DevOps Bar Raiser Interview - Albertsons

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albertsons
April 7, 2026 · 0 reads

Summary

I attended a DevOps Bar Raiser interview at Albertsons where I was asked a range of scripting, cloud, and operational questions.

Full Experience

  1. Write a python script(decorator) that retries a function up to 3 times if it raises an exception.
  2. Write a bash script to archive logs older than 7 days.
  3. A query taking unnecessary time to find email, how to prevent it. Follow up - how to create an index for the same
  4. A pod went to CrashLoopBackOff , how to mitigate it.
  5. Azure CLI to create a resource group in specific location(us-east) and create a storage account with name "Demo" in hottier.
  6. How to design a highly available application in Azure?
  7. There is a 5x traffic to be expected on a specific occasion on website, what steps as a devops engineer you need to take to make sure systems are reliable and scalable.
  8. Generally on normal days 5k requests come and hit the website but from last few days, the requests are dropped down to 4k - how you will find the root cause for this?
  9. Your application is using AKS - the data needs to be persisted. what you will do to achieve the same?
  10. There is a 3 tier web application deployed on azure. how you make sure the application is monitored properly (name services which you will use to achieve the same)
  11. Explain the process workflow of pipeline from developer commit till release.
  12. What release strategy do you use in your organization. Follow up - Suppose blue green deployment is the strategy, green deployment was successful but blue deployment stucks - what steps you will take to mitigate it
  13. Jenkins release pipeline failed at 90%, how you will resolve it considering release window deadline.
  14. How you enable tagging to Jenkins pipeline and in case of rollback to previous tag, what command is used.
  15. Explain queue-based system. Secanrio - You might see an unnecessarily high number of queues, how to design autoscaling correctly to avoid that problem.
  16. How to configure a Kubernetes HPA (Horizontal Pod Autoscaler) to scale when CPU utilization is greater than 70%

Interview Questions (16)

1.

Python decorator for retry

Other

Write a python script (decorator) that retries a function up to 3 times if it raises an exception.

2.

Bash script to archive logs

Other

Write a bash script to archive logs older than 7 days.

3.

Optimizing email query and indexing

Other

A query taking unnecessary time to find email, how to prevent it. Follow up - how to create an index for the same.

4.

Mitigating CrashLoopBackOff pod

Other

A pod went to CrashLoopBackOff, how to mitigate it.

5.

Azure CLI to create resource group and storage account

Other

Azure CLI to create a resource group in specific location (us-east) and create a storage account with name "Demo" in hottier.

6.

Design highly available application in Azure

System Design

How to design a highly available application in Azure?

7.

Handling 5x traffic spike

System Design

There is a 5x traffic to be expected on a specific occasion on website, what steps as a devops engineer you need to take to make sure systems are reliable and scalable.

8.

Investigating drop in request volume

System Design

Generally on normal days 5k requests come and hit the website but from last few days, the requests are dropped down to 4k - how you will find the root cause for this?

9.

Persisting data in AKS

System Design

Your application is using AKS - the data needs to be persisted. What you will do to achieve the same?

10.

Monitoring 3-tier Azure web application

System Design

There is a 3 tier web application deployed on azure. How you make sure the application is monitored properly (name services which you will use to achieve the same).

11.

Explain CI/CD pipeline workflow

System Design

Explain the process workflow of pipeline from developer commit till release.

12.

Blue‑green deployment issue handling

System Design

What release strategy do you use in your organization. Follow up - Suppose blue green deployment is the strategy, green deployment was successful but blue deployment stucks - what steps you will take to mitigate it.

13.

Resolving Jenkins pipeline failure at 90%

System Design

Jenkins release pipeline failed at 90%, how you will resolve it considering release window deadline.

14.

Tagging and rollback in Jenkins pipeline

System Design

How you enable tagging to Jenkins pipeline and in case of rollback to previous tag, what command is used.

15.

Autoscaling queue‑based system

System Design

Explain queue-based system. Scenario - You might see an unnecessarily high number of queues, how to design autoscaling correctly to avoid that problem.

16.

Configure Kubernetes HPA for CPU >70%

System Design

How to configure a Kubernetes HPA (Horizontal Pod Autoscaler) to scale when CPU utilization is greater than 70%.

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