How to Recognize and Hire Top QA / DevOps Engineers

Fundamental knowledge gaps

Looking at the skills of today's engineers, you will be impressed that they can spin up complex cloud infrastructures easily. Even with structures with a large amount of complexity in Cloud computing, for them it doesn't even matter if it is an IaaS (Infrastructure-as-a-Service); PaaS (Platform-as-a-Service), or SaaS (Software-as-a-Service), they can do it with ease. And don't get me wrong, this is important for an engineer. But when looking for top engineers, one question arises: do they understand the underlying fundamentals (or if you prefer, basics) of the computing infrastructure they use in this process?

These are examples of the basic knowledge that any engineer has to know and you need to cover them in your interview with the candidate: network technologies (routing, IP addressing, TCP/IP fundamentals), how servers work and boot, basics of databases, and how they work, encryption and data stores.

Also, any top QA/DevOps engineer needs fundamental knowledge of coding languages, data structures, and algorithms, source control, testing procedures, debugging knowledge, operating systems, etc. It seems a lot, but we are talking about basic knowledge, and not about experts in all these categories.

Every day you will have some configuration issue or some low-level problem that will occur. This "small" issue can cause huge usability problems, even stoppages or site crashes. If you have engineers with basic knowledge, that fundamental knowledge will usually solve the problem.

How often did you witness a simple reboot was enough for the system to continue running smoothly? Having an engineer who clearly understands the difference between performing a simple "shut down" vs. "restart", will be at some point, very important for your team.

Note: Speed your testing process by integrating DevOps practices Try TestMu AI Now!

Key Takeaway: A QA or DevOps candidate should be tested on fundamentals such as routing, IP addressing, TCP/IP, how servers boot, and how databases work, because everyday production trouble is usually a low-level configuration problem.

Formal training vs. experience

Formal training will help when an engineer is getting started with DevOps. But usually, that is not enough for one to become a top QA/DevOps engineer or take full responsibility for the product platform operations.

To have certificates and attend classes, online courses, and boot camps is a plus, but you can't "learn" experience.

When you look for QA/DevOps engineer, don't undermine engineers without formal training. If one has over 20 years of experience in the industry, surely lots of skills are gathered over the years.

Top QA/DevOps engineers must have the experience necessary to lead, operate, and debug. You will see that during some major incidents when stress levels are high, having experienced engineers will make a huge difference. They will be able to quickly take the lead and find solutions from their previous experiences.

In those cases, prepare and conduct interviews with DevOps interview questions that can show the technical skills of every candidate.

Ask each candidate which delivery metrics their last team tracked. DORA splits software delivery measurement into throughput signals and instability signals. The throughput signals are change lead time, deployment frequency, and failed deployment recovery time. The instability signals are change fail rate and deployment rework rate. An engineer who has owned a pipeline can name the ones their team watched and describe a specific change that moved one of them. An engineer who has only finished a course usually describes tools instead.

Key Takeaway: Formal training gets a QA or DevOps engineer started, but asking which DORA delivery metrics their last team tracked, and which change moved one of them, shows whether the candidate has really owned a pipeline.

Be careful of "Know-it-all" engineer

Progress and changes in technology happen quickly. The top skills one has today can be irrelevant tomorrow. And that is a reality we all need to acknowledge. Try to find and recognize candidates that like to explore and learn new things. Look for engineers who always try to figure out how to make things work better.

The ones who are willing to test things multiple times to find the right solution are better candidates. Those engineers are a better choice than ones that stick to what they learn in formal training and are not willing to change or adapt their minds. So many different DevOps testing tools are developed and available today for one to use. Top QA/DevOps engineers will be willing to spend their time researching and reviewing tools to find the right one for the particular job.

Screen for how a candidate works with AI coding assistants. The DORA State of AI-assisted Software Development 2025 report describes AI as an amplifier that magnifies the strengths and weaknesses an organization already has, so the question worth asking is not whether a candidate uses these tools but how they check the output. Ask what they review before they merge a generated change, how they test it, and when they last rejected a suggestion and wrote the code themselves. A candidate who cannot answer that is trusting a tool they do not understand.

Key Takeaway: Hire the QA or DevOps engineer who researches and retests tools rather than one who stops at formal training, and ask how they review, test, and sometimes reject AI-generated code before merging it.

