Q1
Walk me through how you would design a CI/CD pipeline for a microservices application deployed across multiple environments (dev, staging, production). What tools would you choose and why?
Why they ask this:* They want to assess your understanding of modern deployment practices, tool selection rationale, and ability to design end-to-end automation workflows that handle complexity at scale.
Q2
Explain the differences between container orchestration platforms like Kubernetes and Docker Swarm. In what scenarios would you choose one over the other for a mid-sized SaaS company?
Why they ask this:* They're testing your depth of knowledge in containerization ecosystems, your ability to evaluate trade-offs between solutions, and whether you can make architectural decisions based on business requirements.
Q3
Describe how you would implement infrastructure as code (IaC) using Terraform or CloudFormation for a multi-region deployment. How would you manage state files and prevent configuration drift?
Why they ask this:* This evaluates your hands-on experience with IaC tools, understanding of state management, and ability to maintain consistency across infrastructure at scale.
Q4
How would you approach monitoring and alerting for a distributed system with hundreds of microservices? What metrics would you prioritize and which tools would you use?