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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. Data Architecture intermediate Multiple choice

    A service writes to its database and then publishes an event to Kafka. Sometimes consumers see an event for a record that does not exist, and sometimes a record exists with no event. Why, and how do you fix it?

    2 min answer outboxconsistencyevent-drivenintegration
  2. Data Architecture intermediate

    A visual discovery platform serves enormous read volume over user-curated collections, with writes that are rare by comparison. A team proposes sharding the primary database immediately. What lower-complexity options should be evaluated first, and what evidence would justify sharding?

    2 min answer read-heavyshardingcachingreplicas
  3. Data Catalog intermediate

    A company deploys a data catalogue. Six months later almost nobody uses it and most entries are stale. What went wrong, and what would make it work?

    1 min answer catalogmetadataadoptionautomation
  4. Data Catalog intermediate

    An organisation deploys a data catalogue and nobody uses it. What makes a catalogue useful rather than an inventory?

    2 min answer deelcatalogdiscoverylineage
  5. Data Catalog intermediate

    You bought a data catalogue eighteen months ago. It is populated and nobody uses it. What went wrong?

    1 min answer data-governancecatalogueadoption
  6. Data Classification intermediate

    A consumer finance platform wants to apply controls proportionate to data sensitivity. How should classification work so it actually drives behaviour?

    2 min answer sliceclassificationcontrolsautomation
  7. Data Classification intermediate Multiple choice

    A data platform labels tables as public internal confidential or restricted in its catalogue. Six months on an auditor finds restricted columns in a dashboard that 400 people can open. Which control would have actually prevented it?

    3 min answer data classificationaccess controlgovernancemasking
  8. Data Classification intermediate

    A developer needs to reproduce a bug that only occurs with a specific customer's data. What do you allow?

    2 min answer privacyaccessoperations
  9. Data Classification intermediate

    A platform handles customer addresses, payment details, order history, retailer pricing and shopper location. Why does data classification matter architecturally, and what goes wrong without it?

    2 min answer data-classificationcontrolsresidencyretention
  10. Data Contracts intermediate

    GitLab publishes its data quality approach in its open handbook: a Trusted Data Framework of SQL and YAML test cases with PASS or FAIL results, four test types, and tiered data assets. What problem does that shape solve that a schema registry does not, and what does it cost?

    2 min answer gitlabdata-contractstestingdata-quality
  11. Data-Flow Diagrams intermediate

    A data-flow diagram in your compliance pack was drawn eight months ago and is signed off. A reviewer asks how you know it is still accurate. What would you change about how it is produced, and what would you keep doing by hand?

    2 min answer data flowlineageautomationcompliance
  12. Data-Flow Diagrams intermediate

    A platform must demonstrate to a reviewer where personal data goes. Which diagram serves this, and what must it include that a component diagram does not?

    2 min answer data-flowprivacyresidencytrust-boundaries