They ask: "Walk me through the SDLC stages, and where does DevOps actually change the traditional model?"
The classic stages — requirements, design, implementation, testing, deployment, maintenance — describe what work happens, but the traditional model treats them as sequential handoffs between separate teams. DevOps doesn't add a stage; it collapses the handoff boundaries, especially between "testing/deployment" and "maintenance," by making the same team own build, deploy, and operate with feedback looping continuously instead of only at the end.
That's the practical answer an interviewer wants: not the list of stages, but that DevOps turns the SDLC from a line into a loop — monitoring in production feeds directly back into the next requirements/design cycle.
Say it: "The stages themselves haven't changed — what DevOps changes is the handoff model, from sequential and siloed to a continuous loop where production feedback drives the next iteration."
Red flag: Describing DevOps as just "Waterfall but with more automation" — the shift is organizational (who owns what) as much as tooling.