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

Before your Junior DevOps Engineer interview, it helps to see the questions from the interviewer's side. We have picked eight from our set of 16 and added the reason each one gets asked.

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

1. In your own words, what is DevOps, and how does it differ from traditional development and operations?

Why they ask: A junior must show they grasp the culture and purpose behind the tooling.

2. What is a CI/CD pipeline, and what stages would you expect to see in one?

Why they ask: CI/CD is the core of the junior role and this question is almost guaranteed.

3. Can you explain what Docker containers are and how they differ from virtual machines?

Why they ask: Containers are fundamental to modern DevOps and a basic knowledge check.

4. How do you use Git day to day, and what's the difference between merge and rebase?

Why they ask: Version control competence is expected from every DevOps engineer, even at junior level.

5. What is Infrastructure as Code, and have you used Terraform or a similar tool?

Why they ask: IaC is a core skill, and they want to see practical experience even at entry level.

6. A pipeline that was passing yesterday is now failing, and you haven't changed anything. What do you do?

Why they ask: Debugging unexpected pipeline failures is routine in junior DevOps work.

7. Tell me about a time you built or improved something technical, such as a pipeline, script or home lab, and what you learnt.

Why they ask: For juniors, practical initiative can substitute for long work experience.

8. Why do you want to be a DevOps Engineer, and how are you developing your skills?

Why they ask: They want to understand motivation, direction and commitment to learning.

A sample answer to question 1

In your own words, what is DevOps, and how does it differ from traditional development and operations?

To me, DevOps is a way of working where development and operations share responsibility for delivering and running software, instead of passing it over a wall. Traditionally, developers wrote code and operations teams deployed and supported it, which led to slow releases, blame and unstable changes. DevOps tries to fix that through collaboration, automation and fast feedback. In practice that means continuous integration, so code is built and tested on every change, continuous delivery so releases are small and repeatable, infrastructure defined as code, and monitoring so we learn quickly when something breaks. The benefits are shorter lead times, fewer failed deployments and quicker recovery, which are the sort of things the DORA metrics measure. It isn't a job title or a set of tools but a culture, and tools like Jenkins, GitHub Actions, Docker and Terraform simply support it. I'm keen to learn how this team puts it into practice.

Common mistake to avoid: Reducing it to a list of tools; Treating DevOps as a separate silo

Want the rest?

Full model answers, key points and common mistakes for all 16 questions are on the Junior DevOps Engineer interview questions page. The first five are free, no sign-up needed.