100 Senior Solution Architect interview questions - pcont/wiki GitHub Wiki

Here’s a comprehensive list of 100 Senior Solution Architect interview questions tailored for Senior DevOps and AWS roles. These questions are categorized into different areas to cover a wide range of topics, including AWS architecture, DevOps best practices, infrastructure as code (IaC), security, automation, and more.

AWS Architecture and Design

  1. Explain how you would design a highly available and fault-tolerant architecture using AWS services.
  2. What is the difference between an ELB (Elastic Load Balancer), ALB (Application Load Balancer), and NLB (Network Load Balancer), and when would you use each?
  3. How would you design a multi-region architecture in AWS for disaster recovery?
  4. Can you explain AWS Auto Scaling and how it integrates with other services like EC2, ECS, and RDS?
  5. How would you architect a serverless application on AWS using Lambda, API Gateway, DynamoDB, and S3?
  6. What strategies would you implement to optimize AWS costs for a large-scale, high-traffic application?
  7. How would you manage stateful applications on AWS, and which services would you use to ensure state persistence?
  8. How would you set up cross-account access in AWS, and what are the best practices for using IAM roles and policies?
  9. Describe how you would architect a VPC with multiple subnets for a large enterprise application.
  10. What is Amazon Route 53 and how would you use it for geo-based routing?
  11. Explain AWS Transit Gateway and how it simplifies networking across multiple VPCs and accounts.
  12. How do you monitor and troubleshoot latency issues in a distributed AWS architecture?
  13. How would you design a data lake architecture using S3, Glue, and Athena?
  14. What is the difference between RDS and DynamoDB, and when would you use one over the other?
  15. How would you implement a CI/CD pipeline using AWS CodePipeline, CodeBuild, and CodeDeploy for microservices?

DevOps and Automation

  1. What are the key components of a DevOps pipeline, and how would you build one using Jenkins and AWS services?
  2. How do you manage infrastructure as code (IaC) in a large-scale environment using tools like Terraform or CloudFormation?
  3. How would you implement a blue/green deployment strategy using ECS or EKS?
  4. Explain how you would manage configuration management using tools like Ansible, Puppet, or Chef in an AWS environment.
  5. What is GitOps, and how does it differ from traditional DevOps practices?
  6. How do you manage secrets and sensitive information in an AWS environment, and which services do you use (e.g., Secrets Manager, SSM Parameter Store)?
  7. What are canary deployments, and how would you implement them in a microservices architecture on AWS?
  8. How do you implement infrastructure scaling in a DevOps pipeline?
  9. What is AWS OpsWorks, and how does it fit into a configuration management strategy?
  10. How do you ensure disaster recovery for infrastructure and applications in a DevOps environment?

Security and Compliance

  1. How do you enforce least privilege in AWS using IAM policies?
  2. How would you implement multi-factor authentication (MFA) for a large organization’s AWS accounts?
  3. Explain VPC Peering and VPC Endpoints, and when would you use each?
  4. How do you ensure compliance with regulations (e.g., GDPR, HIPAA) in an AWS environment?
  5. What is AWS Shield and how would you use it to protect against DDoS attacks?
  6. How would you secure sensitive data in S3 buckets using encryption and bucket policies?
  7. How do you handle key management using AWS KMS?
  8. How would you implement cross-region replication for S3 and ensure that data is encrypted in transit and at rest?
  9. How would you set up network segmentation using security groups and NACLs in a multi-tier architecture?
  10. How do you audit and monitor changes in an AWS environment using AWS CloudTrail and Config?

Monitoring and Logging

  1. How would you monitor and log AWS resources using CloudWatch, CloudTrail, and AWS X-Ray?
  2. How do you set up alarms in CloudWatch to detect issues in real-time for EC2 or Lambda functions?
  3. Explain how you would use ElasticSearch, Logstash, and Kibana (ELK Stack) for centralized logging in an AWS environment.
  4. How do you manage and troubleshoot application logs in a containerized environment using ECS or EKS?
  5. What are the best practices for log retention and archiving in AWS?

Scaling and Load Balancing

  1. How do you handle auto-scaling for containers in an EKS cluster?
  2. What is the difference between horizontal scaling and vertical scaling, and when would you use each in AWS?
  3. How do you design a solution with elasticity for unpredictable workloads, like traffic spikes during marketing campaigns?
  4. How would you use Application Load Balancer (ALB) to route traffic based on URL paths or host headers in a microservices architecture?

Storage Solutions

  1. How do you choose between EBS, EFS, and S3 for different use cases?
  2. What is Amazon FSx, and how would you use it for high-performance file storage?
  3. How would you implement data lifecycle policies in S3 for cost optimization?
  4. How do you ensure data consistency in distributed systems using S3 or DynamoDB?

