1. What is a DevOps Engineer at Applied Systems?
As a DevOps Engineer (specifically leaning into the Manager, DevOps Engineering level) at Applied Systems, you are at the forefront of transforming the insurtech industry. With over 40 years of experience in the market, Applied Systems relies on robust, scalable, and secure infrastructure to deliver innovative software that makes the company indispensable to its customers. In this role, you are not just maintaining pipelines; you are driving the evolution of the entire DevOps platform.
Your impact will be felt across the business as you accelerate development workflows, reduce operational friction, and champion best practices. You will lead and mentor a high-performing team while partnering closely with Software Engineering, Cloud, Corporate IT, and InfoSec. Because the platforms you build support mission-critical insurance operations, your work directly ensures operational resilience, security, and cost-effectiveness at an enterprise scale.
Expect a role that perfectly balances strategic leadership with deep technical architecture. You will be tasked with multi-year planning, vendor management, and systemic improvements, all while fostering a culture of continuous learning and collaboration. This is a unique opportunity to shape the engineering culture of a market leader while solving complex, high-stakes infrastructure challenges.
2. Common Interview Questions
The following questions represent the patterns and themes frequently encountered by candidates interviewing for DevOps leadership roles. Use these to practice structuring your thoughts, rather than memorizing exact answers.
Technical Architecture & Tooling
These questions test your hands-on knowledge and architectural decision-making regarding cloud infrastructure and deployments.
- Walk me through the architecture of a highly scalable infrastructure you recently designed. What were the trade-offs?
- How do you implement GitOps principles using Kubernetes and ArgoCD?
- Describe your approach to securing a CI/CD pipeline from code commit to production deployment.
- What are the primary benefits and challenges of implementing a service mesh like Istio?
- How do you manage infrastructure state and configuration drift across multiple environments?
Leadership & Team Enablement
These questions assess your managerial style, conflict resolution skills, and ability to grow a team.
- Tell me about a time you had to mentor an underperforming engineer. What was your approach and the outcome?
- How do you balance your team's workload between operational support (BAU) and strategic project work?
- Describe a situation where you successfully drove organizational change or adopted a new technology standard across multiple teams.
- How do you approach multi-year platform planning?
- Tell me about your experience managing technology vendors. How do you evaluate a new tool for procurement?
Incident Management & Problem Solving
These questions evaluate your operational maturity and how you handle high-pressure situations.
- Walk me through your methodology for conducting a Root Cause Analysis (RCA) after a major outage.
- Tell me about the most complex production issue you've escalated and resolved.
- How do you design monitoring and observability to proactively detect issues before customers report them?
- Describe a time when a deployment caused an unexpected failure. How did you mitigate it, and what did you change to prevent it from happening again?
3. Getting Ready for Your Interviews
Preparing for the Applied Systems interview requires a holistic approach. Your interviewers will look for a blend of deep technical expertise in modern cloud-native tools and strong leadership capabilities.
Focus your preparation on the following key evaluation criteria:
Technical Architecture & Platform Strategy Interviewers will evaluate your ability to design, establish, and enhance scalable DevOps capabilities. You should be prepared to discuss infrastructure as code (IaC), container orchestration, and advanced CI/CD patterns in depth. Demonstrating how you align technical choices with business goals is critical.
Leadership & Team Enablement Because this role involves leading a high-performing team, you will be assessed on your ability to mentor engineers, support career growth, and drive performance. You can demonstrate strength here by sharing concrete examples of how you have upskilled teams, managed vendor relationships, and fostered a culture of documentation and knowledge sharing.
Cross-Functional Collaboration DevOps at Applied Systems does not exist in a silo. You will be evaluated on your ability to partner with InfoSec, Cloud Engineering, and business stakeholders. Strong candidates will show how they influence organizational change, negotiate technical requirements, and communicate complex concepts to non-technical audiences.
Problem-Solving & Operational Resilience You must demonstrate a track record of identifying root causes of complex technical issues. Interviewers want to see your approach to troubleshooting escalated incidents, conducting Root Cause Analysis (RCA), and implementing systemic improvements that prevent future outages.
4. Interview Process Overview
The interview loop for a DevOps Engineer at Applied Systems is designed to comprehensively assess both your technical depth and your leadership acumen. The process typically begins with a recruiter phone screen to align on your background, remote work capabilities, and salary expectations. From there, you will move into a conversation with the hiring manager, which focuses heavily on your leadership philosophy, past experiences managing DevOps teams, and your approach to cross-functional collaboration.
