IXL Senior DevOps Engineer Interview Experience — Bait-and-Switched Into a Role I Didn't Prep For

IXL·DevOps Engineer·Feb 2026
Technical ScreenHR ScreenSenior+Rejectedeasy

I mass-applied online for a general backend position (3-5 YOE), and since I work in infra, HR set up a call saying they'd have me interview for an ops role — except the only opening was a Sr role requiring 7+ YOE. When I asked about the green card policy, HR was evasive and just said they could do it.

After the call I checked the forum first, and it turned out you had to wait a full year after joining before they'd even start the PERM process, and leaving early would cost you money too. The pay didn't look great either, so I went into the interview completely unprepared.

The interview was ridiculously simple. They asked some basic ops knowledge — how to debug a k8s pod/container crash, the types of probes, stuff like that — then gave me a chunk of deliberately badly-written Python code to pick apart. It read a local file, did some very simple processing, and wrote to a SQL database. Anyone who's worked at a big company, even just written a gRPC service, would have a ton to complain about in that code. After collecting all the signal, the interviewer only took half an hour, then we had an awkward 15-minute chat at the end (I hadn't prepared for that part either, so I probably didn't come across as someone who loves learning).

I got a rejection the next day — not moving forward. This company just isn't a great match for me. If you've worked at a big company, honestly don't bother applying here; the tech and the culture probably aren't a great fit.

Published

Curated and edited by PracHub

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Interview at a glance

Company
IXL
Role
DevOps Engineer
Level
Senior+
Rounds
HR Screen → Technical Screen
Outcome
Rejected
Difficulty
easy
Interview date
Feb 2026
Questions from this interview
1 question

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