Database Solutions

  1. How would you implement multi-AZ failover for RDS to ensure high availability?
  2. What are read replicas, and how do they differ from multi-AZ deployments in RDS?
  3. How do you optimize DynamoDB for high throughput while controlling costs?
  4. Explain Amazon Aurora, and when would you choose it over other RDS engines like MySQL or PostgreSQL?

Containers and Orchestration

  1. What is the difference between ECS and EKS, and when would you choose one over the other?
  2. How do you manage containerized applications in Kubernetes using Amazon EKS?
  3. What is Fargate, and how does it simplify container management compared to EC2-based containers?

Networking and Content Delivery

  1. Explain how AWS Direct Connect is different from a VPN, and when you would use it.
  2. How do you optimize the performance of globally distributed applications using CloudFront?
  3. What are NAT Gateways, and when would you use them over NAT Instances?

Infrastructure as Code (IaC)

  1. How would you manage infrastructure as code using Terraform for multi-cloud environments?
  2. How do CloudFormation Stacks and StackSets help manage resources in multiple AWS accounts?
  3. What are the advantages of using Terraform over CloudFormation in complex environments?
  4. How do you manage environment drift using Terraform or CloudFormation?

High Availability and Disaster Recovery

  1. How would you design a disaster recovery solution for a mission-critical application in AWS?
  2. Explain the difference between RTO (Recovery Time Objective) and RPO (Recovery Point Objective), and how they influence your disaster recovery strategy.
  3. How would you implement cross-region failover for a global application using Route 53 and ELB?
  4. How would you architect a multi-region active-active architecture on AWS?

Cost Optimization

  1. How do you monitor and manage AWS costs using AWS Cost Explorer and Budgets?
  2. What strategies would you use to reduce costs for a heavily utilized EC2 fleet?
  3. How do Spot Instances differ from Reserved Instances, and when would you use each?
  4. How would you optimize S3 costs using storage classes like Intelligent-Tiering or Glacier?

CI/CD Pipelines and Automation

  1. How would you implement a continuous integration/continuous deployment (CI/CD) pipeline using AWS CodePipeline?
  2. What is CodeBuild, and how does it integrate with other AWS services in a CI/CD process?
  3. How would you implement canary deployments using CodeDeploy?

Multi-Account and Governance

  1. How do you manage multiple AWS accounts using AWS Organizations?
  2. How do you enforce governance and control over multiple AWS accounts using Service Control Policies (SCPs)?
  3. What is AWS Control Tower, and how does it help set up a multi-account environment?
  4. How do you manage permissions across multiple accounts using AWS IAM and IAM Roles?

Serverless Architectures

  1. How do you design a fully serverless architecture using Lambda, **Dynamo

DB**, and API Gateway? 79. How would you implement error handling and retries in a Lambda-based workflow? 80. What are the best practices for securing a serverless API built with API Gateway and Lambda?

Hybrid and Multi-Cloud Architectures

  1. How do you integrate on-premise environments with AWS using AWS VPN or Direct Connect?
  2. How would you design a hybrid cloud solution using AWS and another cloud provider (e.g., Azure or GCP)?
  3. What are the challenges and best practices of managing multi-cloud environments using Terraform?

Advanced Security

  1. How would you design a zero-trust architecture in AWS?
  2. How do you use AWS WAF to protect applications from common web exploits like SQL injection or cross-site scripting?
  3. What is AWS GuardDuty, and how would you integrate it into your security strategy?

Automation and Orchestration

  1. How would you use AWS Step Functions to orchestrate microservices workflows?
  2. How do you automate infrastructure management using AWS Systems Manager?

Performance Optimization

  1. How do you optimize the performance of an RDS database for read-heavy workloads?
  2. How do you handle performance tuning in DynamoDB for write-heavy applications?
  3. What strategies do you use for load testing and performance benchmarking on AWS?

Operational Excellence

  1. How do you implement the AWS Well-Architected Framework for operational excellence?
  2. How do you track and manage service quotas across a large AWS environment?

Networking and VPNs

  1. How would you implement a site-to-site VPN connection between AWS and an on-premises data center?
  2. How do you use VPC Flow Logs to analyze and troubleshoot network traffic?

Cross-Service Integrations

  1. How would you integrate SNS, SQS, and Lambda in a decoupled architecture?
  2. How do you implement an event-driven architecture using Amazon EventBridge?
  3. How do you use AWS App Mesh for microservices networking and observability?

Edge and IoT Solutions

  1. How would you deploy an IoT application using AWS IoT Core and Greengrass?
  2. How do you optimize content delivery for a global audience using CloudFront and Edge Locations?

These questions span across a variety of topics and are aimed at testing not only your technical expertise but also your understanding of architectural best practices, scalability, security, and operational excellence in AWS. If you need further explanations on any of these topics, feel free to ask!