Top 50 azure devops interview questions and answers for devops engineer

Top 50 Azure DevOps Interview Questions & Answers for DevOps Engineers

Date: 28 November 2025

Welcome to this comprehensive study guide designed to help you ace your next Azure DevOps interview. This resource provides expert insights and concise answers to critical questions a DevOps Engineer might face. We'll cover fundamental concepts, key services like Azure Pipelines, Boards, Repos, and Artifacts, along with best practices to ensure you're well-prepared for any technical discussion.

Table of Contents

1. Azure DevOps Fundamentals & Core Concepts
2. Azure Boards for Agile Planning
3. Azure Repos for Version Control
4. Azure Pipelines for CI/CD
5. Azure Artifacts & Package Management
6. Monitoring, Security & Best Practices
7. Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
8. Further Reading
9. Conclusion

Azure DevOps Fundamentals & Core Concepts

Understand the foundational elements of Azure DevOps, its offerings, and how it facilitates the DevOps lifecycle effectively.

1. What is Azure DevOps and its key services?

Azure DevOps is a suite of development services offering end-to-end support for the software development lifecycle. It includes Azure Boards for planning, Azure Repos for version control, Azure Pipelines for CI/CD, Azure Test Plans for testing, and Azure Artifacts for package management. This integrated platform enables teams to deliver applications faster and more reliably.

2. Explain the difference between Azure DevOps Services and Azure DevOps Server.

Azure DevOps Services is Microsoft's cloud-hosted offering, providing high availability and automatic updates without infrastructure management. Azure DevOps Server is the on-premises version, requiring self-management of infrastructure. Server offers greater data control, while Services provides convenience and scalability, being the default choice for modern development.

3. What is a Project in Azure DevOps?

A Project in Azure DevOps acts as a container for all artifacts related to a specific software initiative or team. It encompasses source code, work items, pipelines, and packages. Projects help teams organize efforts, manage permissions, and collaborate efficiently from planning through deployment within a unified platform.

Azure Boards for Agile Planning

Explore how Azure Boards assists in agile project management, efficient work tracking, and team collaboration.

4. How do you manage work items in Azure Boards?

Work items in Azure Boards track various tasks like user stories, bugs, features, and tasks. They can be created, updated, and linked to other artifacts. Teams use backlogs, boards (Kanban or Scrum), and queries to visualize, prioritize, and manage work flow, ensuring transparency and efficient delivery across the development cycle.

5. Explain Epics, Features, User Stories, and Tasks.

These hierarchical work item types support different planning levels: An Epic is a large business goal broken into Features, which deliver value and comprise multiple User Stories. Each user story is then divided into smaller Tasks, assigned to individuals for completion. This structure aids detailed, multi-level planning.

Azure Repos for Version Control

Delve into version control strategies using Azure Repos, including Git and TFVC, and managing code changes effectively.

6. Compare Git and TFVC in Azure Repos.

Git is a distributed version control system (DVCS) where developers have local repositories, enabling flexible branching and offline work. TFVC (Team Foundation Version Control) is a centralized system where changes are checked into a single server. Git is the modern, recommended choice due to its flexibility, performance, and support for complex workflows.

7. How do you set up branch policies?

Branch policies in Azure Repos enforce quality gates on critical branches like main. These policies can require a minimum number of reviewers, successful build validation, linked work items, and comment resolution for pull requests. Such policies ensure code quality and maintain the integrity of important codebase branches.

Azure Pipelines for CI/CD

Master Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery with Azure Pipelines, covering build automation, testing, and deployments.

8. What is CI/CD and how does Azure Pipelines support it?

CI/CD refers to Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery/Deployment. CI involves frequent code integration and automated testing. CD extends this by automatically deploying verified changes. Azure Pipelines automates both processes, allowing multi-stage pipelines (YAML or Classic) to build, test, and deploy applications across various environments, integrating with diverse tools and platforms.

9. Differentiate between Classic Pipelines and YAML Pipelines.

Classic Pipelines are configured using a graphical user interface (UI) in Azure DevOps. YAML Pipelines are defined using YAML syntax directly in the source code repository. YAML Pipelines offer advantages like version control, easier peer review, template reuse, and seamless integration with Git workflows. YAML is now the recommended approach for defining pipelines.

