DevOps Bar Raiser Interview - Albertsons
- Posted
- 7 Apr 2026
Summary
I attended a DevOps Bar Raiser interview at Albertsons where I was asked a range of scripting, cloud, and operational questions.
How it went
- Write a python script(decorator) that retries a function up to 3 times if it raises an exception.
- Write a bash script to archive logs older than 7 days.
- A query taking unnecessary time to find email, how to prevent it. Follow up - how to create an index for the same
- A pod went to CrashLoopBackOff , how to mitigate it.
- Azure CLI to create a resource group in specific location(us-east) and create a storage account with name "Demo" in hottier.
- How to design a highly available application in Azure?
- 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.
- 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?
- Your application is using AKS - the data needs to be persisted. what you will do to achieve the same?
- 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)
- Explain the process workflow of pipeline from developer commit till release.
- 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
- Jenkins release pipeline failed at 90%, how you will resolve it considering release window deadline.
- How you enable tagging to Jenkins pipeline and in case of rollback to previous tag, what command is used.
- Explain queue-based system. Secanrio - You might see an unnecessarily high number of queues, how to design autoscaling correctly to avoid that problem.
- How to configure a Kubernetes HPA (Horizontal Pod Autoscaler) to scale when CPU utilization is greater than 70%
Questions asked (16)
- 01
Python decorator for retry
Other
Write a python script (decorator) that retries a function up to 3 times if it raises an exception.
- 02
Bash script to archive logs
Other
Write a bash script to archive logs older than 7 days.
- 03
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.
- 04
Mitigating CrashLoopBackOff pod
Other
A pod went to CrashLoopBackOff, how to mitigate it.
- 05
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.
- 06
Design highly available application in Azure
System Design
How to design a highly available application in Azure?
- 07
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.
- 08
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?
- 09
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%.