Portfolio ↗

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

42 questions in Architecture Decision-Making.

  1. Reversibility intermediate

    A team must decide quickly under uncertainty. How should decisions be classified so that speed is applied where it is safe?

    2 min answer growwreversibilityspeeddecisions
  2. Reversibility intermediate

    How should reversibility change how much analysis a decision receives, and how do you assess whether a decision is genuinely reversible?

    2 min answer reversibilitydecision-makingone-way-dooranalysis
  3. Reversibility intermediate

    You have limited time to deliberate. Which decisions on a new platform deserve it, and which should be made quickly?

    1 min answer decision-makingreversibilityprioritisation
  4. Security vs Usability intermediate

    A B2B SaaS with 900 tenants makes SAML single sign-on mandatory for every enterprise-plan tenant after a security review, and local passwords are deleted. Six weeks later an identity provider outage locks about 40 tenants out for three hours and support has no way to help. What did the mandate buy, what did it pay, and what should have existed first?

    2 min answer ssoidentityavailabilitybreak-glass
  5. Security vs Usability intermediate

    A security control is being circumvented by most of the team. What do you conclude and what do you do?

    2 min answer securityusabilityworkaroundsfriction
  6. Serverless vs Containers intermediate Multiple choice

    A publisher must choose between serverless functions and containers for its asynchronous processing. What decides it?

    2 min answer serverlesscontainersduty-cyclecold-start
  7. Serverless vs Containers intermediate

    A team must choose between serverless functions and containers for a new API with unpredictable, spiky traffic. Walk through the decision.

    2 min answer decisioncostoperations
  8. Serverless vs Containers intermediate

    A team must choose between serverless functions and long-running containers for a new workload. Which characteristics decide it?

    2 min answer renderserverlesscontainersworkload
  9. SQL vs NoSQL intermediate

    A team proposes a document database for an order management system because "orders are documents". Assess.

    2 min answer datastoredecisionmodelling
  10. Sync vs Async intermediate

    A team debates whether an operation should be synchronous or asynchronous. What decides it, and what is the cost of getting it wrong in each direction?

    2 min answer linearsyncasyncuser-experience
  11. Sync vs Async intermediate Multiple choice

    Order service must notify inventory, billing and notifications when an order is placed. Synchronous calls or events? Justify.

    2 min answer couplingmessagingdesign
  12. Sync vs Async intermediate

    Where should the boundary between synchronous and asynchronous processing sit in an API platform, and what determines it?

    2 min answer syncasynclatencyacknowledgement