Interview Preparation

Appearance

RapDev - Senior Cloud Engineer (Australia) - Recruiter Screen Prep ​

Job URL: https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/rapdev/8e1b145d-dc0d-4775-8982-0fff0792aa1bRole: Senior Cloud Engineer, Australia Employment Type: Full-time Department: Engineering Location: Australia (remote, client-facing) Focus: Infrastructure, CI/CD, application observability, and client delivery

1) Quick Role Read ​

RapDev is a consultancy with strong Datadog and ServiceNow roots, and this role is clearly geared toward engineers who can move across different environments quickly, understand how a customer application works, and then improve its observability, reliability, and operational clarity.

Top signals from the posting:

  • Build monitoring solutions across infrastructure, APM, and logs.
  • Work in YAML/JSON and scripting languages like shell, Python, and PowerShell.
  • Support both cloud and on-prem environments.
  • Work directly with clients and internal teammates from different backgrounds.
  • Handle multiple projects and ramp quickly in unfamiliar environments.
  • Be flexible with US working-hour overlap and occasional customer onsite work.

2) Core Positioning ​

Your strongest pitch for this role is not just Datadog. It is that you have broad, deep operational experience across the full stack:

  • Infrastructure: AWS, Kubernetes, Terraform, networking, platform migrations, and production reliability.
  • CI/CD: Jenkins, GitHub Actions, GitLab, Argo CD, deployment automation, build and release improvements.
  • Applications: You do not stop at infra. You learn how the application behaves, how it is deployed, where it fails, and what signals matter.
  • Observability: Grafana, Prometheus, ELK, Datadog, New Relic, PagerDuty, OpenTelemetry, and SLO-driven operational practices.

That combination makes you valuable in consulting because you can quickly build context, speak to both platform and application teams, and turn vague monitoring problems into practical solutions.

3) Your Fit Story ​

Strongest alignment ​

  • Broad infrastructure depth: At Domain, you helped migrate 100+ microservices from ECS to Kubernetes, improved reliability, and enabled 20+ teams to deploy independently on a self-serve platform.
  • Strong CI/CD background: Across illion, Domain, Envato, and Viator, you improved delivery pipelines, GitOps workflows, and automation, including reducing lead time from 2 hours to 10 minutes at illion.
  • Application-aware engineer: You consistently work from the application backward, not just from infrastructure forward. You learn service behavior, operational risks, and team workflows so you can add the right monitoring and delivery improvements.
  • Multi-tool observability experience: You have worked across Grafana, Prometheus, ELK, Datadog, New Relic, PagerDuty, and OpenTelemetry, which makes you adaptable to different client stacks instead of being locked into one tool.
  • Datadog credibility: At Envato, you led the migration from New Relic to Datadog, cut observability cost by 45%, and improved incident resolution time by 40%.
  • Fast ramp in new environments: Your career shows repeated success moving between different industries, stacks, and problem spaces while delivering measurable results quickly.

Potential recruiter concerns and how to frame them ​

  • This role is client consulting, not internal platform engineering: Your experience already involves cross-team enablement, translating technical concepts clearly, and driving adoption without formal authority.
  • PowerShell is not your main scripting language: Your core strength is Bash, Python, and TypeScript, but your pattern is learning the system quickly and choosing the right tool for the environment.
  • RapDev is Datadog-focused: That is a strength for you, but also emphasize that you bring perspective from multiple observability tools, which helps you understand tradeoffs and guide customers more credibly.

4) Main Recruiter Narrative ​

90-second intro ​

I am a Senior Platform and SRE engineer with 13 years of experience across infrastructure, CI/CD, application operations, and observability. My background is broad across AWS, Kubernetes, Terraform, deployment automation, and incident response, but what makes me effective is that I do not stay at the infrastructure layer. I learn how the application works, how teams deploy it, where failures happen, and what operational signals actually matter.

Across my recent roles, I have repeatedly used that full-stack understanding to improve reliability and engineering effectiveness. At Envato, I led a New Relic to Datadog migration that cut observability cost by 45% and improved incident response by about 40%. At Domain, I helped scale a Kubernetes platform for 100+ microservices, rolled out SLO patterns, and enabled safer self-service delivery for more than 20 teams. At Viator, I improved developer and operational experience by standardizing metrics and dashboards across 40 services and delivering automation that removed friction from engineering workflows.

I am interested in RapDev because the role sits at the intersection of infrastructure, observability, and real customer impact. I like stepping into complex environments, understanding how the application and platform fit together, and then delivering practical improvements quickly.

5) Recruiter Questions - Suggested Answers ​

Tell me about yourself ​

Use the 90-second version above. The key theme is breadth plus fast ramp: infrastructure, CI/CD, application understanding, and observability.

