# Platform Engineering (DevOps) > Internal developer platforms, self-service, golden paths, platform as a product, Backstage.io - 22 interview questions - Senior - [Interview Questions: DevOps](https://sharpskill.dev/en/technologies/devops/interview-questions.md) ## 1. What is an Internal Developer Platform (IDP)? **Answer** An Internal Developer Platform is an abstraction layer built on top of existing infrastructure that provides developers with self-service tools, standardized workflows, and golden paths. The main goal is to reduce developers' cognitive load by hiding the complexity of the underlying infrastructure while enabling them to deploy and manage their applications autonomously. A well-designed IDP significantly accelerates time-to-market and improves developer experience. ## 2. What is the definition of a golden path in the context of Platform Engineering? **Answer** A golden path represents a pre-defined and optimized path that developers can follow to accomplish common tasks like creating a new service, deploying an application, or configuring a database. These paths encapsulate the organization's best practices and reduce friction by eliminating repetitive decisions. Golden paths are not mandatory but attractive enough to be naturally adopted because they significantly simplify developers' daily work. ## 3. What is the main objective of self-service in a developer platform? **Answer** Self-service in a developer platform aims to enable development teams to provision and manage their resources autonomously, without depending on operations teams for each request. This autonomy reduces wait times, eliminates recurring support tickets, and frees platform teams to focus on improving the platform. Well-implemented self-service maintains governance and compliance through automated guardrails rather than manual approval processes. ## 19 more questions available - What is Backstage.io? - What is the fundamental difference between Platform Engineering and DevOps? Sign up for free: https://sharpskill.dev/en/login ## Other DevOps interview topics - [Version Control & Git](https://sharpskill.dev/en/technologies/devops/interview-questions/version-control-git.md): 20 questions, Junior - [Linux Fundamentals](https://sharpskill.dev/en/technologies/devops/interview-questions/linux-fundamentals.md): 22 questions, Junior - [Shell Scripting & Bash](https://sharpskill.dev/en/technologies/devops/interview-questions/shell-scripting-bash.md): 20 questions, Mid-Level - [Networking Basics](https://sharpskill.dev/en/technologies/devops/interview-questions/networking-basics.md): 22 questions, Junior - [Docker Fundamentals](https://sharpskill.dev/en/technologies/devops/interview-questions/docker-fundamentals.md): 24 questions, Junior - [CI/CD Fundamentals](https://sharpskill.dev/en/technologies/devops/interview-questions/ci-cd-fundamentals.md): 18 questions, Junior - [GitHub Actions](https://sharpskill.dev/en/technologies/devops/interview-questions/github-actions.md): 22 questions, Mid-Level - [GitLab CI/CD](https://sharpskill.dev/en/technologies/devops/interview-questions/gitlab-ci.md): 22 questions, Mid-Level - [Jenkins](https://sharpskill.dev/en/technologies/devops/interview-questions/jenkins.md): 22 questions, Mid-Level - [Kubernetes Basics](https://sharpskill.dev/en/technologies/devops/interview-questions/kubernetes-basics.md): 26 questions, Mid-Level - [Kubernetes Networking](https://sharpskill.dev/en/technologies/devops/interview-questions/kubernetes-networking.md): 24 questions, Mid-Level - [Kubernetes Advanced](https://sharpskill.dev/en/technologies/devops/interview-questions/kubernetes-advanced.md): 24 questions, Mid-Level - [Ingress & API Gateway](https://sharpskill.dev/en/technologies/devops/interview-questions/ingress-api-gateway.md): 20 questions, Mid-Level - [Terraform Basics](https://sharpskill.dev/en/technologies/devops/interview-questions/terraform-basics.md): 22 questions, Mid-Level - [Terraform Advanced](https://sharpskill.dev/en/technologies/devops/interview-questions/terraform-advanced.md): 22 questions, Mid-Level - [Ansible & Configuration Management](https://sharpskill.dev/en/technologies/devops/interview-questions/ansible-configuration.md): 20 questions, Mid-Level - [AWS Essentials](https://sharpskill.dev/en/technologies/devops/interview-questions/aws-essentials.md): 26 questions, Mid-Level - [Azure Fundamentals](https://sharpskill.dev/en/technologies/devops/interview-questions/azure-fundamentals.md): 22 questions, Mid-Level - [GCP Fundamentals](https://sharpskill.dev/en/technologies/devops/interview-questions/gcp-fundamentals.md): 22 questions, Mid-Level - [Monitoring & Prometheus](https://sharpskill.dev/en/technologies/devops/interview-questions/monitoring-prometheus.md): 22 questions, Mid-Level - [Logging & ELK Stack](https://sharpskill.dev/en/technologies/devops/interview-questions/logging-elk.md): 20 questions, Mid-Level - [Alerting & Incident Response](https://sharpskill.dev/en/technologies/devops/interview-questions/alerting-incident-response.md): 20 questions, Mid-Level - [Cloud Identity & Secrets](https://sharpskill.dev/en/technologies/devops/interview-questions/cloud-identity-secrets.md): 22 questions, Mid-Level - [CI/CD Pipeline Security](https://sharpskill.dev/en/technologies/devops/interview-questions/cicd-pipeline-security.md): 20 questions, Mid-Level - [Helm & Kubernetes](https://sharpskill.dev/en/technologies/devops/interview-questions/helm-kubernetes.md): 20 questions, Mid-Level - [Runtime & Cluster Security](https://sharpskill.dev/en/technologies/devops/interview-questions/runtime-cluster-security.md): 24 questions, Senior - [Container Supply Chain Security](https://sharpskill.dev/en/technologies/devops/interview-questions/container-supply-chain.md): 22 questions, Senior - [Service Mesh & Istio](https://sharpskill.dev/en/technologies/devops/interview-questions/service-mesh-istio.md): 24 questions, Senior - [GitOps & ArgoCD](https://sharpskill.dev/en/technologies/devops/interview-questions/gitops-argocd.md): 22 questions, Senior - [Progressive Delivery](https://sharpskill.dev/en/technologies/devops/interview-questions/progressive-delivery.md): 20 questions, Senior - [Distributed Observability](https://sharpskill.dev/en/technologies/devops/interview-questions/observability-distributed.md): 22 questions, Senior - [Disaster Recovery & Backup](https://sharpskill.dev/en/technologies/devops/interview-questions/disaster-recovery.md): 20 questions, Senior - [Performance Optimization](https://sharpskill.dev/en/technologies/devops/interview-questions/performance-optimization.md): 22 questions, Senior - [Cloud Cost Optimization](https://sharpskill.dev/en/technologies/devops/interview-questions/infrastructure-cost.md): 20 questions, Senior - [SRE Principles](https://sharpskill.dev/en/technologies/devops/interview-questions/sre-principles.md): 24 questions, Senior - [Chaos Engineering](https://sharpskill.dev/en/technologies/devops/interview-questions/chaos-engineering.md): 20 questions, Senior --- Source: SharpSkill (https://sharpskill.dev), tech interview preparation for your real stack. 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