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Exam Review

Key Facts: DevOps Engineering Exam

40

Exam Questions

DevOps Institute

65%

Passing Score

DevOps Institute

60 minutes

Exam Duration

DevOps Institute

$300-$400

Exam Fee (USD)

PeopleCert

8

Content Modules

DOEF v1.0

3 years

Certification Validity

PeopleCert CPD

The DOEF exam has 40 multiple-choice questions in 60 minutes with a 65% passing score (26/40). It is open book and web-based via PeopleCert. The eight modules range from DevOps engineering introduction (8%) and technology (15%) through CI (15%), continuous testing (15%), ephemeral infrastructure (13%), continuous delivery (15%), metrics/observability/governance (13%), to DevOps humans (8%).

Sample DevOps Engineering Practice Questions

Try these sample questions to review concepts for the DevOps Engineering exam. Each question includes a detailed explanation. Start the interactive quiz above for the full 100+ question experience with AI tutoring.

1From an engineering perspective, what is the primary purpose of DevOps?
A.To eliminate the operations team and have developers run production
B.To engineer the technical capabilities that enable fast, reliable, and safe flow of value to customers
C.To replace Agile methodologies with a more technical framework
D.To require every organization to adopt microservices and Kubernetes
Explanation: DevOps Engineering focuses on the technical practices, tools, and architectures that operationalize DevOps culture so changes can flow quickly and safely. It does not eliminate operations or mandate any particular technology stack.
2The Three Ways of DevOps describe flow, feedback, and which third principle?
A.Continuous learning and experimentation
B.Centralized change approval
C.Mandatory waterfall planning
D.Strict separation of duties
Explanation: Gene Kim's Three Ways are flow (left to right), feedback (right to left), and continuous learning and experimentation. The third Way emphasizes a generative culture and improvement of daily work.
3What does the CALMS acronym stand for in DevOps?
A.Continuous, Agile, Lean, Mobile, Serverless
B.Culture, Automation, Lean, Measurement, Sharing
C.Cloud, Application, Lifecycle, Monitoring, Security
D.Code, Architecture, Logs, Metrics, Stability
Explanation: CALMS — Culture, Automation, Lean, Measurement, Sharing — is a widely used DevOps framework first popularized by Jez Humble and John Willis. It captures the cultural and technical pillars of a healthy DevOps practice.
4A 'value stream' in DevOps engineering refers to:
A.The financial budget allocated to a development team
B.The end-to-end set of activities required to deliver value from a customer request to a running feature
C.The number of deployments per developer per week
D.The set of branches in a Git repository
Explanation: A value stream is the sequence of activities — from idea to live, value-delivering software — performed for a customer. Value stream mapping identifies waste and bottlenecks in that flow.
5Which statement best characterizes 'shift left' in DevOps engineering?
A.Moving development teams physically to the left side of the office
B.Performing testing, security, and quality activities earlier in the lifecycle, closer to development
C.Pushing all production responsibilities back to operations
D.Delaying integration until the end of the release cycle
Explanation: Shift left moves activities like testing and security toward the start of the pipeline, when defects are cheap to fix. It is a key driver of CI, continuous testing, and DevSecOps.
6Which characteristic best distinguishes Git from older centralized version control systems like Subversion?
A.Git only supports text files, not binaries
B.Every Git clone is a full repository with complete history, enabling distributed workflows
C.Git requires a central server to commit changes
D.Git does not support branches
Explanation: Git is a distributed version control system: each clone contains the full history and can commit and branch locally. SVN, by contrast, requires connectivity to a central server for most operations.
7What is the primary purpose of an artifact repository such as JFrog Artifactory or Sonatype Nexus?
A.To replace source control systems for code
B.To store and version build outputs (binaries, container images, packages) used downstream in pipelines
C.To run continuous integration jobs
D.To monitor production applications
Explanation: Artifact repositories store immutable, versioned build outputs — JARs, container images, npm packages, Helm charts — so the same artifact promoted through environments is the one tested. Source control is for code, not built artifacts.
8Which configuration management tool is agentless by default and uses SSH to push configuration to managed nodes?
A.Puppet
B.Chef
C.Ansible
D.SaltStack with minions
Explanation: Ansible's default model is agentless and push-based over SSH, executing playbooks against inventory hosts. Puppet and Chef are agent-based and pull-based; Salt with minions also runs an agent.
9In Puppet, what is a 'catalog'?
A.A list of available Puppet modules in the public Forge
B.A compiled, node-specific document of resources and their desired state that the agent applies
C.A history of executed Puppet runs
D.A backup of the agent's local configuration files
Explanation: The Puppet master compiles manifests into a catalog tailored to each node — a graph of resources and desired state. The Puppet agent then enforces that catalog locally.
10What does it mean for an Ansible task to be 'idempotent'?
A.It runs faster on subsequent executions
B.Running it multiple times produces the same end state without unintended side effects
C.It can be undone with a single command
D.It can only run on Linux hosts
Explanation: Idempotent tasks converge to a desired state and are safe to re-run. Most Ansible modules check current state and only act when a change is needed, which is essential for reliable configuration management.

About the DevOps Engineering Exam

The DevOps Engineering Foundation (DOEF) certification validates the technical knowledge needed to engineer a successful DevOps solution. The exam covers application architecture, continuous integration, continuous testing, ephemeral elastic infrastructures, continuous delivery and deployment, metrics, monitoring, observability, governance, and DevOps humans.

