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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

92 questions in Meta-Skills.

  1. Research & Evaluation advanced

    A travel-search platform aggregating supplier prices - the business shape Expedia operates in - measures 40 million price updates a day and must choose between a managed search service and running the engine itself. A two-engineer two-week spike would settle it. Work out when buying that information is cheaper than deciding now.

    3 min answer spikecost-of-informationevaluationdecision-under-uncertainty
  2. Research & Evaluation intermediate

    An architect must evaluate an unfamiliar technology for a significant decision. What research approach produces a reliable judgement?

    2 min answer researchevaluationspikeevidence
  3. Research & Evaluation advanced

    How would you evaluate an unfamiliar technology for a critical workload in one week?

    2 min answer researchspikesfailure-testingevidence
  4. Research & Evaluation intermediate Multiple choice

    You are evaluating a database whose only production references are the vendor's own case studies. The benchmark in their documentation is excellent. You have one week. Which single piece of evidence would most change your confidence?

    3 min answer evaluationevidencereference-callprocurement
  5. Systems Thinking advanced

    A change fixes the problem it targeted and makes the overall situation worse. What second-order effects should an architect learn to anticipate?

    2 min answer systems-thinkingsecond-orderincentivesfeedback
  6. Systems Thinking advanced

    An organisation finds most incidents are caused not by individual service failures but by interactions between healthy services. What discipline addresses this, and what specifically should be done?

    2 min answer delhiverysystems-thinkingemergentdependencies
  7. Systems Thinking advanced

    An organisation finds most incidents are caused not by individual service failures but by unexpected interactions between healthy services. What does systems thinking add here?

    2 min answer systems-thinkingemergencefeedback-loopsdependencies
  8. Systems Thinking intermediate

    In April 2022 an Atlassian maintenance script deleted 883 sites belonging to 775 customers in 23 minutes. The script had passed peer review - the review checked which endpoint was called and how, not whether the supplied identifiers referred to an app or to a whole site. What happens if you respond by requiring a second reviewer?

    2 min answer atlassiancode-reviewblast-radiussecond-order-effects
  9. Systems Thinking advanced

    The same class of incident has recurred four times in a year despite each postmortem producing actions that were completed. What is going wrong?

    1 min answer meta-skillssystems-thinkingincidentsroot-cause
  10. Systems Thinking advanced

    You add an approval gate to reduce production defects. Six months later defect rates are higher. Explain.

    2 min answer systems-thinkingfeedbackgovernance
  11. Technical Leadership intermediate

    An engineer moves into a technical leadership role and finds their old approach no longer works. What changes?

    2 min answer postmanleadershipscaledelegation
  12. Technical Leadership advanced

    What changes when you move from making architectural decisions to being responsible for how an organisation makes them?

    2 min answer leadershipscalingdirectionrestraint