1. What is a DevOps Engineer at Aveva?

As a DevOps Engineer at Aveva, you are at the heart of the company's industrial software and digital transformation initiatives. Aveva builds complex, enterprise-grade software that powers critical infrastructure around the globe. In this role, your primary mission is to ensure that the cloud operations, infrastructure, and deployment pipelines supporting these massive systems are resilient, scalable, and highly automated.

Your work directly impacts how quickly and safely Aveva can deliver features to its enterprise customers. By bridging the gap between software development and IT operations, you will be streamlining CI/CD pipelines, optimizing cloud environments, and fortifying system reliability. The scale here is significant; you are not just maintaining servers, but orchestrating the backbone of products that industries rely on daily.

Expect a role that balances deep technical execution with strategic collaboration. You will frequently interact with globally distributed engineering teams, requiring you to be both a technical problem-solver and a clear communicator. This position is ideal for engineers who thrive on replacing manual toil with elegant automation and who take pride in building rock-solid infrastructure.

2. Getting Ready for Your Interviews

Preparation is about more than just brushing up on technical syntax; it is about demonstrating how you apply your skills to solve real-world operational bottlenecks. Interviewers at Aveva want to see how you think on your feet and how you interact within a team setting.

Focus your preparation on the following key evaluation criteria:

Practical Technical Expertise – Aveva heavily indexes on hands-on, practical knowledge rather than textbook theory. Interviewers will evaluate your ability to configure, troubleshoot, and optimize cloud infrastructure and CI/CD pipelines using real-world scenarios. You can demonstrate strength here by sharing specific examples of how you solved complex deployment or scaling issues in your past roles.

Problem-Solving and Troubleshooting – Operational incidents are inevitable. Your interviewers want to see your methodology for diagnosing and resolving system failures under pressure. Strong candidates will articulate a clear, step-by-step approach to isolating issues, analyzing logs, and implementing permanent fixes rather than just applying temporary patches.

Cross-Cultural Communication and Team Fit – Because Aveva operates globally, you will likely collaborate with teams across the US, UK, India, and beyond. Interviewers will assess your ability to communicate complex technical concepts clearly and your adaptability to different working styles. Showcasing empathy, patience, and a collaborative mindset is critical.

3. Interview Process Overview

The interview process for a DevOps Engineer at Aveva is generally straightforward but thorough, typically spanning three to four stages. The company values a pragmatic approach to interviewing, meaning you will face fewer abstract algorithmic puzzles and more discussions centered around the actual tools and challenges you will encounter on the job.

Your journey usually begins with an initial HR screening focused on your background, salary expectations, and basic role alignment. This is followed by one or two technical rounds. These technical stages are often spoken, conversational deep-dives rather than highly structured whiteboard coding sessions. You may speak with a single engineer or face a panel of technical experts who will probe your knowledge of cloud platforms, automation, and software development lifecycles.

If you pass the technical evaluations, you will move to a managerial or team-fit round. This stage frequently involves interacting with senior project managers or global stakeholders (such as team leads based in the UK or US). The focus here shifts heavily toward behavioral assessment, cultural alignment, and your ability to integrate into a globally distributed workflow.

This visual timeline outlines the typical progression from your initial HR screen through the technical evaluations and final managerial interviews. Use this map to pace your preparation, focusing first on practical technical scenarios before shifting your energy toward behavioral storytelling and stakeholder communication strategies for the later rounds.

4. Deep Dive into Evaluation Areas

To succeed, you need to understand exactly what the panel is looking for in each phase of the interview. Aveva focuses heavily on your ability to deliver tangible results in a cloud-native environment.

Practical DevOps and Cloud Infrastructure

This is the core of your technical evaluation. Interviewers want to verify that you can build, maintain, and secure modern cloud environments. Strong performance means speaking confidently about the trade-offs between different infrastructure approaches and demonstrating a deep familiarity with your chosen tools.