The core of the evaluation takes place during the technical and cross-functional panel rounds. You can expect deep-dive sessions focusing on system architecture, cloud platforms, and modern deployment strategies like GitOps. Unlike processes that rely heavily on live coding algorithms, the Applied Systems technical rounds are highly practical. You will discuss real-world scenarios involving Kubernetes, CI/CD pipeline optimization, and infrastructure scaling.
Finally, you will likely meet with stakeholders from adjacent teams—such as InfoSec or Software Engineering—to ensure you can effectively partner across the organization to drive cross-team initiatives.
The timeline above outlines the typical stages of the Applied Systems interview loop. Use this to pace your preparation, focusing first on your leadership narrative and high-level architecture before diving into the granular technical details required for the panel stages. Expect the process to be thorough but conversational, reflecting the company's collaborative culture.
5. Deep Dive into Evaluation Areas
To succeed, you need to prove your proficiency across several distinct domains. Interviewers will probe your hands-on experience as well as your strategic decision-making.
Cloud Infrastructure & Automation
This area evaluates your mastery of public cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, or GCP) and your ability to automate infrastructure provisioning. Applied Systems values candidates who can reduce manual effort through robust automation frameworks. Strong performance means speaking confidently about scalable, secure, and cost-effective cloud architectures.
Be ready to go over:
- Infrastructure as Code (IaC) – Best practices for managing state, modularizing code, and testing infrastructure changes using tools like Terraform.
- Cloud Security & Networking – Designing secure VPCs, managing IAM roles, and integrating InfoSec requirements directly into the infrastructure layer.
- Cost Optimization – Strategies for monitoring and reducing cloud spend without sacrificing performance or reliability.
- Advanced concepts – Multi-region high availability, disaster recovery strategies, and immutable infrastructure patterns.
Example questions or scenarios:
- "Walk me through how you would design a multi-region cloud architecture for a highly available, compliance-heavy application."
- "Describe a time you refactored a legacy infrastructure setup into a fully automated IaC deployment."
CI/CD & Cloud-Native Tooling
Your ability to optimize development workflows is paramount. Interviewers will test your knowledge of modern deployment paradigms, specifically looking for experience with the tools Applied Systems prefers, such as GitLab, Kubernetes, ArgoCD, and Istio.
Be ready to go over:
- Container Orchestration – Managing Kubernetes clusters, scaling strategies, and troubleshooting pod lifecycle issues.
- GitOps & Continuous Deployment – Using ArgoCD for declarative deployments and managing configuration drift.
- Service Mesh – Understanding the role of Istio in traffic management, observability, and securing microservices communication.
- Advanced concepts – Zero-downtime deployment strategies (blue/green, canary) and pipeline security (DevSecOps integration).
Example questions or scenarios:
- "How do you handle secrets management and vulnerability scanning within a GitLab CI/CD pipeline?"
- "Explain your approach to migrating a traditional microservices architecture to a GitOps model using Kubernetes and ArgoCD."
Incident Management & Observability
Operational resilience is a core responsibility. You will be evaluated on your ability to oversee troubleshooting, conduct RCAs, and implement monitoring solutions that proactively catch issues before they impact customers.
Be ready to go over:
- Monitoring & Alerting – Setting up SLIs/SLOs, reducing alert fatigue, and using modern observability tools.
- Root Cause Analysis – Structuring an RCA process that focuses on systemic improvements rather than blame.
- Balancing BAU with Strategy – How you allocate team bandwidth between operational firefighting and planned architectural enhancements.
Example questions or scenarios:
- "Tell me about a critical production outage your team faced. How did you manage the incident, and what systemic changes did you implement afterward?"
- "How do you ensure your team isn't overwhelmed by business-as-usual (BAU) operational work?"
Leadership & Stakeholder Management
As a leader, your soft skills are just as important as your technical chops. This area tests your ability to mentor engineers, influence organizational change, and manage external vendors.
Be ready to go over:
- Team Development – Strategies for mentoring DevOps engineers and enabling their performance.
- Cross-Functional Influence – Gaining buy-in from Software Engineering and InfoSec for new platform capabilities.
- Vendor Management – Evaluating, procuring, and managing relationships for technology solutions.
Example questions or scenarios:
- "Describe a time you had to push back on a software engineering team regarding a deployment practice that didn't meet internal standards."
- "How do you approach multi-year planning and evaluating new tools or frameworks for your platform?"
6. Key Responsibilities
As a DevOps Engineer and team leader at Applied Systems, your day-to-day will be a dynamic mix of strategic planning, team management, and technical oversight. You will lead a high-performing team of DevOps engineers, taking responsibility for their career growth, performance enablement, and daily operational focus. A significant part of your role involves balancing business-as-usual (BAU) operational tasks—like troubleshooting escalated incidents—with strategic, planned enhancements to the platform.
