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Quiz

3114 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 areas3114 Architecture Fundamentals91 Distributed Systems111 Data Architecture100 Cloud Architecture97 Networking96 API & Integration Architecture97 Reliability & Resilience99 Observability102 Performance & Capacity Engineering100 Security Architecture105 Cost Architecture & FinOps102 Business Architecture103 Architecture Communication102 Enterprise Architecture111 Legacy Modernization102 AI-Era Architecture106 Software Architecture & Engineering103 Architecture Patterns94 Architecture Decision-Making112 The Architect's Meta-Skills113 Delivery & Release Engineering103 Platform Engineering & Developer Experience102 Testing & Quality Architecture113 Data Platform Architecture108 Streaming & Real-Time Data103 Data Governance & Semantics101 Frontend & Experience Architecture112 Edge, Mobile & IoT109 Regulatory & Data Protection Architecture109 Assurance, Audit & Model Risk108
Difficulty Any beginner intermediate advanced

3114 questions.

  1. Reference Data advanced

    Twilio's public Messages API documents a fixed set of message status values, and the initial value depends on how the message was created - accepted when a Messaging Service is used, queued when it is not. Every customer who writes an exhaustive match over that list inherits a dependency on it. What does publishing a code list as part of an API force on its owner, and where would copying that approach be a mistake?

    3 min answer twilioreference-datacode-listsapi-contracts
  2. Reference Models intermediate

    A B2B procurement platform adopts an industry reference model for its catalogue and order domain. When does that help, and when does it become a liability?

    1 min answer reference-modelsmoglixprocurementstandards
  3. Reference Models intermediate Multiple choice

    A team adopts a cloud vendor's reference architecture wholesale to run two containers and a database. The result is a hub-and-spoke network with a firewall appliance and three subscription boundaries. What went wrong?

    2 min answer reference-modelsover-engineeringsimplicitymicrosoft
  4. Reference Models intermediate

    A travel platform is building its third availability-and-pricing integration in two years, each with a different internal shape. An architect proposes a reference model. What should it contain to be useful, and what makes reference models fail in practice?

    2 min answer reference-modelsstandardisationbookingintegration
  5. Reference Models advanced

    Four years ago a platform team adopted a cloud vendor's landing-zone reference architecture whole: hub-and-spoke network, three subscription tiers, a central firewall appliance, a shared CI account. The estate turned out to be three products and 40 engineers. The appliance adds a 12 ms hop to every internal call and caused two of the last five incidents. Auditors were told the architecture "conforms to the vendor reference". Sequence the migration to a simpler topology without losing the audit story.

    3 min answer reference-modelslanding-zonetailoringaudit
  6. Single vs Multi-Region advanced

    A B2B scheduling platform runs in one US region. 38% of revenue now comes from Australia and Europe, where p95 page load is 1.9 s against 420 ms in North America, and churn in those markets runs 2.3x the US rate. The team chooses one home region per tenant with a full stack in each, not global replication. Give the sequence under live traffic, say where data can diverge, and name the point of no return.

    3 min answer multi-regiontenant-pinningcutoverdual-write
  7. Single vs Multi-Region advanced

    A collaborative product must decide between single-region, multi-region read replicas, and multi-region writable. What should decide it?

    2 min answer multi-regionlatencycomplexitylocal-first
  8. Single vs Multi-Region beginner

    A single-region service already runs across three availability zones. After a four-hour incident at a cloud provider in a neighbouring region, the board asks for a second region. The team's own two-year incident log reads: eleven incidents, nine caused by its own deploys or configuration changes, two by the loss of a single zone. What does a second region add that a third zone does not, and what does that log say about the request?

    3 min answer multi-regionavailability-zonesfailure-domainsincident-history
  9. Single vs Multi-Region advanced

    A stakeholder asks for multi-region. What three questions do you ask before agreeing?

    2 min answer multi-regionresidencylatencyavailability
  10. Single vs Multi-Region advanced

    A team must decide whether to run in one region or several. What evidence justifies multi-region, and what does it cost?

    2 min answer flyiomulti-regionlatencyavailability
  11. Single vs Multi-Region advanced

    An interviewer gives you this - your single-region platform has signed its first Indian payments customer, and the regulator requires payment system data to be stored in India. The CFO wants the cheapest compliant answer by the end of the quarter. Where do you start, and what do you refuse to build?

    3 min answer data residencyregion strategycompliancerbi
  12. Regulatory & Data Protection Architecture advanced Multiple choice

    A global enterprise application must satisfy different regulatory regimes per market. Where should regulatory logic live?

    1 min answer regulatoryconfigurationpolicy-as-codemulti-jurisdiction