Quiz

2707 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 areas2707 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 Architecture96 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 Architecture98 Streaming & Real-Time Data93 Data Governance & Semantics91 Frontend & Experience Architecture91 Edge, Mobile & IoT88 Regulatory & Data Protection Architecture90 Assurance, Audit & Model Risk98

Difficulty Any beginner intermediate advanced

5 questions in Refactoring & Re-architecting.

Quiz

A high-change application is constrained by its structure. What distinguishes refactoring from re-architecting here, and how do you choose?

A team proposes rewriting a critical system from scratch, arguing the existing one is unmaintainable. How do you evaluate this?

Figma's database stack grew roughly 100x between 2020 and 2024. Rather than shard, the team first moved groups of related tables onto their own databases, and only later sharded horizontally. What did the cheaper structural change buy, what did it leave untouched, and when does that bill arrive?

Six months into a two-year re-architecture you become convinced the target architecture is wrong. Walk me through how you raise it and what you propose.

When would you re-architect rather than replatform, and how would you sequence it?