10. Provide an example of a simple YAML CI pipeline.

Here's a basic YAML pipeline for a .NET Core application, demonstrating build and test steps:

# azure-pipelines.yml
trigger:
- main

pool:
  vmImage: 'windows-latest'

steps:
- task: UseDotNet@2
  displayName: 'Use .NET SDK 6.x'
  inputs:
    version: '6.x'
    includePreviewVersions: true

- task: DotNetCoreCLI@2
  displayName: 'Restore, Build, and Test'
  inputs:
    command: 'custom'
    custom: 'restore && build --configuration Release && test --configuration Release'
    projects: '**/*.csproj'

11. What are Agents and Agent Pools?

An Agent is software that runs pipeline jobs, executing tasks like building or deploying code. Agent Pools are collections of these agents. You can use Microsoft-hosted agents (cloud-managed) or self-hosted agents (on your infrastructure for specific needs). Pools enable efficient organization and scaling of agent resources across different projects or environments.

Azure Artifacts & Package Management

Learn about managing and sharing software packages, including NuGet, npm, and Maven, with Azure Artifacts.

12. What is Azure Artifacts used for?

Azure Artifacts is a package management service. It hosts and shares various package types like NuGet, npm, Maven, and Python within your organization. This service helps standardize package consumption, ensures build reproducibility, and efficiently manages dependencies. It serves as a central repository for both internal and proxied public packages.

13. How do you publish and consume packages with Azure Artifacts?

To publish, your build pipeline configures a task (e.g., NuGet Push) to upload packages to an Azure Artifacts feed after successful creation. To consume, you configure your project's package manager (e.g., nuget.config) to point to the Artifacts feed. This setup allows developers and other pipelines to seamlessly download and utilize required packages.

Monitoring, Security & Best Practices

Understand how to secure your Azure DevOps environment, manage permissions, and implement best practices for efficient DevOps workflows.

14. How do you manage permissions and security in Azure DevOps?

Security in Azure DevOps uses a role-based access control (RBAC) model. Permissions are set at organization, project, and object levels (e.g., specific repos, pipelines). Users are assigned to built-in or custom security groups. Permissions are inherited but can be overridden, often leveraging Azure Active Directory integration for identity management.

15. What are service connections?

Service connections in Azure DevOps establish secure links to external services like Azure subscriptions, GitHub, or Kubernetes clusters. They securely store credentials (e.g., service principals) and allow pipelines to interact with these services without exposing sensitive information in code. This is essential for secure deployments and integrations with cloud environments.

16. Briefly discuss best practices for Azure DevOps.

Key best practices include adopting Pipeline as Code (YAML) for version-controlled pipelines and implementing a robust branching strategy with strong branch policies. Focus on automated testing within CI/CD and integrate security checks early (Shift Left). Utilize Infrastructure as Code (IaC) and ensure continuous monitoring and alerting post-deployment.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Here are some quick answers to common questions about Azure DevOps interviews.

Q: What are the primary skills tested in an Azure DevOps interview?

A: Interviewers typically seek proficiency in CI/CD, scripting (PowerShell, Bash), Azure cloud, Git, Infrastructure as Code (ARM, Terraform), containerization (Docker, Kubernetes), and monitoring tools.

Q: How can I prepare for scenario-based Azure DevOps questions?

A: Practice designing solutions for common challenges like migrating applications, implementing deployment strategies, or troubleshooting pipelines. Focus on explaining the "why" behind your proposed solutions and their practical implications.

Q: Is coding knowledge required for a DevOps Engineer role?

A: While not a core developer, a DevOps Engineer needs strong scripting skills for automation and understanding application code to effectively troubleshoot and integrate with pipelines.

Q: What is a service principal in Azure and why is it important for DevOps?

A: A service principal is an identity used by applications or services to access Azure resources securely. It is crucial for DevOps pipelines to authenticate and perform actions (e.g., deployments) without exposing individual user credentials.

Q: What is the benefit of using templates in Azure Pipelines?

A: Templates promote reusability, consistency, and standardization across pipelines. They help enforce best practices, reduce duplication, and simplify maintenance by defining common steps or stages once and referencing them repeatedly.

