devops-exercises/common-qa.md
2020-02-19 09:04:25 +02:00

4.3 KiB

Q&A

What is the purpose of repository?

  1. Learn - asking questions or doing exercises is a great way to learn
  2. Share - sharing knowledge is a great experience, give it a try

It is also used sometimes (from what I've been told) to prepare for interviews but a note for interviewers: most of the questions in this repository shouldn't be used as interview questions. A DevOps interview (or any technical interview) is not a trivia game :)

My goal is to prepare for a DevOps interview. How to do that?

I've added a couple of suggestions here
Feel free to contribute any ideas and insights you have.

How do I become a better DevOps Engineer?

That's a great question.
I don't have a definitive answer for this question, but what I feel works for me is to:

  • Practice - doing DevOps tasks/work is probably the best way to gain experience and knowledge
  • Read - Read blogs, books, ... anything that can enrich you about DevOps
  • Share - This is one of the reasons I created this project. Primary goal was to help others but a secondary goal quickly became to learn more. By asking questions, you actually learn better a certain topic. Try it out, take a certain subject and try to come up with questions you would ask someone to test his/her skills.

Why most of the questions don't have answers?

Because we need more contributors ;)

Where the questions and answers are coming from?

Well, from everywhere - past experience, colleagues, contributors, ... But please note we do not allow copying interview questions from interview questions sites to here. There are people who worked hard on adding those to their sites and we respect that.

What are the top DevOps skills required for being a DevOps Engineer?

It's a hard question and the reason is that if you'll ask 20 different people, you'll probably get at least 10 different answers but here is what we believe is common today:

  • OS - DevOps require you good understanding of operating system concepts. The level required is mainly depends on the company although in my opinion it should be the same level. You should understand how the operating system works, how to troubleshoot and debug issues, etc.
  • Coding is part of DevOps. The level again depends on the company. Some will require you to know basic level of scripting while others deep understanding of common algorithms, data structure, design patterns etc.
  • Cloud and Containers - while not 100% must in all companies/positions, this skill is on the rise every year and many (if not most) of the positions/companies require this skill. This specifically means: AWS/Azure/GCP, Docker, Kubernetes, ...

I feel like there are some questions that shouldn't be included in this project

Is that a question? :) In any case, if you don't like some/most of the questions or think that some questions should be removed you can open an issue or submit a PR and we can discuss it there. We don't have rules against deleting questions :D

Can I copy the questions from here to my site?

You can but:

  • Not without attribution. Many people worked hard on adding these questions and they deserve a proper credit for their work
  • Not if you plan to make money out of it. Directly or indirectly (e.g. ADS) as this is a free content and we would like it to stay this way :)

Can I add questions and/or answers to this project?

I'll simply imagine you didn't ask that on an open source project... :)

Why can't I add installation questions?

Because these is one of the worst types of questions out there.

Some sites claim "How to install Jenkins?" or "What is the home directory of Jenkins?" are proper interview questions but personally I think we should have the responsibility to not encourage or even create a phenomenon where interviewers will think it's normal or has any benefit to ask such questions.

Where can I practice coding?

Personally, I really like the following sites

How to learn more about Linux?

I gathered a list of resource here

For beginners, I recommend Linux Journey If you want to deep dive into operating systems internals, I really recommend Operating Systems: Three Easy Pieces