DevOps Engineer Interview Questions UK: 8 Real Questions and What Interviewers Want

Before your DevOps Engineer interview, it helps to see the questions from the interviewer's side. We have picked eight from our set of 25 and added the reason each one gets asked.

Eight DevOps Engineer interview questions, and what the interviewer is thinking

1. What is DevOps to you, and how is it different from simply having a development team and an operations team?

Why they ask: They want to know whether you understand the culture and practices, not just the tools.

2. Walk me through how you would design a CI/CD pipeline for a typical microservice.

Why they ask: Pipeline design is the core of a DevOps engineer's day-to-day work.

3. How do you use Git in a team, and how would you choose a branching strategy?

Why they ask: Version control workflow affects every pipeline, so they want to see practical judgement.

4. Explain how Docker containers work and how you would write a good, secure Dockerfile.

Why they ask: Containers are fundamental to modern DevOps, and the Dockerfile shows practical skill.

5. Can you explain the main components of Kubernetes and how you would deploy and troubleshoot an application on it?

Why they ask: Kubernetes is extremely common in DevOps roles and tests depth of understanding.

6. You deploy a release on a Friday afternoon and error rates spike. What do you do?

Why they ask: They want to see calm, practical incident response and judgement about release timing.

7. Tell me about a time you built or significantly improved a CI/CD pipeline.

Why they ask: They want evidence of hands-on delivery and the impact of your work.

8. What does a typical day as a DevOps engineer involve?

Why they ask: They want to see that you understand the real work and balance of the role.

A sample answer to question 1

What is DevOps to you, and how is it different from simply having a development team and an operations team?

To me, DevOps is a way of working where the people who build software and the people who run it share responsibility for the whole lifecycle, supported by automation and fast feedback. In a traditional setup, developers write code and throw it over the wall to operations, which creates delays, blame and slow releases. DevOps breaks that down with shared goals, so teams own their services in production, deploy small changes frequently and learn from failures. The practices that support it include version control for everything, continuous integration and delivery, infrastructure as code, automated testing, monitoring and a blameless culture. I find the DORA metrics a useful measure: deployment frequency, lead time for changes, change failure rate and time to restore service. The tools matter much less than the habits, so I've seen teams with Jenkins and Kubernetes who were still siloed. As a DevOps engineer, I see my role as enabling teams to ship safely and quickly, rather than being a gatekeeper.

Common mistake to avoid: Defining it as a set of tools; Describing DevOps as a job title for operations

Want the rest?

Full model answers, key points and common mistakes for all 25 questions are on the DevOps Engineer interview questions page. The first five are free, no sign-up needed.