{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "FAQPage",
  "mainEntity": [
    {
      "@type": "Question",
      "name": "What are the primary skills tested in an Azure DevOps interview?",
      "acceptedAnswer": {
        "@type": "Answer",
        "text": "Interviewers typically seek proficiency in CI/CD, scripting (PowerShell, Bash), Azure cloud, Git, Infrastructure as Code (ARM, Terraform), containerization (Docker, Kubernetes), and monitoring tools."
      }
    },
    {
      "@type": "Question",
      "name": "How can I prepare for scenario-based Azure DevOps questions?",
      "acceptedAnswer": {
        "@type": "Answer",
        "text": "Practice designing solutions for common challenges like migrating applications, implementing deployment strategies, or troubleshooting pipelines. Focus on explaining the \"why\" behind your proposed solutions and their practical implications."
      }
    },
    {
      "@type": "Question",
      "name": "Is coding knowledge required for a DevOps Engineer role?",
      "acceptedAnswer": {
        "@type": "Answer",
        "text": "While not a core developer, a DevOps Engineer needs strong scripting skills for automation and understanding application code to effectively troubleshoot and integrate with pipelines."
      }
    },
    {
      "@type": "Question",
      "name": "What is a service principal in Azure and why is it important for DevOps?",
      "acceptedAnswer": {
        "@type": "Answer",
        "text": "A service principal is an identity used by applications or services to access Azure resources securely. It is crucial for DevOps pipelines to authenticate and perform actions (e.g., deployments) without exposing individual user credentials."
      }
    },
    {
      "@type": "Question",
      "name": "What is the benefit of using templates in Azure Pipelines?",
      "acceptedAnswer": {
        "@type": "Answer",
        "text": "Templates promote reusability, consistency, and standardization across pipelines. They help enforce best practices, reduce duplication, and simplify maintenance by defining common steps or stages once and referencing them repeatedly."
      }
    }
  ]
}
    

Further Reading

Deepen your knowledge with these authoritative resources:

• Azure DevOps Documentation (Official Microsoft Docs)
• Microsoft Learn: Azure DevOps Learning Paths (Interactive Learning Modules)
• Azure DevOps Blog (Latest Updates & Best Practices)

Conclusion

Preparing for an Azure DevOps Engineer interview requires a solid understanding of its core services and how they integrate to form a robust CI/CD pipeline. By mastering concepts like Azure Boards for agile planning, Azure Repos for version control, and especially Azure Pipelines for automation, you demonstrate your capability to drive efficient and reliable software delivery. This guide has equipped you with essential Azure DevOps interview questions and answers, providing a strong foundation for your success.

Stay ahead in your career! Subscribe to our newsletter for more expert guides, industry insights, and the latest in DevOps trends, or explore our other related posts on cloud computing and automation.

1. What is Azure DevOps?

Azure DevOps is Microsoft’s cloud platform offering CI/CD pipelines, Git repos, agile boards, artifacts, and test management. It enables end-to-end DevOps workflows including planning, coding, building, testing, deployment, and release automation.

2. What are Azure Pipelines?

Azure Pipelines is a CI/CD service that builds, tests, and deploys apps across multiple platforms. It supports YAML pipelines, classic pipelines, parallel jobs, container builds, and integrations with GitHub, Azure Repos, Jenkins, and Bitbucket.

3. What is Azure Repos?

Azure Repos provides unlimited, cloud-hosted Git repositories with branch policies, pull requests, code reviews, and permissions. It supports collaboration, version control, GitFlow, and integrates seamlessly with pipelines for automated builds.

4. What are Azure Boards?

Azure Boards offers agile project management with work items, sprints, backlogs, Kanban boards, and reporting. It helps teams plan, track, and manage development tasks with full visibility and integration with repos, pipelines, and dashboards.

5. What is Azure Artifacts?

Azure Artifacts is a package management service supporting Maven, npm, NuGet, and Python feeds. It enables storing, sharing, and versioning dependencies securely and integrates with Azure Pipelines for automated artifact publishing.

6. What is Azure Test Plans?

Azure Test Plans provides manual, exploratory, and automated testing tools. It helps track test cases, defects, and execution quality. It integrates with pipelines, enabling quality gates and continuous testing workflows in DevOps environments.

7. What is a YAML Pipeline?

A YAML Pipeline is a pipeline defined in a YAML file stored in the repository. It enables CI/CD configuration as code, versioning, modular templates, reusable steps, and multi-stage workflows with full traceability across projects.

8. What is Classic Pipeline?

Classic Pipelines use a GUI-based editor for creating build and release pipelines. It helps users define tasks, stages, approvals, and environments visually, making it easier for teams not fully adopting YAML-as-code workflows.

9. What are Self-Hosted Agents?

Self-hosted agents are machines you manage to run pipeline jobs. They provide more control, custom tools, higher performance, and support private networks. They are ideal for enterprise builds, on-prem systems, and secured environments.

10. What are Microsoft-Hosted Agents?

Microsoft-hosted agents are cloud-managed VMs that run Azure Pipeline tasks automatically. They include preinstalled tools like .NET, Node, Java, Docker, and save teams from maintaining infrastructure, ideal for quick, scalable CI/CD jobs.

11. What is a Multi-Stage Pipeline?

A multi-stage pipeline allows defining build, test, deploy, and release stages in one YAML file. It provides approvals, environments, gates, artifacts, and full end-to-end automation for continuous integration and continuous delivery workflows.

