Portfolio ↗

Quiz

2741 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 areas2741 Architecture Fundamentals81 Distributed Systems101 Data Architecture90 Cloud Architecture87 Networking86 API & Integration Architecture78 Reliability & Resilience99 Observability92 Performance & Capacity Engineering90 Security Architecture95 Cost Architecture & FinOps92 Business Architecture93 Architecture Communication91 Enterprise Architecture91 Legacy Modernization92 AI-Era Architecture96 Software Architecture & Engineering84 Architecture Patterns84 Architecture Decision-Making91 The Architect's Meta-Skills92 Delivery & Release Engineering93 Platform Engineering & Developer Experience92 Testing & Quality Architecture102 Data Platform Architecture98 Streaming & Real-Time Data93 Data Governance & Semantics91 Frontend & Experience Architecture91 Edge, Mobile & IoT88 Regulatory & Data Protection Architecture90 Assurance, Audit & Model Risk98
Difficulty Any beginner intermediate advanced

1018 questions.

  1. Logging intermediate

    Your logging bill has tripled alongside traffic growth. Name four changes in order of effectiveness.

    2 min answer loggingcostsamplingretention
  2. Managed Services intermediate

    A platform distributes very large model and dataset artefacts to a global developer community, with a small number of artefacts accounting for most downloads. Which parts should be managed services, and which are worth building?

    2 min answer managed-servicescdnartefact-distributionbuild-vs-buy
  3. Managed Services intermediate

    A startup must decide between building infrastructure internally and adopting managed services. What should the evaluation actually weigh?

    2 min answer supabasemanaged-servicesbuild-vs-buytco
  4. Managed vs Self-Managed intermediate

    A platform runs several self-managed stateful systems. What evidence should decide whether to move to managed services?

    2 min answer managed-servicesoperational-costceilingpinterest
  5. Managed vs Self-Managed intermediate

    A team is deciding whether to keep using a managed service or bring it in-house. What trigger should govern the decision, and what asymmetry usually settles it?

    2 min answer supabasemanagedbuild-vs-buytco
  6. Managed vs Self-Managed intermediate

    A team is deciding whether to run a database, broker or search engine itself or to use a managed service. What actually drives the decision, and which arguments are usually wrong?

    2 min answer managed-servicesoperationscostcontrol
  7. Managed vs Self-Managed intermediate

    Under what circumstances would you self-manage a message broker rather than use a managed service, and how would you justify it?

    2 min answer managed-servicestcooperationsjustification
  8. Master Data Management intermediate

    An insurer has three customer masters: one in the policy system, one in claims, one in the broker portal. Each is authoritative for something. Leadership wants one. Give the sequence that gets there without a cutover weekend.

    2 min answer mdmgolden recordcoexistencemigration
  9. Materialized Views intermediate

    A discussion platform precomputes ranked feeds as materialised views. What does this buy, and what are the failure modes?

    2 min answer materialized-viewsprecomputationstalenessrebuild
  10. Medallion Architecture intermediate

    A data platform organises tables into bronze, silver and gold layers. What determines what belongs in each, and what is the common failure?

    2 min answer databricksmedallionlayerscontracts
  11. Medallion Architecture intermediate

    A team adopts bronze/silver/gold layering and every layer becomes a copy of the previous one with minor changes. What should each layer actually guarantee?

    2 min answer medallionlayeringdata-qualitycontracts
  12. Medallion Architecture intermediate

    What does a layered bronze-silver-gold structure actually buy, and where does it become ceremony?

    2 min answer medallionlayersreprocessingquality