Be ready to go over:

• Cloud Platforms – Navigating AWS, Azure, or GCP, with a focus on compute, networking, and identity management.
• CI/CD Pipelines – Designing, building, and troubleshooting deployment pipelines using tools like Jenkins, GitLab CI, or Azure DevOps.
• Infrastructure as Code (IaC) – Writing and managing infrastructure using Terraform, Ansible, or CloudFormation to ensure consistent environments.
• Advanced concepts (less common) – Multi-region high availability architectures, complex Kubernetes orchestration, and advanced cost-optimization strategies.

Example questions or scenarios:

• "Walk me through how you would design a secure, highly available CI/CD pipeline for a microservices application."
• "If a deployment fails silently in production, what steps do you take to identify the root cause?"
• "Explain how you manage state files in Terraform when working with a distributed team."

Software Development and Scripting

While you are not applying for a pure software engineering role, Aveva expects DevOps Engineers to possess strong development fundamentals. This ensures you can build reliable automation and communicate effectively with the software teams you support.

Be ready to go over:

• Scripting Languages – Writing efficient automation scripts in Python, Bash, or PowerShell.
• Version Control – Advanced Git workflows, branching strategies, and handling merge conflicts.
• System Integration – Using APIs and webhooks to connect disparate tools within the DevOps ecosystem.
• Advanced concepts (less common) – Writing custom modules for configuration management tools or contributing to internal developer portals.

Example questions or scenarios:

• "Describe a time you wrote a script to automate a repetitive operational task. What error handling did you include?"
• "How do you ensure the scripts and automation tools you build are maintainable by other engineers?"
• "Explain your preferred Git branching strategy for a fast-paced development team."

Team Fit and Behavioral Alignment

Technical skills get you through the door, but your behavioral responses determine if you get the offer. Aveva values engineers who are adaptable, collaborative, and capable of managing stakeholder expectations across different time zones.

Be ready to go over:

• Conflict Resolution – Handling disagreements regarding technical direction or deployment schedules.
• Stakeholder Management – Communicating technical roadblocks to non-technical project managers.
• Adaptability – Pivoting your approach when project requirements or timelines suddenly change.
• Advanced concepts (less common) – Leading cross-functional incident post-mortems or driving a cultural shift toward DevOps best practices within a resistant team.

Example questions or scenarios:

• "Tell me about a time you had to push back on a development team that wanted to deploy untested code."
• "Describe a situation where you had to collaborate with a team in a different time zone to resolve a critical issue."
• "How do you prioritize your work when facing multiple urgent requests from different stakeholders?"

5. Key Responsibilities

As a DevOps Engineer at Aveva, your day-to-day work revolves around ensuring that cloud operations and infrastructure are robust, secure, and highly efficient. You will spend a significant portion of your time designing and refining CI/CD pipelines, automating infrastructure provisioning, and monitoring system health to preemptively address potential outages.

Collaboration is a massive part of this role. You will work side-by-side with software development teams to understand their application architecture and tailor deployment strategies that fit their needs. This often involves embedding yourself in their workflows to identify bottlenecks and introduce automation that accelerates their delivery cycles.

Additionally, you will be responsible for maintaining operational security and compliance standards within the cloud environment. This means managing access controls, auditing infrastructure configurations, and participating in incident response rotations to ensure Aveva's enterprise customers experience minimal downtime.

6. Role Requirements & Qualifications

To be highly competitive for this position, you must bring a blend of hands-on technical expertise and strong collaborative skills. Aveva looks for candidates who can operate independently while aligning with broader global team goals.

• Must-have skills – Deep practical experience with at least one major cloud provider (AWS, Azure, or GCP). Strong proficiency in building and maintaining CI/CD pipelines. Solid scripting abilities (Python, Bash) and hands-on experience with Infrastructure as Code (Terraform, Ansible).
• Experience level – Typically requires mid-to-senior level experience (3-5+ years) in a dedicated DevOps, Cloud Operations, or Site Reliability Engineering role. You should have a track record of supporting enterprise-scale applications.
• Soft skills – Excellent verbal and written communication skills are mandatory. You must be comfortable explaining technical decisions to global project managers and collaborating seamlessly with cross-functional teams.
• Nice-to-have skills – Experience with container orchestration (Kubernetes), deep knowledge of industrial software environments, and familiarity with advanced observability tools (Prometheus, Grafana, Datadog).