12. What are Variables in Azure Pipelines?

Variables store reusable values such as configuration, version numbers, secrets, and environment names. They support variable groups, runtime inputs, pipeline parameters, and key vault integration for secure credential management.

13. What are Variable Groups?

Variable Groups store shared variables that can be used across multiple pipelines. They centralize configuration values, support Azure Key Vault linkage, simplify environment settings, and ensure consistent CI/CD behavior across projects.

14. What is Azure Key Vault Integration?

Azure DevOps integrates with Azure Key Vault to securely fetch secrets, certificates, and keys during pipeline execution. It ensures sensitive values remain encrypted, centrally managed, and compliant with enterprise security standards.

15. What is an Environment in Azure DevOps?

Environments represent deployment targets such as Dev, QA, Staging, or Production. They support approvals, checks, resource views, and deployment histories, helping teams manage releases and compliance more effectively in pipelines.

16. What is a Deployment Job?

Deployment jobs are pipeline stages designed to deploy applications to environments. They support approvals, gates, rollback strategies, and environment-specific tasks, giving controlled and auditable application delivery workflows.

17. What are Service Connections?

Service Connections authorize Azure DevOps to access external services such as Azure, AWS, Kubernetes, GitHub, and Docker registries. They securely store credentials and allow pipelines to deploy resources or push artifacts.

18. What is Azure DevOps Release Pipeline?

A Release Pipeline automates deployments with stages, approvals, gates, and artifact versions. It supports complex enterprise release flows and connects builds to environments like AKS, VMs, App Service, and function apps.

19. What are Gates in Release Pipelines?

Gates enable validation checks before deployment, such as monitoring alerts, security scans, REST queries, or work item checks. They ensure deployments meet compliance and quality standards before reaching production environments.

20. What is Azure DevOps Marketplace?

Azure DevOps Marketplace offers extensions for pipelines, boards, testing, security, scanning, and integrations. It allows organizations to enhance Azure DevOps with tools like SonarCloud, WhiteSource, Slack, Terraform, and Jira.

21. What are Pipeline Templates?

Templates allow reusing pipeline steps, jobs, and stages across multiple YAML files. They support modular CI/CD design, reduce duplication, enable parameterized builds, and simplify enterprise-scale configuration management.

22. What is Azure DevOps REST API?

The Azure DevOps REST API allows automation of tasks like work item creation, pipeline triggers, artifact access, and repo operations. It enables custom tooling, scripts, integrations, and workflow orchestration at scale.

23. What is Continuous Integration in Azure DevOps?

Continuous Integration automatically builds and tests code whenever changes are pushed. Azure Pipelines ensures code quality, detects errors early, runs unit tests, and accelerates development cycles with automated feedback loops.

24. What is Continuous Delivery in Azure DevOps?

Continuous Delivery automates deployment to environments such as Dev, QA, and Staging. Azure DevOps ensures builds are validated, packaged, and deployed consistently, reducing manual errors and improving release reliability.

25. What is Azure Monitor Integration?

Azure DevOps integrates with Azure Monitor and Application Insights to track app performance, deployment health, and pipeline impact. It enables proactive alerting, root-cause analysis, and data-driven operational improvements.

26. What is Azure DevOps Project?

Azure DevOps Project provides an automated setup of repos, pipelines, boards, and monitoring for new applications. It gives a ready-to-use CI/CD environment integrating with Azure App Service, Kubernetes, and Virtual Machines for quick project onboarding.

27. What is Application Insights?

Application Insights is an APM tool that monitors application performance, failures, dependencies, and user actions. It collects telemetry in real time, enabling deep diagnostics, distributed tracing, and data-driven improvements across deployed workloads.

28. What is Infrastructure as Code in Azure DevOps?

IaC in Azure DevOps uses tools like ARM templates, Bicep, Terraform, and Ansible to automate infrastructure provisioning. Pipelines can validate, plan, deploy, and destroy resources, ensuring version-controlled, consistent, repeatable infrastructure environments.

29. What is Azure CLI in pipelines?

Azure CLI tasks enable executing Azure commands directly from pipelines to manage resources, deploy applications, configure environments, and automate cloud workflows. They support scripts in Bash or PowerShell and integrate with service connections securely.

30. What is Azure DevOps Git Branching Strategy?

Azure DevOps supports strategies like GitFlow, trunk-based development, and release branching. Branch policies, PR validations, and CI triggers ensure code quality, automated testing, gated check-ins, and structured release management workflows.

31. What are Pull Request Policies?

PR policies enforce code quality by requiring approvals, builds, reviewers, linked work items, and specific branch rules. They ensure safe merges, maintain coding standards, and integrate with automated checks to improve collaboration and quality assurance.

