All 56 questions
Can you explain the different deployment strategies available in Kubernetes?
Asked in 3 of 231 interviews · last asked Jul 16 · Concept · Mid-level
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Kubernetes Deployments support RollingUpdate and Recreate. RollingUpdate gradually replaces old Pods; Recreate stops old Pods before starting new ones. Blue-green keeps two versions and switches traffic between them. Canary sends some traffic to the new version first; both patterns need extra setup beyond the Deployment strategy field.
- RollingUpdate is the default; readiness probes, maxSurge, and maxUnavailable help control availability during updates.
- Recreate causes downtime but avoids running old and new Pods together during an update.
- Blue-green needs extra capacity; switching traffic back supports quick rollback if data changes remain compatible.
- Canary limits initial exposure; check errors and performance before increasing traffic.
What the interviewer checks: The interviewer checks whether you understand rollout trade-offs and distinguish built-in Deployment strategies from broader release patterns.
Other ways it was asked
- “What types of deployments are available in Kubernetes?”
- “What deployment strategies are available in Kubernetes?”
How do blue-green deployments and rolling deployments work, and when would you use each?
Asked in 3 of 231 interviews · last asked Oct 1 · Concept · Senior
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Blue-green deployment keeps two environments: one live and one with the new version. After testing, traffic switches to the new environment; use it for a quick cutover and rollback. Rolling deployment replaces instances in batches; use it to limit extra capacity when old and new versions can run together.
- Blue-green needs capacity for both environments; switching traffic back does not undo database changes.
- Rolling deployments need health checks and enough healthy instances to keep serving traffic during replacement.
- Database changes must stay compatible with any application versions still running or needed for rollback.
- Canary deployment sends limited traffic to the new version first; choose it to test production behavior before expanding.
What the interviewer checks: The interviewer checks whether you can choose a deployment method based on capacity, compatibility, availability, and rollback needs.
Other ways it was asked
- “How do blue-green deployments and rollout deployments work, and when would you use each?”
- “How would you implement a blue-green or rollout deployment?”
- “What is a blue-green deployment?”
What is a canary deployment?
Asked in 3 of 231 interviews · last asked Sep 10 · Concept · Junior
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A canary deployment sends a small share of live traffic to a new version while the rest uses the current version. We monitor errors, speed, and key business results before increasing traffic. If problems appear, we send traffic back to the current version. Other strategies include rolling updates, blue-green deployments, and recreate deployments.
- Start with limited traffic to reduce the impact of failures.
- Set clear success and rollback rules before releasing.
- Canary deployments need traffic control and monitoring that separates results by version.
- Blue-green switches between two environments; rolling updates replace instances gradually; recreate stops the old version first.
What the interviewer checks: The interviewer is checking whether you understand gradual releases, risk control, and alternative deployment strategies.
Other ways it was asked
- “What do you know about the canary deployment approach, and what other deployment strategies do you know?”
- “What deployment strategies can you use besides canary deployments?”
How would you prevent downtime when deploying application updates to Kubernetes?
Asked in 2 of 231 interviews · last asked Sep 4 · Scenario · Senior
Other ways it was asked
- “How can you deploy your application on Kubernetes with zero downtime?”
- “A Kubernetes deployment update has caused downtime. How would you prevent this?”
If a problem occurs during a deployment, how would you roll it back?
Asked in 2 of 231 interviews · last asked Sep 21 · Scenario · Mid-level
Other ways it was asked
- “How do you plan a rollback for a software deployment?”
How would you automate deploying application code to its servers after a commit or merge?
Asked in 2 of 231 interviews · last asked May 12 · Scenario · Mid-level
Other ways it was asked
- “After the code is merged, how would you automate delivering it to the Airflow cluster or other hosts where the application will run?”
- “When code is committed to a repository, how would you organize its deployment to servers?”
What is the difference between canary and blue-green deployment strategies, and how would you implement automatic rollback?
Asked in 2 of 231 interviews · last asked Sep 1 · Scenario · Senior
Other ways it was asked
- “In a distributed system, what is the key difference between blue-green and canary deployments in how traffic is shifted and rollbacks are handled?”
If an EC2 instance is launched by auto scaling when CPU usage exceeds 70%, how can the new instance get the latest code?