Communication skills

Don't overlook the communication skills of potential candidates. This is important since QA/DevOps engineers will need to schedule a meeting to talk about any relevant issues to clear things up with a team. They would need to communicate with customers and product owners to explain developments or problems with the product.

DevOps and QA engineers must be able to write clearly, and the text needs to be meaningful. The team needs to understand what they are saying, listen to it, and ask questions. This is important for a team to understand the requirements that are needed from them. QA/DevOps engineers will mainly work with the development team. And if they have good communication with other team members, the project will run better, and the job will be done correctly.

Key Takeaway: QA and DevOps engineers must write and speak clearly enough for developers, customers, and product owners to understand requirements and problems, so communication skill belongs in the hiring criteria.

Particular personality traits

You cannot just test candidates for QA/DevOps engineers against a "best set" list of traits and then look for only ones that have all boxes from that list checked. Every candidate is a person who has a different personality and a wide range of interests. There are extroverts and introverts; some are very opinionated, and others are not; some easily accept new environments, and some need a quiet place to come up with the best ideas. The list is a never-ending one.

The right candidate needs to be the one that has the right skills needed for a job. The top QA/DevOps engineer who is the right pick for your company fits right into your company's mission. Also, needs to have good communication skills and traits to get the job completed on time.

Focus on what will be needed from a person from a work perspective, and don't defer from the company mission and culture. Be aware of personality traits that can become a huge problem. Try to eliminate in the first interview, candidates with inflexible opinions or ones that are so introverted that any kind of communication is difficult. Look for problems in extreme personality traits.

Key Takeaway: There is no ideal personality checklist for a QA or DevOps hire, so screen for fit with the company mission and rule out only the extremes, such as inflexible opinions or an inability to communicate at all.

Seniority vs. minor tasks and teamwork culture

Here is another important thing to look for in your candidates. When any crisis occurs, will they be ready to jump in and help the team in every task to get the job done?

This is important for teams of all sizes. Bear in mind that tasks that some senior staff will consider minor are equally important in taking projects to the finishing line(tasks like writing documentation, test cases, reviewing logs, creating checklists, etc.).

All the above make a good case for a company to have a team that comprises both experienced and junior engineers so that your QA/DevOps team will be well balanced.

This will allow a leading QA/DevOps engineer to balance seniority issues and teamwork. Encouraging senior staff members to act like mentors will allow them to be appreciated, and not feel threatened by new team members.

Key Takeaway: Senior QA and DevOps engineers should be willing to take on tasks they consider minor, such as writing documentation and test cases and reviewing logs, and a team that pairs senior mentors with junior engineers stays balanced.

Researching skills

Please don't confuse researching with learning. A good engineer will be willing to learn, but to do that, they will require an already prepared topic and literature.

In other cases, top QA/DevOps engineers will be willing to research to find answers to questions or problems. And then to learn it.

An experienced person will know how to conduct research. Either on the internet, in company manuals or maybe to ask some of the team members.

Not everybody knows how to research on the net; you need to "ask" the right question to get the right answer. And that is a skill too, one you will need from top QA/DevOps engineers.

Key Takeaway: Researching is not the same as learning, and a top QA or DevOps engineer can find answers alone by asking the right question of the internet, company manuals, or teammates.

Understand the importance of time management

Time management is an important process in any role, either technical or non-technical. Top QA/DevOps engineers as leaders in teams, must understand the basics of time management.

But understanding and knowing how to implement them is an altogether different issue.

For QA/DevOps engineers implementing time management means knowing how to prioritize tasks to ensure there is enough time available to complete every project. The quality of the end product depends on good time management skills.

Ask your candidates to present you with quick drafts on how to manage time, what is the purpose of time management, and how will they organize the time of their teams to meet a deadline, but also deliver quality.

This will also help you to recognize top candidates for QA/DevOps roles. To see how a team keeps the CI/CD process running alongside development and testing, read our guide to DevOps automation.

Key Takeaway: Time management for a QA or DevOps engineer means prioritising tasks so every project has enough time to finish, so ask candidates how they would organise a team to meet a deadline and still deliver quality.

How should you structure the technical interview when candidates use AI?

