Learn AI ↗

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. Resilience Testing advanced

    A brief database slowdown caused a two-hour full outage. Explain the likely amplification chain and the fixes at each stage.

    2 min answer cascading-failureretriestimeoutsincident
  2. REST Design advanced

    A new platform must serve a public partner API, three internal front-ends with different data needs, and high-volume service-to-service traffic. Choose the API styles and defend the choice.

    2 min answer restgraphqlgrpcapi-strategy
  3. Saga advanced

    An order spans payment, inventory and shipping, each in its own service with its own database. How do you keep them consistent?

    3 min answer sagaconsistencycompensationoutbox
  4. Sagas & Compensation advanced

    In an order saga, the shipment service permanently rejects an order after the card has been captured. What now?

    2 min answer sagacompensationpivotexceptions
  5. Secrets Management advanced

    An estate has database passwords in environment variables across 200 services. Design the migration to a secrets manager.

    2 min answer secretsmigrationworkload-identityrotation
  6. Secure API Design advanced

    You are reviewing a new public API before launch. What do you check, in priority order?

    2 min answer api-securityowaspreviewauthorization
  7. Security Architecture advanced

    Equifax was breached in 2017 through a vulnerability with a patch available two months earlier. Beyond "patch faster", what architectural and governance failures does that imply?

    2 min answer complianceprivacyvulnerability-managementcase-study
  8. Security Architecture advanced

    The 2019 Capital One breach chained a server-side request forgery to an over-permissive IAM role. Walk the chain, and say which single control would have contained it.

    2 min answer ssrfiamleast-privilegecloud
  9. Security Architecture advanced

    Your services currently trust anything inside the VPC. A security review says move to zero trust. What changes, and what will it cost you?

    2 min answer zero-trustmtlsidentitysecurity
  10. Service Discovery advanced

    Your service registry becomes unavailable. Every service is healthy. What happens, and what should happen?

    2 min answer discoverystatic-stabilityavailabilitycaching
  11. Service Mesh Networking advanced

    A platform team proposes adopting a service mesh for 40 services. Make the case for and against, then decide.

    2 min answer service-meshmtlssidecarplatform
  12. SLI, SLO & SLA advanced

    Leadership asks for "five nines" across the platform. Engineering says it is impossible. Design the response.

    2 min answer sloerror-budgetstakeholdersavailability