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DevOps Coding Assignment

Welcome Aboard!

Description

This exercise evaluates your ability to build and manage infrastructure for a small web application. You’ll work with Terraform, Docker, GitHub Actions, and AWS to provision resources, configure deployments, and demonstrate infrastructure-as-code best practices.

Business Background

Infrastructure & Automation

The operations team is working on automating the deployment pipeline for a Python-based application. Our goal is to containerize the app, provision cloud infrastructure with Terraform, and define CI/CD workflows using GitHub Actions. We want to ensure deployments are consistent, secure, and easily maintainable across environments. The files for the app are available on the bottom of this page.

Requirements

Minimum Requirements

You’ll find a small Python application and a Terraform folder already included. Your task is to:

Terraform

Provision the following resources using Terraform:

  • ECR repository for storing Docker images (you may use GitHub Container Registry instead).
  • ECS cluster and ECS service to run the containerized app.
  • RDS instance using PostgreSQL.
  • (Bonus) Configure PostgreSQL users and permissions via Terraform.

Avoid using open source or prebuilt Terraform modules for ECS or networking—we want to evaluate your ability to build these from scratch.

Application Setup

  • Add instructions in the README for how to run the app locally using a virtual environment.
  • Locally, the app should run using venv; in production, it should be deployed using the provided Dockerfile.

Automation Requirements

Set up CI/CD workflows using GitHub Actions:

  • Run pull request checks.
  • Build the Docker image.
  • Push the image to the ECR or GitHub Container Registry.
  • Deploy the app to a non-production (or production-like) ECS environment.

Bonus Features (Time Permitting)

  • Automate RDS user permission setup.
  • Add secret management.
  • Enable ECS Service Auto Scaling.

Gotchas

There are intentional issues scattered throughout the provided setup—feel free to identify and fix them. Bonus points for documenting your findings and solutions.

Additional Details

  • Use Git for version control and submit your work as a zip file.
  • The solution should be self-contained, able to run on a fresh AWS account with minimal setup.
  • Follow best practices in Terraform: use modules, separate concerns (e.g., networking, services, databases), and use consistent naming.
  • The app has only three endpoints:
    • Get all beers
    • Insert a beer
    • Seed database with beers (for test data)

Final Notes

  • Estimated time for completion: 3–4 hours.
  • Evaluation criteria:
    • Infrastructure design and separation of concerns
    • Terraform and DevOps best practices
    • Code clarity and maintainability
    • Quality of documentation and automation
    • Problem-solving and debugging skills (especially around intentional flaws)

Evaluation Points

  • Is the infrastructure written for scalability and team collaboration?
  • Are naming conventions, code structure, and documentation clear and standardized?
  • Does the CI/CD pipeline ensure a smooth deployment experience?
  • Is the system resilient and secure, with scope for handling higher loads?
  • How well do you troubleshoot and fix hidden issues?