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Quiz

179 questions of the kind that actually get asked — in interviews, in architecture review boards, and by the person who has to run the thing at 3 AM. Every answer states the trade-off rather than the slogan, and says when the obvious choice is the wrong one.

All areas179 Architecture Fundamentals5 Distributed Systems26 Data Architecture23 Cloud Architecture19 Networking17 API & Integration Architecture13 Reliability & Resilience9 Observability8 Performance & Capacity Engineering6 Security Architecture16 Cost Architecture & FinOps4 Business Architecture2 Architecture Communication3 Enterprise Architecture2 Legacy Modernization3 AI-Era Architecture3 Software Architecture & Engineering3 Architecture Patterns6 Architecture Decision-Making9 The Architect's Meta-Skills2
Difficulty Any beginner intermediate advanced

123 questions.

  1. Software Architecture advanced

    Knight Capital lost roughly $460M in 45 minutes in 2012 after a deployment reached seven of eight servers. Which architectural failures made that possible, and which one would you fix first?

    2 min answer deploymentfeature-flagskill-switchcase-study
  2. Software Architecture advanced

    Uber reached roughly 2,200 microservices and found the estate incomprehensible. Their fix was not consolidation. What was it, and why does it generalise?

    2 min answer case-studyubermicroservicesboundaries
  3. Software Architecture advanced

    You need to ship a rewrite of the pricing engine. Same inputs, same expected outputs, completely new implementation. How do you release it?

    2 min answer releasecanarytestingrisk
  4. Strangler Fig advanced

    A 15-year-old monolith must be modernised without a rewrite and without a feature freeze. Plan the migration.

    2 min answer stranglerlegacymigrationdata
  5. Streaming Data advanced

    A streaming aggregation reports lower totals than the batch job it replaced. Both read the same source. What is likely happening?

    2 min answer streamingwatermarkslate-dataevent-time
  6. Supply Chain Security advanced

    A critical CVE is announced in a widely-used library. Walk me through the first four hours.

    2 min answer vulnerabilitysbomresponsepatching
  7. Sync vs Async advanced

    An order API calls six services synchronously and takes 3 seconds at p95, failing whenever any dependency is degraded. Redesign it.

    2 min answer asyncavailabilityeventsoutbox
  8. Technical Leadership advanced

    You are the first architect at a 200-engineer company with no architecture function. What do you do in the first three months?

    3 min answer leadershipinfluenceassessmentgovernance
  9. Technology Selection advanced

    Three teams have independently chosen three different message brokers. Design the selection and governance process going forward.

    2 min answer technology-selectiongovernancepaved-roadstandards
  10. Threat Modelling advanced

    Run a threat model on a new payment integration: our service calls a third-party payment provider and receives webhooks. Where are the interesting threats?

    2 min answer threat-modellingstridewebhookspayments
  11. Timeouts & Deadlines advanced

    Design the timeout configuration for a request that passes through gateway, orders, pricing and inventory. What numbers, and what rule generates them?

    2 min answer timeoutsdeadlinescascadingretries
  12. Tokens & JWTs advanced

    Your JWT-based auth means a fired employee keeps access for 15 minutes after their account is disabled. Security says that is unacceptable. What are the options?

    2 min answer jwtrevocationtokenstradeoffs