💼 Top 50 Azure Cloud Engineer Interview Questions with answers
Let's crack the interview with these questions 😎
Preparing for an Azure Cloud Engineering role? Here's your ultimate interview prep guide — with the most commonly asked questions, sorted by topic, along with clear explanations to help you understand the "why" behind the answers.
☁️ 1. Azure Fundamentals (8 Questions)
Q1. What is Microsoft Azure?
Answer:
Azure is Microsoft's cloud computing platform, offering services like compute, storage, databases, networking, and AI across a global network of data centers.
Explanation:
It supports IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS models, allowing flexibility in how companies build and scale solutions.
Q2. What’s the difference between Azure and AWS/GCP?
Answer:
Azure integrates tightly with Microsoft tools like Windows Server, Active Directory, and Office 365 — making it a top choice for enterprises. AWS has a broader range of services, while GCP is known for data/ML.
Q3. What is Azure Resource Group?
Answer:
A container that holds related resources for an Azure solution. It helps organize and manage resources together.
Q4. What is Azure Region and Availability Zone?
Answer:
A Region is a geographic area. Each region may have multiple Availability Zones — isolated locations within the region to ensure high availability.
Q5. What is the difference between Azure Subscription and Tenant?
Answer:
A Tenant is a dedicated instance of Azure AD. A Subscription is a billing entity under that tenant where resources are created.
Q6. What is Azure ARM (Azure Resource Manager)?
Answer:
ARM is the deployment and management service for Azure. It provides a consistent way to manage resources via templates, CLI, or Portal.
Q7. What is Azure Advisor?
Answer:
It provides personalized best practices and recommendations to optimize performance, cost, security, and availability.
Q8. What is Azure Policy?
Answer:
A service that lets you enforce organizational rules across resources — e.g., only allowing certain VM sizes or regions.
🖥 2. Azure Compute & Storage (8 Questions)
Q9. What are the types of Azure VMs?
Answer:
Types include General Purpose (B/D-series), Compute Optimized (F-series), Memory Optimized (E-series), and GPU (N-series).
Q10. How do you scale VMs in Azure?
Answer:
Use Virtual Machine Scale Sets (VMSS) for horizontal scaling or resize VM for vertical scaling.
Q11. What is Azure App Service?
Answer:
A PaaS offering to deploy web apps and APIs without managing the underlying infrastructure.
Q12. How is Blob Storage different from File Storage?
Answer:
Blob is object storage (unstructured data like images, backups). File storage is SMB-based shared files, useful for lift-and-shift apps.
Q13. What are the storage redundancy options?
Answer:
LRS (Local), ZRS (Zone), GRS (Geo), RA-GRS (Read-access Geo). Use based on availability and recovery needs.
Q14. What is Azure Disk vs Blob?
Answer:
Disks are block-level storage used with VMs. Blob is object storage used for backups, logs, etc.
Q15. How do you backup Azure VMs?
Answer:
Using Azure Backup, which supports point-in-time recovery.
Q16. What is Azure Files and when would you use it?
Answer:
Azure Files offers shared SMB access to files — ideal for legacy apps requiring file shares.
🔒 3. Identity & Security (8 Questions)
Q17. What is Azure Active Directory?
Answer:
Azure AD is Microsoft’s cloud-based identity and access management service.
Q18. Difference between Azure AD and on-prem AD?
Answer:
Azure AD is cloud-first and supports OAuth, SAML, OpenID. On-prem AD is LDAP-based and mostly used within LANs.
Q19. What is Role-Based Access Control (RBAC)?
Answer:
RBAC restricts access to resources based on roles (Owner, Contributor, Reader) assigned at different scopes.
Q20. What are Managed Identities?
Answer:
Azure creates and manages identities for services to securely authenticate without credentials.
Q21. What is Azure Key Vault?
Answer:
A service to store secrets, certificates, keys securely and access them via APIs or apps.
Q22. What is Conditional Access in Azure AD?
Answer:
It enforces access rules (e.g., block access unless using MFA or specific IP).
Q23. How do you secure access to Azure VMs?
Answer:
Use Just-in-Time VM access, NSGs, Azure Bastion, and disable RDP/SSH when not needed.
Q24. How do NSGs and ASGs work?
Answer:
Network Security Groups (NSGs) filter traffic to/from Azure resources. Application Security Groups (ASGs) group VMs for rule-based traffic control.
