Below are some of the typical interview questions you will come across when you apply for an infrastructure operational/Devops manager job. We are providing answers as a reference and these no need to be correct in your situation. They will just aid on how you can approach these type of questions. We usually do not provide answers to these type of issues as most of them are behavioral problems. The answers totally depend on your experiences and how you think at that time.

What will you do when a client ask you a task to complete urgently?

It totally depends on the situation. Initiate a meeting/conf call with client and take all the details about requirements like

  • How critical the project is for them
  • What is the deadline they are expecting

After the first meet calculate below things and report to client

  • How much time you require to complete that project, please include a buffer for certain situations.
  • How many resources you need to achieve it
  • What is the project cost etc.?

Once client agreed on terms and conditions give periodic updates on project progress. Never give a shock to the customer at the last moment that you may not deliver it on time which will not look as a company and on your part.

How will you do with an underperformance person in your team?

An underperforming person will fall under any of be

  1. An individual who is not satisfied with the work he is doing.
  2. A person who is not pleased with the salary
  3. An individual who have personal issues(Health and family)
  4. An individual who is not provided with adequate training
  5. A person who can not prioritize his tasks

Anything can be a reason, and as a manager, we have to understand what is the reason for his/her underperformance. Talk to him personally, give him some pep talk after understanding his issues and provide moral support.

What is your managerial style?

Every person has their managerial styles.  As a manager, We should be more of a leader than a boss. The difference between a boss and leader is the way they get work from people. A boss always order to do work and where as a leader will help you in leading from the front and provide necessary tools for you to succeed as well. A leader always sees his success in the team growth than his personal accomplishments. A leader always shields you from external influences.

In Design, manage people and technology, what you prefer and why?

As a manager, you should divide your time to above mention three critical things. The design/architecture will showcase your ability for conceptual thinking. Managing people will show how you can convince people around you. New technology implementations will show how quick you are learning and understanding it.

What is your take on the waterfall, Agile, and SCRUM methodologies?

These are software development life cycles(SDC). A software life cycle have below phases

  1. Requirements analysis
  2. Design
  3. Implementation
  4. Testing
  5. Deployment
  6. Maintenance

Waterfall and Agile follow same above six SDC principles, but the major difference comes time spent and release cycles. Agile follow shorter life cycles called as iterations and concentrate on minor release pushes to production whereas Waterfall supports longer duration of a period and significant software changes. With Agile the bugs in the product are less when compared to Waterfall. This is because of smaller variations in the software code.

Nowadays many software development companies are moving from waterfall SDC to Agile and SCRUM. This is because of shorter SDC cycles and quick pushing of software updates.

SCRUM is one kind of Agile methodology, and SCRUM sprints are equivalent to Agile iterations.

What mistake you did and how you rectify it?

It depends on situation to situation and person to person. Never say you did not make mistakes. As a human, we will mistake one or the other time. Always give an example what mistake you did. What you learn from it for a lifetime. This will help the interviewer that you learn from your mistakes.

What is the recent business outage you come across and how you rectify it?

Give an example which will showcase your understanding of the business importance and how you prioritize things when there is an outage. We should follow crisis quadrilateral. Do important and critical stuff first.

How do you handle conflict within a team or between teams?

We are humans and conflicts arise. This is because everyone thinks differently. This is where conflict arises. We should deal conflicts with caution and diplomatically. Try to understand the dispute from another person end as well.

What don’t you like in your present organization?

Never say any negative about current organization. This will not help you, instead of it may send wrong signals to interviewers.

What is your strength?

People’s leader, work in pressure and a good crisis manager.

What are your weaknesses?

I will try to complete work which is assigned and try to do things innovative ways. Because of this thing I am a bit slow for initial stages of a project.

Do you have any questions for us(The interview panel)?

Ask as many questions as possible about the role, company and your career growth in the present organization.

Some DO’s in interviews

  • Go to interview in business attire
  • Report to the meeting exactly at the time mention, don’t make it a bit early or a bit delay.
  • Just talk to them as if you meet new people in a meetup.
  • Keep eye contact with interview panel
  • Stick to your opinion when you feel that will help the company from the heart.
  • Get more knowledge on latest technologies, conflict, and stress managerial skills.

Some Don’t DO’s in interviews

  • Never talk bad about your present organization when a question arise.
  • Never say you didn’t make a mistake, every human being makes mistakes.
  • Never fake your experience if you can not cover it adequately with your answers.

Let us know what intresting questions you get in interviews.

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Surendra Anne

Mr Surendra Anne is from Vijayawada, Andhra Pradesh, India. He is a Linux/Open source supporter who believes in Hard work, A down to earth person, Likes to share knowledge with others, Loves dogs, Likes photography. He works as Devops Engineer with Taggle systems, an IOT automatic water metering company, Sydney . You can contact him at surendra (@) linuxnix dot com.