7. Common Interview Questions

The questions below represent the typical themes and practical scenarios you will encounter during your Aveva interviews. Use them to practice structuring your thoughts, but avoid memorizing scripted answers.

Cloud & Infrastructure Scenarios

These questions test your hands-on experience with deploying and managing cloud resources.

• Walk me through your current job role and the cloud architecture you currently manage.
• How do you handle secrets and sensitive configuration data in your infrastructure?
• Explain the difference between mutable and immutable infrastructure. Which do you prefer and why?
• How would you design a disaster recovery strategy for a cloud-native application?

Automation & CI/CD

Interviewers use these questions to gauge your ability to streamline software delivery.

• What are the key components of a robust CI/CD pipeline?
• How do you implement automated testing within your deployment workflows?
• Describe a time when a pipeline you built failed. How did you troubleshoot and fix it?
• What is your approach to rolling back a failed production deployment?

Behavioral & Team Dynamics

These questions evaluate your cultural fit and ability to work in a global, matrixed organization.

• Tell me about a time you had a technical disagreement with a colleague. How was it resolved?
• Describe a project where you had to interact with international teams or stakeholders.
• How do you handle situations where you are asked to implement a solution you believe is sub-optimal?
• Can you share an example of how you mentored a junior engineer or advocated for DevOps best practices in your team?

8. Frequently Asked Questions

Q: How difficult are the technical interviews? The difficulty is generally considered average. Aveva focuses heavily on practical, day-to-day DevOps tasks rather than obscure computer science trivia. If you have solid, hands-on experience with cloud operations and CI/CD, you will find the questions fair and highly relevant to the job.

Q: Is there a coding test? You typically will not face competitive-programming style algorithms. However, you should be fully prepared to write or verbally explain automation scripts (e.g., Python or Bash) and discuss software development lifecycle concepts.

Q: How long does the interview process take? The process usually takes a few weeks. Because you may be interviewing with panel members and senior project managers located in different countries (like the UK or India), scheduling can sometimes cause slight delays.

Q: What is the culture like for DevOps at Aveva? The culture is highly collaborative and globally connected. You will be expected to take ownership of your infrastructure domains while maintaining open lines of communication with software engineering and product teams across various time zones.

9. Other General Tips

• Focus on the "How" and "Why": When discussing your past projects, do not just list the tools you used. Explain why you chose Terraform over CloudFormation, or how your pipeline optimization reduced deployment times by a specific metric.
• Prepare for Panel Dynamics: You may face a panel of up to four technical experts at once. Practice maintaining eye contact (or camera contact), addressing the person who asked the question, and checking in to ensure you fully answered their prompt.

• Brush Up on Software Development Fundamentals: Even though this is an operations-focused role, interviewers will ask software development questions to gauge your ability to support dev teams effectively. Be comfortable discussing version control, branching, and basic application architecture.

• Nail the Managerial Round: Do not treat the managerial round as a mere formality. Senior project managers will assess your maturity, communication clarity, and readiness to handle enterprise-scale responsibilities. Bring strong examples of stakeholder management.

10. Summary & Next Steps

Joining Aveva as a DevOps Engineer is an opportunity to shape the cloud operations of a company that drives global industrial innovation. The role demands a strong mix of practical infrastructure skills, a passion for automation, and the emotional intelligence to navigate complex, globally distributed teams.

This compensation data reflects the expected range for the Cloud Operations and Infrastructure DevOps Engineer role in the US market. When reviewing your offer, consider how your specific years of experience, depth of cloud expertise, and location factor into the overall compensation package.

To succeed in your interviews, focus your preparation on real-world scenarios. Practice articulating your troubleshooting methodologies and be ready to discuss your past projects in detail. Remember that Aveva is looking for practical problem-solvers who can communicate effectively across borders. Take a deep breath, trust your hands-on experience, and approach each conversation as a collaborative discussion about technology. You have the skills to excel—now it is time to showcase them.