Run a live, observed exercise and make the candidate explain the reasoning out loud. An unsupervised take-home project no longer proves much on its own. Karat surveyed 400 engineering leaders across the US, India, and China and found that 71% say AI has made technical skills harder to assess. The same survey put automated code test use in the US at 63% and take-home project use at 45%, and those are the two formats whose hiring signal degrades fastest, because a candidate can generate, debug, and document the submission with an assistant.

Build the exercise out of work the role actually does. For a DevOps candidate that means a broken deployment to debug, a pipeline to sketch, or an infrastructure diagram to critique instead of an algorithm puzzle. For a QA candidate it means a failing suite that contains one genuinely flaky test, or a bug report written badly enough that the candidate has to ask you for the missing steps. Watch the first five minutes. Reading the logs and stating a hypothesis before changing anything tells you more than the final answer does.

Let them use an AI assistant, then grade the review rather than the output. Karat argues that banning AI in the interview fails to measure whether a candidate can work with it, and that the signals worth scoring are how they evaluate, debug, and improve generated code, and whether they hold their own judgment instead of accepting the first suggestion. If you keep a take-home, attach a short live debrief in which the candidate walks you through each decision. That one step recovers most of the signal the unsupervised format lost.

Key Takeaway: Run a live, observed exercise built from real QA or DevOps work, let the candidate use an AI assistant, and grade how they review, debug, and improve the generated code rather than the output itself.

Develop and offer a competitive compensation plan

Finding a top QA or DevOps engineer is a challenging task for a recruiter. So be aware when preparing to hire one for your team, you will need to offer them a good enough compensation plan so they will not choose competition above you. Salary range, flexibility in the daily schedule, work location, and equity need to be among your listed competitive benefits. Also, prepare a package that offers professional development and a job description that represents a challenge for them so they will accept the job at your company.

Bear in mind that the roles in the hiring industry have changed. Now employers have to attract top candidates. So balance well between what you are looking for and what you can offer to a Top QA/DevOps engineer as an employee.

Speed counts as much as the package. The Kore1 hiring guide linked above argues that a loop that cannot get from first conversation to signed offer inside three weeks needs to change, and it names five interview rounds for a mid level role as the usual form of the problem. Gaps between rounds cost the same: interview on a Tuesday, debrief the following Monday, and ten days have gone while the candidate assumes you are not interested. Agree the number of rounds and the debrief dates before you open the role.

Key Takeaway: A competitive offer for a top QA or DevOps engineer should include salary range, schedule flexibility, work location, equity, professional development, and a job description that presents a real challenge.

Final thoughts

When we talk about top QA/DevOps engineers, having good skills, resourcefulness, creativity in solving problems, and thorough knowledge of the "engineering profession" are essential.

I believe that a good DevOps, in addition to the necessary knowledge of the fundamentals in the IT world, should know, research, and be interested in the "precedents" that will lead them to solve the problem sooner. Now, something like that requires years of experience, but also endless curiosity to find new methods and ways to remove certain obstacles.

Moreover, when we talk about maintaining good interpersonal relations, certainly a company should hire a person who will bring some new, positive energy. A company needs QA/DevOps engineer who would be able to function within a team because software companies nurture teamwork. In such cases, the final product depends on each computer, or the developer sitting behind that computer.

When it comes to personality traits, I think it is not crucial whether a person is an introvert or extrovert, because both types of personality can contribute to solving problems. Although an extroverted person may be more "bold" when it comes to using ways and methods of solving problems, it is often the case that such a personality type cannot focus and stay on something for a long time.

This can result in frequent "jumping" from method to method and not implementing the one method until the end, which ultimately leads to an unsolved task. On the other hand, introverts, although by nature closed and withdrawn personalities can persist until the end in one method of solving the problem. And if the chosen method fails, only then do they decide to switch to some other methods. Extroverts are more daring in trying numerous ways of solving problems, but introverts are more persistent to see a certain method to the end.

Finally, when it comes to team management, it is very important to take the lead in time management, because we all strive to do a certain job as quickly and efficiently as possible. When it comes to QA/DevOps, as already mentioned, good skills, resourcefulness, and creativity in solving problems, all entail several qualities related to time management. Top QA/DevOps engineer knows how to organize work and time, how to solve a problem in a creative, fast, and efficient way, and find a way to communicate well with the team.