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Quiz

2777 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 areas2777 Architecture Fundamentals81 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-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 Architecture99 Assurance, Audit & Model Risk98
Difficulty Any beginner intermediate advanced

2777 questions.

  1. Network & Egress Costs intermediate

    A social platform discovers that data egress is its largest single cost line. Which architectural changes reduce it most, and which are ineffective?

    2 min answer sharechategresscdncache-hit
  2. Network & Egress Costs intermediate

    Data egress and cross-zone transfer charges are shaping an architecture's cost. What design decisions actually reduce them, and what is commonly done that does not help?

    2 min answer egresscross-zonecdndata-gravity
  3. Embeddings advanced

    A marketplace uses embeddings for product similarity. The embedding model is upgraded. What is the operational consequence, and how should the system be designed for it?

    2 min answer embeddingsmigrationversioningreindex
  4. Embeddings beginner Multiple choice

    A support search drops any result scoring below 0.75 cosine similarity. The team re-embeds the whole corpus with a newer embedding model and rebuilds the index; now the same cutoff throws away almost every result. What is the mistake?

    3 min answer embeddingssimilaritycalibrationthresholds
  5. Embeddings beginner Multiple choice

    A user asks your internal assistant about a subject the document corpus does not cover at all. The retriever is configured to return the top 5 chunks. What comes back?

    2 min answer embeddingsretrievalabstentionsimilarity-scores
  6. Embeddings advanced

    You are building retrieval over an organisation's documents. Which three decisions most affect quality?

    2 min answer embeddingschunkinghybrid-retrievalevaluation
  7. Encryption advanced

    A file storage platform encrypts data at rest and in transit. A customer asks whether the provider can read their files. What does the honest answer depend on, and what would change it?

    2 min answer encryptionkey-managementend-to-endthreat-model
  8. Encryption intermediate Multiple choice

    A regulator asks whether customer data is encrypted. The team says yes, disks are encrypted. Is that a sufficient answer?

    2 min answer encryptionthreat-modelcompliance
  9. Encryption intermediate Multiple choice

    A restricted column must be encrypted in the application before it reaches the database, and support staff must still look customers up by that exact value. 30 million rows and a p95 budget of 200 ms for the lookup. Which design?

    2 min answer field-level-encryptionblind-indexdeterministic-encryptionsearchable-encryption
  10. Encryption beginner Multiple choice

    An attacker obtains the application's database credential from a leaked environment file and runs a SELECT against the customer table. Every volume is encrypted at rest with a managed key service and every connection uses TLS. What does that encryption prevent here?

    3 min answer encryptionat restthreat modelaccess control
  11. Encryption intermediate Multiple choice

    Your database is encrypted at rest. An attacker obtains valid application credentials. What does the encryption protect against?

    2 min answer encryptionthreat-modelkey-managementat-rest
  12. End-to-End Test Economics intermediate

    A team's end-to-end suite takes ninety minutes and fails intermittently. How many end-to-end tests should there be?

    2 min answer chargebeee2eeconomicscoverage