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Quiz

2667 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 areas2667 Architecture Fundamentals81 Distributed Systems101 Data Architecture90 Cloud Architecture87 Networking86 API & Integration Architecture78 Reliability & Resilience88 Observability81 Performance & Capacity Engineering90 Security Architecture95 Cost Architecture & FinOps92 Business Architecture93 Architecture Communication91 Enterprise Architecture91 Legacy Modernization92 AI-Era Architecture86 Software Architecture & Engineering84 Architecture Patterns84 Architecture Decision-Making91 The Architect's Meta-Skills92 Delivery & Release Engineering93 Platform Engineering & Developer Experience92 Testing & Quality Architecture90 Data Platform Architecture88 Streaming & Real-Time Data93 Data Governance & Semantics81 Frontend & Experience Architecture91 Edge, Mobile & IoT88 Regulatory & Data Protection Architecture90 Assurance, Audit & Model Risk88
Difficulty Any beginner intermediate advanced

993 questions.

  1. Component Contracts intermediate

    A team asks for a new prop on a shared component. When do you say no, and what do you offer instead?

    2 min answer design-systemapi-surfacecompositioncontracts
  2. Component Contracts intermediate

    What makes a shared component's interface stable enough that consumers can upgrade without breakage?

    1 min answer component-apicontractsversioningcomposition
  3. Compute Models intermediate

    A fleet of 200 instances averages 15% CPU and 85% memory. Finance wants a 40% cost reduction. What do you do?

    2 min answer rightsizinginstance-familycost
  4. Compute Models intermediate

    A workload runs continuously at moderate load. Finance asks why the serverless bill is four times the previous instance cost. Explain the crossover and how you would calculate it.

    2 min answer serverlesscostcomputeduty-cycle
  5. Compute Optimisation intermediate Multiple choice

    At 09:10 a checkout service starts returning 503s. Its autoscaler has taken the fleet from 30 to 180 pods in twenty minutes, CPU per pod sits at 22%, and the database reports connection waits. That day's compute bill is four times normal and traffic is up only 30%. Which explanation fits every symptom?

    3 min answer autoscalingconnection poolingfeedback loopcost spike
  6. Connection Pooling intermediate

    A service scales its application instances from 20 to 200 and the database begins refusing connections. What happened, and what is the correct architecture?

    2 min answer connection-poolingproxyscalingdatabase-limits
  7. Connection Pooling intermediate

    A service works fine at 10 instances. At 60 instances during a peak, the database starts refusing connections. Explain the arithmetic.

    2 min answer poolsscalingdatabases
  8. Consent Architecture intermediate

    A customer withdrew marketing consent three weeks ago and is still receiving emails. The consent record is correct. Where is the failure?

    2 min answer consentintegrationcompliance
  9. Consistency Models intermediate Multiple choice

    After a user updates their profile, the page sometimes shows the old value. The team says this is normal eventual consistency. Is that acceptable?

    2 min answer consistencyuxsession-guarantees
  10. Constrained Protocols intermediate Multiple choice

    A battery-powered sensor on a cellular network holds an MQTT session. After quiet periods the server's messages stop arriving, though the device's socket is still open and sending works. Which change fixes it at the lowest energy cost?

    2 min answer mqttnatkeepalivebattery
  11. Constrained Protocols intermediate

    A soil-moisture sensor runs on two AA cells, about 2,000 mAh usable. It wakes every 15 minutes, sends roughly 60 bytes, and sleeps. Sleep draw is about 10 uA. Each transmission cycle takes roughly 2 seconds at an average 30 mA while the radio is active. Estimate the battery life, and say which assumption you would attack first.

    3 min answer batteryduty-cycleenergyiot
  12. Constrained Protocols intermediate

    Devices are battery-powered with intermittent low-bandwidth connectivity. What protocol properties matter, and what is usually chosen wrongly?

    1 min answer protocolsmqttcoappower