Introduction

As cloud-native technologies and AI-powered operations reshape the infrastructure landscape, DevOps roles are becoming more strategic than ever.

This guide covers the 15 most critical DevOps interview questions you’ll face at top tech companies in 2025, from GitOps workflows to AI-driven incident management.

Core Infrastructure Concepts

1. Explain the Difference Between Traditional CI/CD and GitOps in 2025

Key Differentiators:
– CI/CD: Push-based, artifact-centric, manual approvals
– GitOps: Pull-based, declarative everything, automated reconciliation
– 2025 Trend: AI-assisted drift detection with natural language policies

2. How Would You Secure a Multi-Cloud Kubernetes Deployment?

Modern Security Stack:
– Identity: SPIFFE/SPIRE for workload identity
– Network: Cilium with Hubble for eBPF-powered observability
– Secrets: External Secrets Operator with Vault
– Runtime: Falco + AI anomaly detection

3. Design a Zero-Downtime Migration from VMs to Serverless

Step-by-Step Plan:

1. Traffic mirroring with Istio
2. State management via Cloudflare Durable Objects
3. Cold start optimization using predictive scaling
4. Fallback pipeline with automated rollback triggers

Coding & Automation

4. Write a Terraform Module for Auto-Scaling AI Inference Endpoints

“`hcl
module “inference_autoscaler” {
source = “terraform-aws-modules/autoscaling/aws”

name = “llm-inference”
min_size = 2
max_size = 10

scaling_policies = {
cpu = {
target_value = 40
metric_name = “CPUUtilization”
}
latency = {
target_value = 100 # ms
metric_name = “InferenceLatency”
}
}

ai_accelerator = “aws-trainium”
}
“`

5. Optimize Docker Builds for Heterogeneous Compute (CPU/GPU/TPU)

Cutting-Edge Techniques:
– Multi-platform builds with Docker Buildx
– Layer sharing via content-addressable storage
– BuildKit cache mounts for dependency management
– Hardware-aware builds using –platform flags

Observability & SRE

6. Implement SLOs for a Blockchain Node Service

Service Level Objectives:
– Availability: 99.95% uptime (3.6h downtime/year)
– Latency: 95% of transactions <2s finality
– Novel 2025 Metric: Carbon efficiency per transaction

7. Debug a Memory Leak in a Distributed Rust Service

Modern Toolchain:
1. Continuous profiling with Parca
2. eBPF-based allocation tracking
3. AI-assisted root cause analysis (OpsGPT)
4. WASM sandboxing for unsafe code

Cloud-Native Architecture

8. Design a Multi-Region Database for Autonomous Vehicles

2025 Requirements:
– Edge sync with CRDTs
– Regulatory compliance per jurisdiction
– Disconnected operation support
– Energy-efficient replication

9. Implement Cost Controls for Generative AI Workloads

FinOps Strategies:
– Spot instances with checkpointing
– Model quantization aware scheduling
– Usage-based quotas with hard limits
– Carbon-aware scheduling

Security & Compliance

10. Harden a Supply Chain for ML Models

Critical Controls:
– SBOM generation for PyTorch dependencies
– Sigstore signing for model artifacts
– Runtime attestation with Confidential Computing
– Compromise detection via tamper-proof logs

11. Respond to a Zero-Day in a Widely Used OSS Tool

Incident Playbook:
1. Automated CVE triage with EPSS scoring
2. Artifact provenance verification
3. Immutable rebuilds from trusted sources
4. Patch propagation via TUF repositories

Behavioral & Leadership

12. How Would You Introduce AI into Incident Management Without Alienating Engineers?

Change Management Plan:

– Co-pilot approach: AI suggests, humans decide
– Explainability: Show model confidence scores
– Feedback loops: Engineer ratings on AI suggestions
– Gradual rollout: Start with non-critical alerts

13. Describe a Time You Had to Balance Velocity vs Stability

STAR Framework Example:
– Situation: Holiday sales traffic spike
– Task: Deploy new caching layer safely
– Action: Used feature flags + dark launching
– Result: Zero incidents with 40% latency improvement

The 2025 Curveball Question

Example: “How would you explain container orchestration to a medieval king?”

Sample Answer:

“Like managing your royal messengers (containers) across the kingdom (cluster). The Kubernetes herald (control plane) ensures messages reach their destinations, replaces fallen messengers, and balances their loads across castle roads (nodes).”

Preparation Resources

1. Kubernetes Release Notes (Stay current with 2025 features)
2. CNCF Webinars (Emerging tech deep dives)
3. Terraform 1.7+ Docs (New AI integrations)
4. Chaos Engineering Slack (Real-world failure patterns)