Why RapDev? ​

  • RapDev works on practical reliability and observability outcomes, not just internal tooling.
  • The role values engineers who can adapt quickly across environments, which matches your background.
  • You bring both Datadog experience and broader observability experience, which is useful when clients are at different maturity levels.
  • You enjoy understanding how systems really work end to end, then improving them in ways customers and engineers can feel.

Why are you exploring now? ​

Viator consolidated Australian engineering roles as part of a broader restructure. Keep it factual and positive, then pivot to wanting a role where you can lean harder into infrastructure, observability, and high-impact engineering across varied environments.

What is your Datadog experience? ​

At Envato, you led a migration from New Relic to Datadog, improved alert quality, integrated PagerDuty workflows, and materially improved both cost and response time. You can also position this within your wider observability background across Grafana, Prometheus, ELK, New Relic, OpenTelemetry, and PagerDuty.

What makes you strong for this role beyond Datadog? ​

Your strength is range. You understand infrastructure, CI/CD, and the application layer, so you can diagnose issues more completely. You learn unfamiliar systems quickly, understand what matters operationally, and then implement monitoring and automation that fit the customer's real environment.

How quickly do you ramp in new environments? ​

Very quickly. A consistent pattern in your career is moving into unfamiliar systems, learning the architecture and application behavior fast, and then delivering measurable improvements. You do that by first understanding the application flow, deployment path, dependencies, failure modes, and current signals before proposing changes.

Are you comfortable with client-facing delivery? ​

Yes. You have extensive experience working across different teams, aligning technical work to business outcomes, and making complex technical topics understandable. That translates well to client consulting.

Can you work across multiple projects at once? ​

Yes. Your approach is to get clear on business outcomes, identify the highest-leverage work, document assumptions early, and communicate risks and progress clearly. That helps you stay effective even when switching contexts.

Flexibility for US working hours / occasional travel? ​

Yes. You can provide reliable overlap with US-based teams and are open to occasional onsite work where it improves project outcomes and relationship building.

6) Stories to Keep Ready ​

Story A - Datadog migration with business impact (Envato) ​

  • Problem: Monitoring cost was high and the signal quality was not good enough.
  • Action: Led migration from New Relic to Datadog, redesigned alerting, integrated PagerDuty workflows, and improved how teams consumed operational signals.
  • Result: Reduced observability cost by 45% and improved incident resolution time by 40%.

Story B - Infrastructure and CI/CD at scale (Domain) ​

  • Problem: Platform complexity and deployment friction across 100+ services.
  • Action: Helped drive Kubernetes platform maturity, GitOps workflows, SLO rollout, and self-service delivery patterns.
  • Result: Better reliability, more team autonomy, and safer, faster delivery.

Story C - Fast understanding of application and service behavior (Viator) ​

  • Problem: Services lacked consistent metrics and visibility, which made operational support and improvement harder.
  • Action: Learned the service landscape, standardized metrics and dashboards across 40 services, and improved the way teams reasoned about developer experience and operational health.
  • Result: Better visibility, easier troubleshooting, and more consistent operational practices.

7) What To Emphasize in the Call ​

  • You are not only an observability engineer; you are an infrastructure and CI/CD engineer who understands application behavior.
  • You have worked with multiple observability platforms, so you can adapt quickly to a client's current state.
  • You ramp fast because you learn the system end to end: application flow, deployment path, infrastructure, and failure modes.
  • You are comfortable working with different stakeholders and translating technical work into clear business value.
  • You like roles where you can move from ambiguity to practical outcomes quickly.

8) Questions to Ask the Recruiter ​

  1. What types of client environments does this role most commonly work with today?
  2. How much of the work is pure Datadog implementation versus broader reliability or platform consulting?
  3. What makes someone especially successful in this role during the first few months?
  4. How do Australia-based engineers usually collaborate with US teams and clients?
  5. What is the typical balance between technical delivery, discovery, and stakeholder communication?
  6. Are clients usually looking for tooling implementation only, or also guidance on how their applications and operations should be structured?

9) 30-second close ​

What excites me about this role is that it matches how I work best: understanding systems end to end, learning quickly, and using my background across infrastructure, CI/CD, applications, and observability to deliver practical improvements. I think that mix would translate well to RapDev's client environments.

10) Prep Checklist ​

  • Rehearse the 90-second intro out loud.
  • Memorize these proof points: 45% observability cost reduction, 40% incident-response improvement, 100+ services Kubernetes migration, 40 services standardized metrics.
  • Be ready to explain how you learn a new application quickly.
  • Be ready to explain your range across observability tools, not just Datadog.
  • Keep your tone practical, calm, and outcome-focused.