title: "DevOps Engineer Interview Questions at Uber (2026 Guide)" slug: "uber-devops-engineer-interview-questions" description: "Uber DevOps/SRE interview: rounds, Linux, Kubernetes, coding and reliability design questions, plus FAQs for 2026."
DevOps Engineer Interview Questions at Uber (2026 Guide)
Uber's DevOps/SRE interview runs 4-6 rounds: recruiter screen, a coding phone screen (yes — Uber expects SREs to code), then an onsite with a systems/Linux round, a troubleshooting round, a large-scale reliability design round, and a behavioral round. Difficulty is hard. Uber runs one of the largest microservice fleets in industry (thousands of services, multi-region), so questions center on scale, failure domains, and automation. Expect 4-6 weeks.
Uber DevOps/SRE Interview at a Glance
| Stage | Format | Typical Duration | Focus |
|---|---|---|---|
| Recruiter screen | Phone | 30 min | Infra background, on-call history |
| Coding screen | Live coding | 60 min | Python/Go, medium problem |
| Onsite: Linux/systems | Live | 45-60 min | Kernel, networking, containers |
| Onsite: troubleshooting | Scenario | 60 min | Live incident walkthrough |
| Onsite: reliability design | Video | 60 min | Multi-region, SLOs, failover |
| Behavioral | Conversation | 45 min | Incident ownership, values |
Estimates from candidate reports. Stack to know: Kubernetes (Uber migrated massive workloads to it), Go, gRPC, M3/Prometheus-style metrics, multi-zone failover.
Real-Style Interview Questions by Round
Coding
- Implement a token-bucket rate limiter in Python or Go.
- Parse a stream of service logs and alert when error rate exceeds 5% over a sliding window.
- Write a concurrency-safe worker pool that retries with exponential backoff.
Linux and systems
- TCP connections pile up in TIME_WAIT on a proxy host. Impact and fixes?
- Explain cgroups and namespaces. How does Kubernetes use each?
- A service's p99 spikes every 30 seconds exactly. What are your hypotheses?
Troubleshooting scenario
- Ride requests fail in one region; dashboards are green. Where do you look first?
- A Kubernetes node is NotReady after a kernel upgrade. Debug it end to end.
- A deploy doubled memory usage fleet-wide. Roll back or forward? Walk through the call.
Reliability design
- Design multi-region failover for a stateful dispatch service. RPO/RTO tradeoffs?
- Set SLOs for a payments API. What burns error budget, and what happens when it's gone?
- Design a safe deploy system for 4,000 microservices — canaries, blast radius, auto-rollback.
- How would you drain and rebalance traffic during a zone evacuation?
Behavioral
- Tell me about the incident you're least proud of. What did the postmortem change?
- Describe pushing back on a launch for reliability reasons. Outcome?
FAQs
Does Uber's DevOps interview include real coding? Yes. Expect a full coding round at medium LeetCode level plus scripting throughout — treat it like an SWE loop with infra depth.
What's the difference between DevOps and SRE at Uber? Titles blur; most infra roles are SRE-flavored with strong software expectations.
What should I study most? Kubernetes internals, Linux debugging, and multi-region failure design.
Is on-call heavy? Infra teams run rotations; ask the recruiter about pager load for your specific team.
How long is the process? Typically 4-6 weeks (estimate).
<script type="application/ld+json"> {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"FAQPage","mainEntity":[{"@type":"Question","name":"Does Uber's DevOps interview include real coding?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"Yes — a full coding round at medium level plus scripting throughout. Treat it like an SWE loop with infra depth."}},{"@type":"Question","name":"What is the difference between DevOps and SRE at Uber?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"Titles blur; most infra roles are SRE-flavored with strong software engineering expectations."}},{"@type":"Question","name":"What should I study most for Uber SRE interviews?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"Kubernetes internals, Linux debugging, and multi-region failure design."}},{"@type":"Question","name":"How long does Uber's DevOps interview process take?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"Typically 4-6 weeks from screen to offer."}}]} </script>Related Guides
- Uber Software Engineer Interview Questions
- Tesla DevOps Engineer Interview Questions
- Uber Senior Software Engineer Interview Questions
- Uber Frontend Engineer Interview Questions
Zero-Downtime Answers
Incident scenarios reward calm, fast, structured answers. InterviewBoost.ai's Live Interview Assist puts one on your screen in 0.3 seconds on Zoom, Teams, or Meet. Drill failure scenarios in AI mock interviews first. 4.9/5 from 50K+ job seekers. Start your free one-week trial — then $99/mo.