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Quiz

2827 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 areas2827 Architecture Fundamentals91 Distributed Systems101 Data Architecture90 Cloud Architecture87 Networking86 API & Integration Architecture87 Reliability & Resilience99 Observability92 Performance & Capacity Engineering90 Security Architecture95 Cost Architecture & FinOps92 Business Architecture93 Architecture Communication91 Enterprise Architecture100 Legacy Modernization92 AI-Era Architecture96 Software Architecture & Engineering93 Architecture Patterns84 Architecture Decision-Making101 The Architect's Meta-Skills92 Delivery & Release Engineering103 Platform Engineering & Developer Experience92 Testing & Quality Architecture102 Data Platform Architecture98 Streaming & Real-Time Data93 Data Governance & Semantics91 Frontend & Experience Architecture101 Edge, Mobile & IoT98 Regulatory & Data Protection Architecture99 Assurance, Audit & Model Risk98
Difficulty Any beginner intermediate advanced

2827 questions.

  1. GraphQL intermediate

    A team debates REST and GraphQL for a new public API. What should actually decide it, and what is the operational cost each one imposes?

    2 min answer postmangraphqlrestapi-design
  2. GraphQL advanced

    A team is about to launch a public GraphQL API. What must be in place before it goes live?

    2 min answer graphqlsecurityperformancecaching
  3. gRPC APIs advanced

    A gRPC client fleet calls a backend behind a layer-4 load balancer. After scaling the backend from 10 to 40 pods, the original 10 carry almost all the traffic and the new pods sit idle. Separately, calls have started failing with UNAVAILABLE after quiet periods. Diagnose both.

    3 min answer grpchttp2load balancingkeepalive
  4. gRPC APIs advanced

    A partial-update RPC takes the message and writes every field it contains. After a client release, support finds accounts whose discount percentage has become 0 and whose nickname has become empty, with no failed calls and no bad data in the client's logs. The protobuf definition uses plain proto3 scalars. Explain the failure.

    3 min answer protobuffield-presencepartial-updatefieldmask
  5. gRPC APIs intermediate Multiple choice

    A real-time platform uses gRPC internally and REST externally. Where exactly should the boundary sit, and what belongs at the translation layer?

    2 min answer grpcapi-boundarytranslationgateway
  6. gRPC APIs advanced

    You must remove a field from a protobuf message used by dozens of deployed services. Walk through the safe sequence.

    2 min answer grpcprotobufschema-evolutioncompatibility
  7. gRPC Transport intermediate

    A file-sync company moves internal service communication from JSON over HTTP to gRPC. What improves, what gets harder, and where would you keep HTTP/JSON?

    2 min answer grpcprotobufinternal-apisstreaming
  8. gRPC Transport advanced Multiple choice

    A gRPC service sits behind a layer 4 load balancer. One backend receives most of the traffic and adding instances does not help. Why?

    2 min answer grpchttp2load-balancingmultiplexing
  9. gRPC Transport intermediate

    A telemetry platform must choose between HTTP/JSON and gRPC for high-volume ingestion from thousands of agents. What actually decides it?

    1 min answer grafanagrpcingestionprotocols
  10. gRPC Transport intermediate

    An organisation standardises internal service communication. What actually distinguishes gRPC from JSON over HTTP at scale, and where does each break down?

    2 min answer grpcrestprotobufstreaming
  11. Guardrails advanced

    A platform must prevent harmful outputs in a user-facing AI feature. Where should guardrails sit, and what does each layer catch?

    2 min answer guardrailslayersmoderationfalse-positives
  12. Guardrails intermediate

    An AI feature needs guardrails on inputs and outputs. Where should they run, and what is the latency and reliability consequence?

    2 min answer mistralguardrailssafetylatency