Asked once · last asked Feb 18 · Scenario · Mid-level
What deployment strategies can help roll out changes gradually without downtime?
Asked once · last asked Mar 2 · Concept · Mid-level
How would you automate deployment to EC2 in a CI/CD pipeline instead of transferring files manually?
Asked once · last asked Mar 9 · Tooling · Mid-level
Describe a safe rollout plan for converting a mixed sync-async codebase.
Asked once · last asked Mar 16 · Scenario · Senior
When would you use GitOps versus deploying Helm charts from a CI/CD pipeline?
Asked once · last asked Mar 19 · Concept · Senior
How would you deploy a Python-based application to the cloud, and what steps would you follow?
Asked once · last asked Mar 19 · Tooling · Mid-level
Other ways it was asked
- “How have you deployed a Python-based application to the cloud, and what steps did you follow?”
If a defect reaches production because tests did not catch it, what deployment or recovery techniques can limit the impact and help you roll back quickly?
Asked once · last asked Apr 13 · Scenario · Senior
How would you deploy an artifact to a Linux server using Jenkins?
Asked once · last asked Apr 16 · Tooling · Mid-level
How would you deploy a set of microservices in a customer environment?
Asked once · last asked Apr 18 · Scenario · Mid-level
Which service would you use to deploy containers across different environments?
Asked once · last asked Apr 18 · Tooling · Mid-level
What strategies would you use to deploy a web application with minimal downtime and easy rollback? Explain how you would automate the process.
Asked once · last asked May 8 · Design · Senior
How would you deploy an application across multiple EC2 instances and scale the deployment, and what determines how many instances can be updated at once?
Asked once · last asked Jun 15 · Scenario · Mid-level
How would you justify a compromise that retains the old deployment path for rollback while enabling a new pipeline in one environment?
Asked once · last asked Jul 24 · Behavioral · Senior
Other ways it was asked
- “How did you build the case for keeping the old deployment path for rollback while enabling the new pipeline in one environment, and how did you reach that decision?”
How do you organize and manage the files used to deploy applications with Helm charts?
Asked once · last asked Aug 7 · Tooling · Mid-level
Other ways it was asked
- “What is the step-by-step deployment flow for managing Helm chart files and values?”
How can you automate application deployments to AKS?
Asked once · last asked Aug 7 · Scenario · Mid-level
How would you plan a phased rollout, and what concrete promotion gates would determine when to move to the next phase?
Asked once · last asked Aug 11 · Design · Senior
Other ways it was asked
- “Propose a phased rollout plan, and explain how that phased rollout plan and your concrete promotion gates would work. When do you move on in that rollout plan?”
What benefits do feature flags provide, and why deploy features before enabling them for users?
Asked once · last asked Aug 19 · Concept · Mid-level
Other ways it was asked
- “What value do feature flags provide when a feature is not yet visible to users, and why deliver the feature before exposing it?”
- “What benefits do feature flags provide beyond controlling feature adoption?”
- “What is the main benefit of deploying a feature before enabling it for users with a feature flag?”
How would you confirm that a staged rollout is ready to expand?
Asked once · last asked Aug 21 · Scenario · Senior
What conditions would trigger a rollback during a staged rollout?
Asked once · last asked Aug 21 · Scenario · Senior
How would you implement GitOps to synchronize Kubernetes manifests in Git with a cluster?
Asked once · last asked Sep 4 · Tooling · Senior
Other ways it was asked
- “How do you implement GitOps in Kubernetes?”
- “How do you use a GitOps tool to store Kubernetes manifests in Git and synchronize them with a cluster?”
How would you deploy an application running on two EC2 instances behind a load balancer?
Asked once · last asked Sep 10 · Design · Senior
How would you deploy an application behind a load balancer without downtime?
Asked once · last asked Sep 10 · Design · Senior
How would you route traffic to a new load balancer during a deployment?
Asked once · last asked Sep 10 · Scenario · Senior
How would you design the deployment of artifacts into an AWS EKS Kubernetes cluster?
Asked once · last asked Sep 17 · Design · Senior
How would you roll out a new feature safely, step by step?
Asked once · last asked Sep 18 · Scenario · Senior
How would you handle deployment and infrastructure setup on local servers when a client's budget is constrained?
