Assessing a DevOps profile is a strategic exercise. This role influences architecture, software quality, product culture, and the overall performance of the delivery pipeline.
To recruit or audit efficiently, you need a method that blends technical testing, practical challenges, and performance indicators.

Why DevOps Evaluation Is Unique

A DevOps engineer operates across the entire chain: development, integration, deployment, monitoring, and automation.
A solid evaluation must therefore assess:

  • infrastructure mastery (Cloud, networking, security)
  • the ability to build and maintain reliable CI/CD
  • collaboration and communication culture
  • incident management and observability
  • a continuous improvement mindset

1. Essential Technical Tests

Test 1: Cloud Architecture

Goal: Assess the ability to design scalable and secure architectures.
Evaluate:

  • expertise in AWS, GCP, or Azure
  • IAM best practices
  • network segmentation (VPC, subnets, firewalls)
  • cost management
  • resilience and high availability

Test 2: CI/CD

Goal: Measure the ability to industrialize software delivery.
Test:

  • building a complete pipeline
  • artifact management
  • deployment strategies (rolling, blue-green, canary)
  • integration of automated tests

Test 3: Containers & Orchestration

Goal: Validate the ability to package and orchestrate services.
Observe:

  • quality of Docker images
  • understanding of container registries
  • Kubernetes deployment (manifests, Helm, autoscaling, RBAC)

Test 4: Monitoring & Observability

Goal: Ensure the candidate can prevent, not just repair.
Evaluate:

  • reading key metrics (latency, error rate, saturation)
  • configuration of meaningful alerts
  • usage of dashboards (Grafana, Datadog, Prometheus)

2. Practical Tests (the Most Revealing)

Exercise 1: Deploy a Simple Application

Expected deliverables:

  • a clean Dockerfile
  • a fully functional CI/CD pipeline
  • automated deployment
  • integrated logs and monitoring

Exercise 2: Resolve a Broken Environment Incident

Provide a deliberately unstable system.
Evaluate:

  • diagnostic methodology
  • communication style
  • stress management
  • prioritization

Exercise 3: Optimize a Slow Pipeline

Objective: Observe how the candidate improves delivery speed without sacrificing stability.

3. Key Metrics to Evaluate DevOps Performance

To obtain an objective evaluation, DORA Metrics are the international gold standard.
They measure delivery performance and overall DevOps maturity.

1. Deployment Frequency (DF)

How often deployments are made.
A strong DevOps profile increases frequency without reducing quality.

2. Lead Time for Changes (LTC)

Time from commit to production.
Shorter = more efficient delivery chain.

3. Change Failure Rate (CFR)

Percentage of deployments that cause incidents.
A crucial indicator of stability.

4. Mean Time to Recovery (MTTR)

Average time required to resolve an incident.
Reflects diagnostic ability and responsiveness.

5. Automation Rate

Percentage of the environment that is automated (tests, deployment, infra).
High automation = fewer errors, more scalability.

Conclusion

Evaluating a DevOps profile requires a global approach combining:

  • technical tests to validate core skills
  • practical exercises to assess operational reflexes
  • KPIs to measure performance over time

With this method, you can distinguish true experts from purely theoretical profiles—and secure your delivery for the long term.