🚀 DevOps Engineer Interview Guide (SDE II)
Hey there, talented DevOps Engineer!
We’re thrilled that you’re interested in joining the rocketship at Aspire. To help you navigate the
interview journey and showcase your best self, we’ve prepared this guide just for you. If you have any
questions, your recruiter is always here to support you.
🌟 About the DevOps Role at Aspire
At Aspire, DevOps Engineers play a vital role in building and scaling our fintech platform for startups
and entrepreneurs across Southeast Asia. As part of our world-class team, you’ll help shape our
infrastructure, automate deployments, ensure platform reliability, and enable seamless developer
experiences.
This isn’t just about infrastructure, it’s about ownership, innovation, and collaboration.
We value individuals who are:
● Hands-on with CI/CD, cloud infrastructure, and automation
● Experienced with containers, scripting, and monitoring
● Proactive problem-solvers with a bias for action
● Passionate about building secure, scalable systems
🧩 Interview Process Overview
To evaluate both your technical fit and cultural alignment, here’s what our multi-stage process looks like:
Round Focus Duration
[1] Phone Screen Get to know each other 30 mins
[2] SHL Aptitude Test - Online Logical Reasoning & Aptitude 36 mins
[3] Technical Interview I Deep dive + Hand On 60 mins
[4] Technical Interview II Problem solving + Team collaboration 60 mins
[5] Technical Interview III Problem solving + Managerial 60 min
[6] VP / HMEngineering Round Final culture and vision alignment 30 mins
(Optional)
🧠 Round Details & Tips
[1] SHL Aptitude Test (36 mins)
This evaluates problem-solving, inductive/deductive reasoning, and numerical logic.
How to prepare:
● Practice SHL-style tests: SHL Practice Site
● Focus on time management – 36 mins test + 10 mins practice.
● Brush up on numerical reasoning, patterns, and logic puzzles.
[2] Preliminary Phone Screen (30 mins)
We’ll discuss:
● Your background, DevOps journey, and what excites you.
● Aspire’s mission, tech stack, and why we might be a great fit for you.
How to shine:
● Prepare a strong 2-minute personal pitch.
● Review Aspire’s story, values, and recent achievements.
● Ask questions! Show curiosity and enthusiasm.
[3] Technical Interview I (60 mins)
We’ll assess:
● Infrastructure Architecture: Design, build, and maintain a scalable, secure, and highly available
cloud infrastructure
● CI/CD & Automation: Develop and manage Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment
pipelines for smooth and fast software releases.
● Automation scripting (Bash, Python, etc.)
● Infrastructure as Code (IaC): Infrastructure as Code practices using tools like Terraform,
Ansible
● Logical thinking in a DevOps context
How to shine:
● Practice with DevOps case studies, Clarity on Day to Day tasks and tools (eg, Docker, K8s,
Networking. linux)
● Think about infrastructure-as-code scenarios (e.g., Terraform).
● Focus on Scalability, Automation and Availability
[4] Technical Interview II (60 mins)
We’ll assess:
● Monitoring & Observability: Set up and maintain robust observability systems using tools such
as Prometheus, Grafana,
● Security & Compliance: Implement security best practices at every layer of the infrastructure
● Problem-Solving: troubleshooting skills with experience in performance tuning, failure analysis,
and incident management for high-availability, mission-critical systems.
● Communication: Strong verbal written communication skills.
How to shine:
● Use the STAR method to describe your contributions.
● Prepare for hands-on questions (e.g., write a Dockerfile, fix a CI pipeline).
● Scenario based question on troubleshoot, latency, scalability and availability for mission-critical
systems.
● Improving Security using best practice and cost control measures
[5] Technical Interview III (60 mins)
You’ll talk to Engineering Managers.
Focus:
● Short live exercise (~15 mins)
● Cultural fit, team collaboration, DevOps best practices
How to shine:
● Share real stories of how you collaborated across dev/security/ops.
● Reflect on failures & learnings (retrospectives, blameless postmortems).
● Show ownership of systems you’ve built or maintained.
[6] VP Engineering Round (30 mins) (Optional)
This is a strategic-level conversation to explore:
● Your engineering philosophy
● Career growth and impact at Aspire
● Final questions & expectations
How to shine:
● Be yourself. Share your “why” and long-term goals.
● Dive deeper into any topic from earlier rounds.
● Ask about Aspire’s engineering roadmap and DevOps strategy.
✅ Final Tips for Success
💻 Prepare your preferred local IDE (e.g., VSCode, IntelliJ).
🔒 Be ready to talk security and compliance (bonus if you've touched SOC2, ISO, etc.).
●
🔧 Brush up on tools like:
●
●
○ Jenkins, GitLab CI
○ Terraform, Ansible
○ Prometheus, ELK, Datadog
💬
○ AWS, K8s and python
🧠
● Communicate your thought process clearly and confidently.
● Learn about Aspire’s values and ask thoughtful questions!
🎯 Let’s Build the Future of Fintech Together!
At Aspire, we don’t just look for skill—we look for drive, empathy, and a growth mindset. We hope this
guide helps you put your best foot forward.
All the best, and we’re excited to meet you!