Asked once · last asked Sep 24 · Scenario · Senior
What is Argo CD, and how does it differ from other continuous delivery tools?
Asked once · last asked Sep 25 · Concept · Mid-level
What deployment challenges can arise when implementing an intersection-management feature, and how would you address them?
Asked once · last asked Sep 25 · Scenario · Senior
How would you manage service rollouts and updates on Amazon EKS, and mitigate cold-start problems?
Asked once · last asked Sep 29 · Scenario · Senior
How does Argo CD determine which Kubernetes configuration file supplies the image reference for a deployment?
Asked once · last asked Oct 1 · Concept · Mid-level
How do you handle failures and rollbacks when a CI workflow updates a Kubernetes overlay and Argo CD syncs it?
Asked once · last asked Oct 1 · Scenario · Senior
How do you ensure changes in GKE Autopilot clusters do not disrupt your CI/CD pipeline?
Asked once · last asked Oct 3 · Scenario · Senior
How would you handle rolling back a release when static assets are already cached by the browser or CDN?
Asked once · last asked Oct 7 · Scenario · Senior
How do you use Argo CD and Argo Rollouts to manage production deployments?
Asked once · last asked Oct 20 · Tooling · Senior
How would you deploy a fleet of EC2 web servers with minimal downtime, including during updates?
Asked once · last asked Oct 22 · Design · Senior
How would you manage an Android feature rollout using feature flags, staged rollout, and kill switches, especially after a faulty release reaches 50% of users?
Asked once · last asked Oct 23 · Scenario · Senior
How would you roll back a faulty Android release if the problematic code cannot be disabled with a server-side feature flag?
Asked once · last asked Oct 23 · Scenario · Senior
How do you deploy Power Platform solutions?
Asked once · last asked Jun 9 · Tooling · Mid-level
Other ways it was asked
- “How do you deploy Power Platform solutions to non-production environments?”
Why would you choose a staged rollout?
Asked once · last asked Aug 21 · Scenario · Mid-level
Other ways it was asked
- “What are the main trade-offs of using a staged rollout?”
What are common ways to deploy an application, and how do you choose among them?
Asked once · last asked Apr 29 · Design · Mid-level
How would you deploy the same application to 10 EC2 servers?
Asked once · last asked Jun 15 · Scenario · Mid-level
How would you restore normal operation after a staged rollout?
Asked once · last asked Aug 21 · Scenario · Senior
Other ways it was asked
- “How did you restore normal operation after the staged rollout?”
How would you deploy a game as a service?
Asked once · last asked Dec 9 · Design · Mid-level
What is Netlify?
Asked once · last asked Aug 25 · Concept · Junior
How do feature flags work, and when would you use them?
Asked once · last asked Sep 1 · Concept · Junior
What is the advantage of a rolling update?
Asked once · last asked Sep 17 · Concept · Mid-level
How would you deploy a weather application and make it available to users?
Asked once · last asked Sep 20 · Scenario · Mid-level
How does Argo CD differ from a CI runner?
Asked once · last asked Sep 25 · Concept · Mid-level
How will you deploy your Spring Boot application?
Asked once · last asked Oct 13 · Scenario · Mid-level
More CI/CD interview questions
- All CI/CD interview questions
- CI/CD Pipeline Design Interview Questions
- CI/CD Security and Release Governance Interview Questions
How this list is made
Every question here was asked by a real interviewer in a real job interview that a candidate ran MeetAssist in. After the call, the interviewer's questions are pulled from the transcript. Practice sessions, tests, exams and anything that was not a job interview are dropped.
Questions are rewritten so they make sense on their own: names of people, employers and clients are removed, and speech-to-text mistakes are fixed. Small talk, logistics and questions about one candidate's own résumé are left out. Rephrasings of the same question are merged, and the count is the number of different interviews it came up in.
The interviews come from candidates who use MeetAssist, so they lean towards software, data and AI roles: the shares describe these interviews, not every CI/CD interview. Answers to the most asked questions are written and checked by an editor; a "common mistake" is shown only when reviews of real answers in these interviews show it, with the count.
231 interviews, 150 candidates, Nov 2025 to Oct 2026. Updated every month with new interviews.
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