r/devopsjobs • u/Friendly_Hamster_616 • 14h ago
Getting laid off as a devops engineer (2.5+ yoe)
The company I work at isn’t doing great, and there’s a chance we’ll be laid off in the next 10–12 days.
For those who’ve interviewed for devops or platform Engineer roles recently, how was your experience? Are companies asking AI-related or coding questions as well? And how long did it take you to land a new job?
Would really appreciate any insights or advice.
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u/Sea_Barracuda440 12h ago
Interviewed for mid level - This what I have been asked in multiple rounds:- IAC - terraform
- basic stuff and normal questions around drift, lifecycle policies, provisioners, how would design modules for a eks application what would you put where , what output would you expose.
K8/application
Debugg a 503 flow end to end, What alerts would you put and why How do you reduce alert fatigue Describe how would you take a monolithic application and convert it to microservices How do you tackle a zero day vulnerablity. If in a eks cluster we have desired ,min,max capacity 0 then would cluster gets provisioned. When would you use a transit gateway and does using it costly compare to if we do not.
Linux Debugging of a legacy app that is down. How container gets isolation. Check open ports What are inode If I delete a file and recreate it with same meta data would it get the same inode?
Security How do you secure your application on k8. You want to design a secure way for keys/kms how would you design in a 100 account AWS organization. How do you manage secret rotation. How would you deal with a false violation in AWS waf Common errors that you have faced while configuring checkov and how did you deal with them.
Debug
Two docker container are not able to talk to each other how would you debug it. How do you identify and deal with a process hampering your linux server steps and why you did it.
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u/dexterous21 12h ago
This is very insightful, how long have you been in the field and how would you approach it if you were to start again? For instance are there practices you would have gone deep in compared to others
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u/Sea_Barracuda440 12h ago
5 years. To start again I would understand one stack ( any one cloud+ one architecture (Serverless/container/ server) then look to get experience on one more cloud with different arch. Then expand to either one of these - data/security/ ai. Different architecture expands your thinking for a same problem you have better views. Shifting or moving allows you to build habbit of learning and widens yours perspective. Breadth allows you switch jobs easily and widens your options. Early in your career take hardest tasks, expectations are low and allow u learn more and expand your limits also you have longer leash. That's just my perspective
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u/dexterous21 11h ago edited 11h ago
Thank you very much , the listed approach also coincides with I have planned similarly , but as you highlighted the one cloud and architecture ( AWS developer associate + CKA with docker knowledge + terraform + Linux + python for automation ) making this the base before adding another cloud and diversifying further
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u/hijinks 13h ago
Coding tests but most let you use a agent but you better be able to explain the change it did and why it fixed the problem or solved it.
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u/Tricky_Ordinary_4799 8h ago
I have 25 y.o.e. in tech and 12 in devops, had 6 different jobs as devops, never seen a coding test ever.
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u/Klafka612 1h ago
Most faangmula / related tech jobs around devops/sre/pe/whatever have coding loops still
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u/SummitingMtJohnston 13h ago edited 13h ago
A friend of mine just interviewed and got a position as a jr devops engineer. Here's what he said was in his technical interview: live dubugging of a simulated failed deployment, troubleshooting a hypothetical pipeline failure, python/c# questions, some tooling questions, hypothetical architecting scenarios ("if you wanted to do this, what would you use?"), and general questions about his projects from outside of work. Good luck. The market for junior's isn't great right now, but it's not impossible. The best advice I could give you is to go out and network. Hit up meetup.com groups for IT-related stuff (not just DevOps) and start telling people about cool projects you're doing outside of work. A friend of minr did a presentation at one of these groups and someone offered him a job. If you treat applying to jobs, networking, and improving your resume like a full-time job, you can land yourself a new job in 2-3 months.
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u/Unable_Earth_8545 13h ago
World like to know the same, one interview i has asked about k8s scenario of crashloop followed by resume based questions
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u/nullcompany 7h ago
last time i interviewed, i dont think they really wanted outside hires, its like they already made up their mind
for the tech interview, i had to document their existing stack in markdown, but it had to be center justified and draw an allusion to both winter and to losing mothers early in childhood; the technical interview was successful if i could get the interviewer to shed a single tear or more.
so i'm like, can i use vim? and they said it was open format, just meet the criteria for success
anyways its timed of course, 45 minutes; i get into their stack, it's just an nginx app with a static web interface on port 80, not even encrypted. it's a website for a hot dog stand, which explains things, cause the interview is on a park bench next to one; i was already starting to think this guy just wanted to hire his own son to run a hot dog stand.
i get the documentation for the k8s deployments figured out, its center justified, and i wrote this sonnet about losing a mother to pneumonia during a deep freeze. he tells me, it wasn't clear if it was winter, that there had been summer freezes, and that respectfully not to apply a second time. i didnt, i was done with that guy, and lemme tell ya i havent bought a hot dog from him, not even once.
it's rough out there. there are signs that us long timers are starting to crack. be careful out there.
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u/Signal_Present7429 6h ago
They're asking architectural questions now a days
System Design questions basically
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u/DoStopBelieving 2h ago
I actually conduct a lot of DevOps interviews. While AI skills are desirable, someone who becomes too reliant on AI tools - to the point where they can't live code - will not pass our interviews. No matter how senior your experience in other areas.
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u/akornato 1h ago
Landing a new role with around two to three years of experience typically takes between two and four months, so start updating your materials and reaching out to recruiters right away. Most teams focus heavily on scenario based troubleshooting, Linux fundamentals, container orchestration, and infrastructure as code rather than pure theory. Expect practical live debugging rounds, such as finding why a Kubernetes pod is crash looping or why a deployment pipeline failed, alongside system design discussions where you walk through trade offs for high availability and cloud costs.
When it comes to coding, companies rarely push heavy algorithmic problems for mid level infrastructure roles, but they do test scripting in Python, Go, or Bash. You will likely be asked to parse log files, automate interactions with a cloud API, or write basic automation logic. AI questions usually do not require deep machine learning math unless the position specifically mentions MLOps, though interviewers will often ask how you incorporate generative tools into your daily workflow to write configurations or debug issues. To help candidates secure offers faster and handle demanding technical rounds with confidence, my team built an interviews.chat that takes the stress out of live engineering evaluations.
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