32. What are Build Artifacts?

Build artifacts are output packages generated after pipeline builds, including binaries, containers, manifests, or zip files. They are stored, versioned, and used by release pipelines to deploy consistently across environments and deployment targets.

33. What is Deployment Slot in Azure DevOps?

Deployment slots in Azure App Service allow deploying changes to staging environments before swapping to production. Azure DevOps pipelines automate slot deployment, testing, swap operations, and rollback strategies for safer continuous delivery practices.

34. What is a Pipeline Agent Pool?

Agent pools group build agents that execute pipeline jobs. They allow resource sharing across projects, workload isolation, prioritization, and scaling. Pools can contain Microsoft-hosted or self-hosted agents for flexible CI/CD execution environments.

35. How do you secure secrets in Azure Pipelines?

Secrets are secured using variable groups, secret variables, and Azure Key Vault integration. Pipelines prevent secret echo, mask sensitive output, and enforce RBAC-based access to ensure credentials are protected during build and deployment processes.

36. What is Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) CI/CD?

Azure DevOps enables AKS CI/CD using container builds, Helm charts, Kubernetes manifests, and service connections. Pipelines automate container builds, image pushes, kubectl deployments, scaling operations, and environment-based promotion workflows.

37. What is Azure Container Registry (ACR) Integration?

Pipelines build container images and push them to ACR automatically using Docker or BuildKit tasks. ACR integrates with AKS, Azure App Service, and Functions, enabling secure, private image management for production-grade CI/CD automation workflows.

38. What is Continuous Deployment Trigger?

A continuous deployment trigger deploys new artifacts automatically when a new build is available. It enables immediate promotion of successful builds to staging or production environments using release pipelines, reducing manual intervention.

39. What is a Pipeline Artifact Feed?

Artifact feeds store dependency packages such as npm, Maven, NuGet, or Python packages. They provide version management, caching, auditing, and secure sharing across teams to support dependency consistency in CI/CD pipelines.

40. What are Retention Policies in Azure Pipelines?

Retention policies automatically remove old builds, logs, and artifacts to optimize storage. They help manage cost, reduce clutter, and maintain compliance. Teams can configure retention based on days, number of builds, or branch filters.

41. What is Test Automation in Azure DevOps?

Test automation integrates automated unit, integration, Selenium, or API tests directly into CI/CD pipelines. Results appear in dashboards, enabling quality checks, gates, and pass/fail conditions that protect production readiness and application stability.

42. What are Build Triggers?

Build triggers automate pipeline execution based on events such as commits, pull requests, scheduled builds, or manual runs. They help reduce delays, catch issues early, and ensure consistent CI workflows aligned with development activity.

43. What is Artifact Versioning?

Artifact versioning assigns version numbers to builds, containers, or packages for traceability. It supports semantic versioning and ensures consistent deployments, rollback support, and precise tracking across Dev, QA, Staging, and Production.

44. What is Azure Service Principal?

A Service Principal is a security identity used to authenticate Azure resources from pipelines. It provides role-based access, secret or certificate authentication, and secure automation of deployments and resource management through CI/CD jobs.

45. What is a Pipeline Workspace?

A pipeline workspace is the directory on an agent where builds, artifacts, sources, and logs are stored during execution. It enables caching, file sharing between tasks, artifact publishing, and persistence of build outputs throughout a job.

46. What is a Stage in Azure Pipelines?

A stage represents a logical phase of CI/CD like Build, QA, Staging, or Production. Stages contain jobs, approvals, checks, and gates. They structure multi-stage pipelines for controlled, environment-based deployments across the release workflow.

47. What is Azure DevOps Compliance & Auditing?

Azure DevOps provides auditing logs, permissions, access reviews, and compliance reports. It helps organizations track changes, enforce governance, manage secure code pipelines, and ensure adherence to regulatory requirements and security standards.

48. What are Repository Permissions?

Repository permissions control who can read, write, clone, push, or manage branches. They enforce Git security rules, restrict high-risk actions, support RBAC, and protect the codebase from unauthorized changes or accidental modifications in production.

49. What is Build Pipeline vs. Release Pipeline?

Build pipelines compile, test, and package code, while release pipelines deploy artifacts to environments. Build handles CI workflows, and release manages CD stages, approvals, slots, gates, and environment lifecycle management across the deployment chain.

50. What is DevOps Automation in Azure DevOps?

DevOps automation uses pipelines, repos, IaC, testing, dashboards, alerts, and integrations to streamline development and operations. Azure DevOps unifies all tools, enabling faster releases, higher quality, predictable deployments, and improved team productivity.