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Quiz

2948 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 areas2948 Architecture Fundamentals91 Distributed Systems101 Data Architecture90 Cloud Architecture87 Networking96 API & Integration Architecture87 Reliability & Resilience99 Observability92 Performance & Capacity Engineering100 Security Architecture105 Cost Architecture & FinOps102 Business Architecture103 Architecture Communication102 Enterprise Architecture100 Legacy Modernization102 AI-Era Architecture106 Software Architecture & Engineering93 Architecture Patterns94 Architecture Decision-Making101 The Architect's Meta-Skills102 Delivery & Release Engineering103 Platform Engineering & Developer Experience102 Testing & Quality Architecture102 Data Platform Architecture98 Streaming & Real-Time Data103 Data Governance & Semantics91 Frontend & Experience Architecture101 Edge, Mobile & IoT98 Regulatory & Data Protection Architecture99 Assurance, Audit & Model Risk98
Difficulty Any beginner intermediate advanced

2948 questions.

  1. Paved Road & Golden Path beginner

    In August 2020 Spotify's engineering blog described the problem its golden paths were built to solve as "rumour-driven development" - the only way to find out how to do something was to ask a colleague. What does that diagnosis say a golden path has to ship beyond working tooling, and what did Spotify give up by recommending a set of tools?

    3 min answer spotifygolden pathdiscoverabilitydeveloper experience
  2. Paved Road & Golden Path intermediate

    Review this golden path. A new service starts with a portal form of 34 required fields; an architecture reviewer approves it within two days; the generator then creates a repository with build and deploy wired in. It does not create the database, the DNS record or the on-call rota, which are three tickets taking four to nine days. In the last year 18 of 60 new services went through it. What would you remove, what would you change, and what would you leave alone?

    3 min answer golden pathself-serviceadoptionreview
  3. Paved Road & Golden Path intermediate

    What makes a paved road actually get used, and what is the mistake that undermines it?

    2 min answer paved-roadadoptionspeedvariation
  4. Paved Roads advanced

    A company builds an internal platform to standardise how services are created and operated across hundreds of teams. What should it enforce, what should it leave flexible, and how does it avoid becoming an obstacle?

    3 min answer mercado-librefuryinternal-platformgolden-path
  5. Paved Roads intermediate

    An organisation builds a paved road and half the teams build their own infrastructure anyway. What does the adoption gap indicate?

    2 min answer paved-roadadoptiondeveloper-experienceplatform
  6. Paved Roads advanced

    From 2011 the UK's Government Digital Service required central approval for departmental digital spending above a threshold (about £100,000, and zero for some categories such as public-facing websites) alongside a published service standard and assessments. By 2026 the GDS-run controls had been retired in favour of departmental ownership with a much higher pipeline threshold. What did controlling the money achieve that a standards document could not, and where would copying it be a mistake?

    4 min answer gdsgovernancefundingstandards
  7. Paved Roads intermediate

    How does a paved road achieve governance outcomes without a mandate, and what makes it fail?

    2 min answer paved-roadgovernanceadoptiondefaults
  8. PCI-DSS Scoping advanced

    A commerce platform wants to reduce the systems in scope for payment card compliance. What architecture achieves that?

    2 min answer pcitokenisationscope-reductionsegmentation
  9. PCI-DSS Scoping advanced

    A merchant keeps card entry inside a provider-hosted iframe and believes its scope is minimal. Customer support uses a screen-sharing tool that can see and record the customer's browser during checkout, calls are recorded, and a session-replay script runs on every page for analytics. Review the arrangement.

    3 min answer pci-dssscopesession-replayscreen-sharing
  10. PCI-DSS Scoping advanced

    A payments platform wants to reduce the systems subject to card-data compliance. What actually reduces scope, and what does not?

    2 min answer razorpaypciscopetokenisation
  11. PCI-DSS Scoping advanced

    An e-commerce platform stores card numbers to support repeat purchases. How do you reduce PCI scope?

    2 min answer pcitokenisationscopepayments
  12. PCI-DSS Scoping intermediate

    An e-commerce site collects card details in its own form and posts them to a payment provider's API. What would you change and why?

    2 min answer stripepciscopesecurity