Exam sponsor: DevOps Institute / PeopleCert. The requirements and fees below concern the certification or admission exam, separate from our free practice resources.

Questions

40 questions

Time Limit

60 minutes

Passing Score

65%

Exam / Certification Fees

$300-$400 USD (exam voucher)

Exam sponsor website

Reported exam pass rate: Not published. DevOps Institute does not release official DOEF pass-rate data Exam sponsor website

Fees, eligibility, and exam policies can change. Confirm them with the exam sponsor before applying or paying.

Our practice resources: topics covered

We aim to reflect publicly available exam outlines and topic information in our study resources. Coverage, format, and difficulty may differ from the actual exam, and we cannot guarantee that every detail is accurate or current. Confirm exam requirements, fees, and policies with the official exam sponsor.

8%

DevOps Engineering Introduction

DevOps engineering principles, the Three Ways, CALMS, value streams, and engineering perspective on DevOps adoption

15%

DevOps Technology

Source control (Git), artifact repositories (Artifactory, Nexus), build automation, configuration management (Ansible, Puppet, Chef, Salt)

15%

Applications Architecture and Continuous Integration

Microservices, twelve-factor apps, monorepos vs polyrepos, trunk-based development, CI pipelines, semantic versioning, quality gates

15%

Continuous Testing

Test pyramid, shift-left, TDD/BDD, contract testing, performance testing, SAST, DAST, SCA, and chaos engineering

13%

Ephemeral Elastic Infrastructures

Infrastructure as Code (Terraform, CloudFormation, Pulumi), containers (Docker), Kubernetes, Helm, service mesh (Istio, Linkerd), immutable infrastructure

15%

Continuous Delivery and Deployment

Deployment pipelines, blue/green, canary, rolling, feature flags, GitOps (Argo CD, Flux), release engineering, progressive delivery

13%

Metrics, Monitoring, Observability, Governance

DORA metrics (lead time, deployment frequency, change failure rate, MTTR), SLI/SLO/error budgets, three pillars of observability, OpenTelemetry, policy as code

8%

DevOps Engineering Humans

Team topologies, platform engineering, internal developer platforms (Backstage), blameless post-mortems, learning organizations, cross-skilling

Preparing for the DevOps Engineering Exam

What You Need to Know

  • Passing score: 65%
  • Exam length: 40 questions
  • Time limit: 60 minutes
  • Exam / certification fees: $300-$400 USD (exam voucher) Official sources

Using Our Practice Resources

  • Work through all 100 available questions
  • Review every answer and explanation
  • Track weak areas and revisit them
  • Use our AI tutor for tough concepts

DevOps Engineering: Suggested Study Strategy

1Memorize the four DORA metrics: lead time for changes, deployment frequency, change failure rate, and mean time to restore — they are central to the exam
2Understand the test pyramid: many fast unit tests at the base, fewer integration tests, and a thin layer of end-to-end tests at the top
3Know the difference between continuous delivery (deployable on demand) and continuous deployment (every change auto-deployed to production)
4Master the three pillars of observability: logs, metrics, and traces — and which questions each answers (what happened, how much, why)
5Compare deployment patterns: blue/green (two environments swap), canary (gradual percentage), rolling (one instance at a time), feature flags (decouple deploy from release)
6Understand the differences between Ansible (agentless, push), Puppet/Chef (agent-based, pull), and Salt (both modes) for configuration management
7Learn the GitOps principles: declarative, versioned in Git, automatically applied (Argo CD, Flux) — the cluster reconciles to match Git state
8Study the twelve-factor app methodology — codebase, dependencies, config, backing services, build/release/run, processes, port binding, concurrency, disposability, dev/prod parity, logs, admin processes

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the DOEF exam format?

The DevOps Engineering Foundation exam consists of 40 multiple-choice questions to be completed in 60 minutes. It is open book and web-based via PeopleCert. The passing score is 65%, which is 26 of 40 questions correct. Questions cover all eight modules from CI/CD to platform engineering.

How much does the DOEF certification cost?

The DOEF exam voucher typically costs $300-$400 USD via PeopleCert. Accredited 16-hour training packages from DevOps Institute Education Partners usually run $1,000-$2,000 USD and often bundle the first exam attempt. Retakes are charged separately.

What is the difference between DevOps Foundation and DevOps Engineering Foundation?

DevOps Foundation (DOFD) covers cultural, principle-based DevOps concepts (CALMS, Three Ways, value streams). DevOps Engineering Foundation (DOEF) goes deep on technical implementation: CI/CD pipelines, IaC, containers, Kubernetes, observability, and platform engineering. DOFD is recommended before DOEF.

Do I need prior tool experience to pass DOEF?

DOEF is conceptual rather than tool-specific, but familiarity with Git, a CI tool (Jenkins, GitHub Actions, GitLab CI), Docker, and at least one IaC tool (Terraform, Ansible) makes the material easier. The exam tests understanding of patterns, not vendor-specific syntax.

What jobs can I get with a DOEF certification?

DOEF certification supports roles including DevOps Engineer, Site Reliability Engineer (SRE), Platform Engineer, Release Engineer, Build Engineer, Cloud Engineer, and Continuous Delivery Architect. It pairs well with cloud certifications (AWS DevOps Pro, GCP DevOps Engineer) and tool certs (CKA, Terraform Associate).