🌐 4. Networking (6 Questions)
Q25. What is a Virtual Network (VNet)?
Answer:
A VNet is like a traditional network in the cloud — enabling VMs and services to securely communicate.
Q26. What is a Subnet?
Answer:
A range within a VNet used to segment resources and control routing/security.
Q27. What is VNet Peering?
Answer:
Connects two VNets allowing them to communicate via private IP without using gateways.
Q28. What is a Network Security Group?
Answer:
A set of rules to allow or deny traffic to network interfaces or subnets.
Q29. What is Azure Application Gateway?
Answer:
A layer-7 load balancer that supports SSL termination and Web Application Firewall (WAF).
Q30. Difference between Load Balancer and Application Gateway?
Answer:
Load Balancer is layer-4 (TCP/UDP), while App Gateway is layer-7 (HTTP/HTTPS, routing).
🔁 5. Monitoring & Governance (5 Questions)
Q31. What is Azure Monitor?
Answer:
A full-stack monitoring service collecting metrics, logs, and enabling alerting.
Q32. What is Log Analytics?
Answer:
Part of Azure Monitor, it queries and analyzes logs using KQL (Kusto Query Language).
Q33. How do you create alerts in Azure?
Answer:
Via Azure Monitor > Alert Rules. You can configure thresholds, logic, and actions.
Q34. What is Azure Cost Management?
Answer:
A tool to track and optimize your Azure spending.
Q35. What are Tags in Azure?
Answer:
Metadata attached to resources for cost tracking, automation, or organization.
🧱 6. Infrastructure as Code (IaC) & DevOps (8 Questions)
Q36. What is Infrastructure as Code (IaC)?
Answer:
IaC automates infrastructure provisioning via code (ARM, Bicep, Terraform).
Q37. What is Bicep in Azure?
Answer:
A simpler, declarative language that transpiles into ARM templates.
Q38. What is Azure DevOps?
Answer:
A suite offering CI/CD, repos, boards, test plans, and artifact management.
Q39. What is a CI/CD pipeline in Azure?
Answer:
Automates code build, test, and deployment. Typically defined in YAML.
Q40. How do you use Terraform with Azure?
Answer:
Install Terraform CLI, define resources using .tf files, and authenticate via az login.
Q41. What’s the benefit of using GitHub Actions over Azure DevOps Pipelines?
Answer:
GitHub Actions is natively integrated with GitHub and often simpler for small projects. Azure Pipelines offers more enterprise control.
Q42. What are stages and jobs in a pipeline?
Answer:
Stages are high-level phases. Jobs run tasks in sequence or parallel within stages.
Q43. What is a Service Connection in Azure DevOps?
Answer:
A secure connection to your Azure subscription used in pipelines to deploy resources.
⚙️ 7. Scenario-Based Questions (7 Questions)
Q44. How would you deploy a secure 3-tier architecture in Azure?
Answer:
Use VNets and subnets to isolate tiers, NSGs for traffic control, App Gateway with WAF, and deploy using Bicep or Terraform.
Q45. How do you troubleshoot high CPU usage on an Azure VM?
Answer:
Check metrics in Azure Monitor, analyze performance via Log Analytics, and consider scaling.
Q46. How would you migrate on-prem workloads to Azure?
Answer:
Assess using Azure Migrate, replicate VMs, test performance, and plan cutover.
Q47. How would you automate provisioning of Azure resources?
Answer:
Use Bicep or Terraform scripts with CI/CD pipelines in Azure DevOps.
Q48. How do you ensure high availability for an Azure web app?
Answer:
Deploy to multiple regions, enable autoscaling, use Traffic Manager or Front Door.
Q49. How do you manage secrets in CI/CD pipelines?
Answer:
Use Azure Key Vault with service principals or managed identities.
Q50. How do you monitor resource usage across subscriptions?
Answer:
Use Azure Monitor, set up custom dashboards, or integrate with Log Analytics Workspace across subscriptions.
✅ Final Note
Learning answers is just the beginning — understand the “why” and practice them in labs.
That’s what makes you a real Azure Cloud Engineer.
Next Steps:
Try building a multi-tier app on Azure
Learn Bicep or Terraform
Create alert rules, policies, and cost reports
Set up a CI/CD pipeline for an App Service