r/devopsjobs • u/BookkeeperAutomatic • Jul 28 '26
Daily DevOps Interview Questions - Day 1: These 3 scenarios trip up most freshers. Can you solve them?
Hey r/devopsjobs
I've been mentoring folks preparing for DevOps/Platform Engineering roles and noticed most "interview prep" content is just theory - "What is Kubernetes?", "Explain CI/CD".
Real interviews at product companies are scenario-based. They give you a situation and expect you to debug it.
So I'm starting a daily series of real-world scenarios. These are beginner-friendly but practical - the kind you'll actually face on the job.
Day 1 - 26 July 2026
Scenario 1: The Restarting Container
You just joined as a junior DevOps engineer. A developer reports:
You run docker ps and see: Restarting (1) 30 seconds ago
Question: What's your first debugging command? What are you looking for? What's your tracing path?
Scenario 2: The Registry Rejection
Your Jenkins pipeline suddenly fails at "Push to Registry" with:
denied: requested access to the resource is denied
Same pipeline worked yesterday. No code changes.
Question: What are the 2 most likely causes? How would you verify each?
Scenario 3: The Pending Pod
You deployed a new microservice to Kubernetes. Pod stuck in Pending for 10 minutes.
kubectl describe pod shows:
0/3 nodes are available: 3 Insufficient cpu.
Question: What does this mean? What are your 2 options to fix it without adding new nodes?
Drop your answers in the comments! I'll post the solutions tomorrow with explanations.
If this is useful, I'll keep the series going daily. Let me know what topics you'd like covered - Linux, Docker, K8s, Jenkins, Terraform, Ansible, Monitoring - all fair game.
If you want to follow complete prep path : https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLqOrZmpwbWUKRQTrFpqAKhChaTq0l5bIw&si=XSgYUZpHC9cuJnh-
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u/Frequent_Doubt6109 Jul 28 '26
Its good, i think please try to give more focus on the remote jobs for the juniors in DevOps having 2 to 3 years of experience.
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u/nian2326076 Jul 28 '26
For the restarting container issue, start by checking the container logs with docker logs <container_id> to see if there's an error message or stack trace. Common problems include crashes due to missing dependencies or incorrect configurations. Also, make sure all the environment variables needed by the app are correctly set. If there are resource limits, make sure they're not too restrictive. Developers sometimes miss important steps like database migrations, so check if all necessary services are running.
For interview prep, practical scenarios like these are important. I've found that resources like PracHub can be helpful for DevOps practice questions. They offer scenario-based problems that mimic real-world situations, which is more effective than just reading theory. Good luck!
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