Engineering
Solutions Architect mock interview
Works with customers or internal stakeholders to understand business problems and design technical solutions that fit their needs, budget and constraints. Spends the day in discovery conversations, drawing architectures, presenting proposals and guiding teams through implementation. A good interview for this role tests whether you can show that work, not just name it.
Ava, the AI interviewer, will ask you questions on requirements discovery, solution design & trade-offs, cloud & integration architecture and security & compliance by design and 4 more skills, follow up on what you say, and finish with a report that quotes your own words back to you.
Skills assessed in a solutions architect interview
Requirements discovery
Role skillAsks probing questions about goals, users, constraints and success measures before proposing technology.
Solution design & trade-offs
Role skillCompares options clearly, explains trade-offs in cost, complexity, risk and time, and reflects honestly on past designs.
Cloud & integration architecture
Role skillDesigns scalable, resilient systems and integrations using queues, APIs, events and managed services appropriately.
Security & compliance by design
Role skillBuilds in identity, encryption, data residency and regulatory needs from the start with specific controls.
Technical presentation
Role skillExplains complex ideas simply to mixed audiences, uses clear visuals and demos, and adapts to the room.
Cost & commercial awareness
Role skillEstimates running and delivery costs with sensible assumptions and ties designs to business value.
Customer focus
BehaviouralPuts the customer's real outcome first, even when that means advising against what they asked for.
Influence & stakeholder management
BehaviouralHandles disagreement respectfully, builds consensus across technical and business leaders, and stays credible under challenge.
Sample solutions architect interview questions
8 of the 12 questions Ava can ask for this role, one or more per skill. In a real session she adapts them to your level and follows up on your answers.
- Q1Requirements discoveryEntry level
A customer says they want to modernise their system. What questions would you ask before suggesting anything?
A strong answer: Business goals and pain points, users, current architecture, constraints like budget, timeline, skills and compliance, and how success will be measured.
- Q2Solution design & trade-offsEntry level
What is the difference between a monolith and microservices, and when would you advise a client to stay with a monolith?
A strong answer: Single deployable versus independent services; a well-structured monolith suits small teams and early products, microservices add operational complexity and fit larger teams with clear boundaries.
- Q3Technical presentationEntry level
How would you explain what an API is to a business stakeholder with no technical background?
A strong answer: A simple analogy, why it matters to the business such as partners or automation, and checking the listener understood.
- Q4Cloud & integration architectureMid level
A client needs their new online store to sync orders with an old inventory system that only exports nightly files. How would you design that?
A strong answer: Integration layer or queue, handling stale stock and overselling, file processing with validation and retries, monitoring, and a path to more real-time integration.
- Q5Security & compliance by designMid level
How do you bring security and compliance requirements, like data privacy rules, into a design from the start rather than at the end?
A strong answer: Early identification of regulations and data types, data minimisation, encryption, access control, residency, logging, and involving security reviewers early.
- Q6Cost & commercial awarenessMid level
How do you estimate the running cost of a solution you are proposing, and how do you present it to a customer?
A strong answer: Usage assumptions, pricing calculators, ranges for growth, hidden costs like data transfer and support, optimisation options, and tying cost to business value.
- Q7Customer focusMid level
Tell me about a time a customer asked for something that was not the right solution for them. What did you do?
A strong answer: Understood the underlying need, explained concerns with evidence, offered a better alternative, and respected the customer's final decision.
- Q8Influence & stakeholder managementSenior
The client's engineering lead strongly disagrees with your recommended approach in front of their executives. How do you handle that moment and afterwards?
A strong answer: Stays calm, acknowledges valid points, refocuses on shared goals and evidence, avoids a public fight, follows up one to one, and adapts if they are right.
What a strong solutions architect answer looks like
Requirements discovery
Asks probing questions about goals, users, constraints and success measures before proposing technology.
Solution design & trade-offs
Compares options clearly, explains trade-offs in cost, complexity, risk and time, and reflects honestly on past designs.
Customer focus
Puts the customer's real outcome first, even when that means advising against what they asked for.
How the practice works
- Step 1
Choose your level
Pick intern through lead. The solutions architect question bank is labelled for 3 entry-level, 4 mid-level and 3 senior questions (plus 2 for any level), and Ava leans toward the ones that fit.
- Step 2
Answer out loud or by typing
Ava asks 4 or 7 main questions, depending on the length you choose, such as the requirements discovery question above. You can also add a short coding exercise. Typing is always available if you can't speak.
- Step 3
Get feedback you can act on
Each skill is scored against the evidence you gave, with the specific points from your answers. In practice mode you also get a check against the situation, task, action and result structure, a stronger version of each answer built only from what you said, and what to practise next.
Frequently asked questions
- Which skills does the Solutions Architect mock interview cover?
- Requirements discovery, Solution design & trade-offs, Cloud & integration architecture, Security & compliance by design, Technical presentation, Cost & commercial awareness, Customer focus and Influence & stakeholder management. The first 6 are role skills; customer focus and influence & stakeholder management are the behavioural part.
- What kind of questions will I get?
- Questions come from a bank of 12 written for this role. An entry-level one is “A customer says they want to modernise their system. What questions would you ask before suggesting anything?” and a senior one is “Walk me through an architecture you designed that you are proud of. What were the biggest trade-offs, and what would you change now?”.
- How will my cloud & integration architecture answer be judged?
- Against what strong evidence looks like for that skill: designs scalable, resilient systems and integrations using queues, APIs, events and managed services appropriately. Anything you don't mention is not credited, and nothing is invented for you.
- Is this useful for SA or cloud solutions architect roles?
- Yes. SA, cloud solutions architect, customer solutions architect and pre-sales architect are treated as close to solutions architect, so the same skills and questions apply. You can also type any other role on the setup screen.
- Is it free, and do I need an account?
- Starting practice is free, and a free account is required before the interview begins. The feedback is guidance for your preparation, not a prediction of any hiring decision.