git Bash is an application for Microsoft Windows environments that provides an emulation layer for a Git command-line experience. Bash stands for Bourne Again Shell. A shell is a terminal application used to interface with an operating system via written commands. Bash is a popular default shell on Linux and macOS. Git Bash installs Bash, common Bash utilities, and Git on Windows.
CBM in DevOps refers to a method where an application is built by combining repurposable components or modules that are independently developed. Each component has a specific function and can be developed, tested, deployed, and updated in isolation.
Ansible interacts with networks by sending small programs called modules to target systems. These modules automate tasks and are removed after execution. The management node oversees the playbook execution, establishes SSH connections, and ensures modules are executed and removed correctly.
Python is used to create Ansible scripts, and YAML templates automate repetitive processes in a human-readable format. Ansible is agentless, requiring no installation on the nodes it controls. Users can create custom modules using languages that return JSON, including Python, Ruby, or shell scripts.
This is one of the commonly asked DevOps interview questions. Branching strategies help manage code changes in version control systems like Git. Common strategies include:
An anti-pattern occurs when a practice is adopted blindly without considering its suitability for the organization. Common DevOps anti-patterns include:
Jenkins is an open-source automation server used to streamline building, testing, and deploying software. Key features include:
For more details, check out this Jenkins tutorial.
This is one of the go-to DevOps interview questions
Jenkins follows the master-slave architecture. The master pulls the latest code from the GitHub repository whenever a commit is made. The master then requests slaves to perform operations like build, test, and run, producing test case reports. The workload is distributed uniformly across all slaves.
In this architecture, the Jenkins master controls multiple slave environments, allowing multiple builds, tests, and product environments to run concurrently. Slaves can operate on different operating systems or build versions, while the master coordinates all operations. The results are collected on the master node for monitoring.
CI/CD pipelines automate processes like building, testing, and deploying applications. To create a CI/CD pipeline in Jenkins, install Jenkins, configure required plugins, and create a new pipeline job. Define the pipeline using a script or a Jenkinsfile in your repository, specifying stages for build, test, and deploy. Trigger the pipeline to execute and monitor progress.
This is one of the commonly posed DevOps interview questions. Chef and Puppet are configuration management tools used to automate infrastructure. Differences include:
In Puppet, resources are the fundamental elements used to manage system state, such as installed packages, running services, or file configurations. They are defined through declarations in a catalog. When applied, Puppet ensures the system matches the desired state by performing the required actions.
Docker uses a client-server architecture with these key components:
Docker also uses registries like Docker Hub for storing and sharing images.
Many major cloud platforms support Docker for containerized applications. AWS offers ECS, EKS, and Fargate, allowing both managed and serverless container deployments. Microsoft Azure provides Azure Container Instances, AKS, and App Service for Containers, all compatible with Docker images from public or private registries. Google Cloud supports Docker through GKE, Cloud Run, and Compute Engine, enabling both Kubernetes orchestration and direct container hosting.
Docker images and containers serve different roles:
DataOps applies automation and collaboration to data pipelines, while DevOps applies it to software delivery:
Version control tracks and manages changes to software code. It is crucial in DevOps for:
A load balancer distributes incoming traffic across multiple servers, improving performance, availability, and scalability. It prevents server overload, reroutes traffic in case of failures, and ensures efficient resource usage. Load balancers are critical in cloud computing, data centers, and large-scale web applications.
Git and SVN (Subversion) are both version control systems, but they differ in how they manage code, collaboration, and history. Git is distributed, allowing offline work and faster operations, while SVN is centralized, relying on a single server and network connectivity.
Git is preferred for modern, large, and distributed development due to its flexibility and speed. SVN may still be used in projects requiring stricter central control or for legacy systems.
A Git merge conflict occurs when two branches have competing changes and Git cannot automatically determine which to keep. Conflicts often arise when multiple people modify the same lines in a file or make contradictory changes.
After resolving conflicts, stage and commit the changes. You can then merge the branches locally or push the resolution to a remote repository.
Git fetch and git pull both retrieve changes from a remote repository, but they work differently. Git fetch updates remote tracking branches without changing your local files, allowing review before merging. Git pull automatically fetches and merges remote changes into your current branch, which is quicker but less controlled.
git fetch origin
git pull origin main
Infrastructure as Code (IaC) allows infrastructure to be managed using code instead of manual processes. This ensures consistent and reproducible environments, reduces errors, and improves collaboration among teams.
Puppet is a configuration management tool used to automate infrastructure provisioning, configuration, and management. It ensures consistency across servers and helps manage large-scale environments efficiently.
Ansible is an open-source automation tool used for configuration management, application deployment, and task automation. It uses simple YAML-based playbooks and does not require agent installation on target machines.
Horizontal scaling adds more machines or instances to handle increasing load, while vertical scaling increases the resources (CPU, RAM) of an existing machine. Horizontal scaling provides better fault tolerance and flexibility, whereas vertical scaling is simpler but limited by hardware capacity.
The experienced DevOps interview questions listed here focus on strategic thinking, advanced tool usage, real-time problem solving, and architectural decision-making, key areas expected from seasoned DevOps engineers. If you're preparing for senior-level roles, these questions will help you showcase your expertise effectively.
Shift left means moving testing and quality checks earlier in the software development lifecycle. Integrating testing, security, and reviews early helps catch bugs sooner, improves collaboration, and accelerates feedback, resulting in higher quality releases.
Blue/Green deployment maintains two identical environments. The blue environment runs the current version, while the green hosts the new version. Once the new version is tested, traffic switches from blue to green, enabling fast, low-risk rollbacks if issues arise.
Serverless computing allows code execution without managing servers. The cloud provider handles provisioning, scaling, and maintenance. This reduces operational overhead, accelerates deployments, and provides automatic scaling, though it requires careful monitoring and observability.
Multi-stage builds separate the Docker build process into multiple stages, copying only necessary artifacts to the final image. This reduces image size, improves security, and organizes the build logically, resulting in faster, leaner, and more maintainable containers.
Multi-cloud setup with Terraform involves defining providers, declaring resources, managing remote state, configuring cross-cloud networking, provisioning infrastructure, securing credentials, and monitoring deployments to maintain consistency and visibility across cloud platforms.
terraform apply
.Terragrunt simplifies Terraform workflows by reducing code duplication, managing dependencies, configuring remote state automatically, and enabling multi-environment deployments. It improves CI/CD integration and streamlines large-scale infrastructure operations.
Automated cross browser testing can be integrated into CI/CD pipelines using frameworks like Selenium or Playwright combined with cloud-based platforms like LambdaTest through their test automation cloud. Tests are triggered on code commits, executed in parallel across browsers, and results are collected automatically to block deployment if critical issues are detected.
DevOps roles requires a solid understanding of core tools, methodologies, and best practices that drive modern software delivery. This comprehensive list of DevOps interview questions is designed to help you build confidence and showcase your expertise during interviews. Whether you're just starting out or advancing in your career, revisiting these questions will give you a strong edge in technical discussions. Keep learning, stay hands-on, and you’ll be well-prepared to tackle any challenge a DevOps interview throws your way.
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