My Interview Questions
In my role managing a DevOps team, I frequently have the need to interview candidates as our team grows. I prefer a conversational format for interviews rather than a strict Q&A format. With that being said, I do have some typical questions that like to get the chat going.
Can you tell me how you manage your day to day work? I am looking for something beyond We use Jira. I want to know how you prioritize tasks and you sort out conflicts.
Please tell me about you role in the last major project. This is a gateway question to a discussion on problem solving, conflict resolution, challenging deadlines, and many other aspects of large projects. It's also an opportunity to tell me about something cool that you did.
What was your last busy on-call rotation like? While I may have asked about a specific on-call rotation, I really want to learn about the follow up. I want to know what steps were taken to mitigate the events or prevent them from occurring.
What drew you to this role? This is pretty clear question. I want to know if it was the skill match or potential, the potential to learn new skills, the company reputation, or the work schedule.
Can you tell me about your usage of X? If you have a skill on your resume that shows up in your skill list but not in any of your role descriptions, then I'm going be interested in that. For example, if Docker is in every job description, but Kubernetes is only in the skill list, then I will want to know about where you learned Kubernetes and your level of proficiency.
Do you have any questions for me about the role or the company? I usually leave about 15 minutes near the end of the interview for the candidate to ask about the role or company. This is an opportunity for the candidate to interview me to learn more about what interests them. You can generally skip the next-steps question since I'll tell you what remains in the interview process.
Of course, all of these questions are really just starters to get the conversation going after introductions are done. Don't stress, and good luck on your interview.