You will spend considerable time collaborating across departments. Partnering with Software Engineering, you will design and optimize CI/CD pipelines to ensure developers can ship code quickly and safely. Working with InfoSec and Corporate IT, you will ensure that all infrastructure meets rigorous internal standards for quality, security, and scalability.
Beyond internal collaboration, you will manage vendor relationships for technology solutions, ensuring that third-party tools align with organizational goals and budgets. You will also be heavily involved in multi-year planning, constantly identifying future platform capabilities, evaluating new frameworks, and fostering a culture of rigorous documentation and continuous improvement across the engineering organization.
7. Role Requirements & Qualifications
To be highly competitive for this position, candidates must demonstrate a strong blend of senior-level engineering experience and proven leadership ability.
- Must-have technical skills: Expert knowledge of public cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, or GCP), extensive experience with Infrastructure as Code (IaC), and deep expertise in building and optimizing CI/CD pipelines.
- Must-have experience: 8+ years of overall experience in DevOps Engineering or a closely related field, with at least 2 of those years in a direct leadership or managerial role. A strong track record of identifying and addressing root causes of complex technical issues.
- Nice-to-have skills: Hands-on experience with the specific modern stack preferred by Applied Systems: GitLab, Kubernetes, ArgoCD, and Istio. Experience with vendor management and technology procurement is also a distinct advantage.
- Soft skills: Excellent communication skills are mandatory. You must be able to adapt your messaging to explain complex technical concepts to both highly technical peers and non-technical business stakeholders. Proven ability to lead cross-functional initiatives and drive organizational change.
8. Frequently Asked Questions
Q: Is this role fully remote? Yes, candidates must reside in North America, but the working arrangement is 100% remote. Applied Systems supports flexible work environments while ensuring teams collaborate effectively remotely and in person when necessary.
Q: How technical is the interview process for a Manager-level DevOps role? You should expect a highly technical process. Even as a manager, you are expected to drive the evolution of platform capabilities and champion best practices. You will need to speak authoritatively on Kubernetes, IaC, CI/CD, and cloud architecture, even if your day-to-day is more focused on strategy and leadership.
Q: What is the culture like at Applied Systems? The company places a strong emphasis on valuing teammates as individuals. They promote a culture of continuous learning, cross-team collaboration, and innovation. Work-life balance is generally highly regarded, supported by comprehensive benefits, health and wellness days, and flexible time.
Q: What differentiates a successful candidate for this specific role? A successful candidate seamlessly blends deep technical knowledge of modern tools (like ArgoCD and Istio) with the emotional intelligence required to lead teams and influence stakeholders. The ability to communicate business value out of technical DevOps improvements is a major differentiator.
9. Other General Tips
- Frame with Business Impact: When discussing technical implementations, always tie them back to business outcomes. Explain how your CI/CD improvements reduced time-to-market or how your IaC implementation saved the company money and reduced risk.
- Emphasize Security Collaboration: Applied Systems operates in the insurance sector, making security paramount. Highlight your experience partnering proactively with InfoSec and integrating security checks early in the pipeline (DevSecOps).
- Showcase Systemic Thinking: When answering troubleshooting questions, don't just explain how you fixed the immediate fire. Detail the systemic improvements, monitoring updates, and documentation you created to ensure the issue never resurfaced.
- Prepare for Ambiguity: You may be given open-ended architectural scenarios. Ask clarifying questions about scale, budget, and compliance requirements before jumping into a solution.
Unknown module: experience_stats
10. Summary & Next Steps
Stepping into a DevOps Engineer leadership role at Applied Systems is a chance to make a profound impact on a company that is actively transforming the insurtech landscape. By leading a high-performing team and driving the adoption of modern cloud-native capabilities, you will be at the center of the company's operational success.
As you prepare, focus heavily on bridging the gap between deep technical architecture (Kubernetes, IaC, GitOps) and strategic leadership (mentorship, vendor management, cross-functional influence). Practice articulating your past experiences in a way that highlights your ability to solve complex problems, implement systemic improvements, and communicate effectively with diverse stakeholders.
The target base salary for this position in the United States ranges from 165,000. Your specific offer will depend on your depth of experience, technical skills, and leadership background, and you may also be eligible for additional compensation plans such as bonuses.
Approach your interviews with confidence. You have the experience required to lead and innovate; now it is just a matter of structuring your narrative to showcase your strategic and technical value. For more insights, practice scenarios, and community experiences, be sure to explore additional resources on Dataford. Good luck—you are well-equipped to succeed!