What to expect: Solution Architect Interview for Amazon and Google

(Solution architecture for AWS and Google Cloud)

Solution architect for Amazon

If you’re preparing for a Solutions Architect interview for Amazon, make sure that you’re technically strong. It’s important to have a strong understanding of System Design, Software Engineering Principles, and Networking Concepts. If you have a basic knowledge of AWS it will be beneficial.

You should understand below concepts:

IAM Roles, CDN, Security Groups, Load Balancer, Auto Scaling, EC2, S3 Bucket, Storage options, Cloud Watch, etc

The interview process will consist of several rounds.

The first round will be telephonic. A phone interview is 90 minutes. 1 hour is for tech topics, and 30 minutes for behavioral and LP questions.

The next round will be the technical interview, followed by on-site interviews. The on-site interviews will consist of 5 rounds and in each round, you will be tested in various areas.

An on-site interview has a combination of 1 Technical round (the interviewer will give a use case and you have to explain on the whiteboard), and a test with behavioral and LP-based questions.

Solution architect for Google

If you are preparing for a Solution Architect interview for Google, you must know that you not only require technical expertise in the field but also the confidence and ability to portray the answers well.

You should understand below concepts:

Virtual Machines in GCP (Google Cloud Platform), Virtual Networking, Identity management, Containers, Storage options, Data services, etc

Interview process consisting of a phone screen and onsite interviews.

The initial phone screen is with a prospective manager or team member. It lasts 30-60minutes.

A typical onsite interview consists of 4-5 interviews at 45 minutes each. Some are 1:1, others are a panel.

Google uses a “scientifically proven” method called “structured interviewing”, where recruiters prepare a list of questions and a scoring rubric for each question. Every candidate answers the same set of questions for each role to standardize the interview process.

I’ll provide solution architect interview questions to expect during the job interview:

General questions

• What goals would you set for yourself as a professional solution architect?
• If you start this job now as a solution architect, what projects will you start within three months from now?
• How do your co-workers describe you in one word?
• Explain a recent professional achievement.
• Skills required for a solution architect?
• What qualities make you a good fit for this job?
• Are you comfortable speaking to people about technical topics?
• How much did you code in your current job? (asked by Google)
• Why are you choosing to exit your current role?

Common solution architect interview questions

• What is the most innovative solution you’ve proposed, working as a solutions architect?
• How can you protect against an injection attack?
• Describe your protocol for ensuring security.
• What can a solutions architect do to support functional analysts?

Experience and background questions

• What’s your favorite thing about being a solutions architect?
• Tell me about your experience as a solutions architect?
• What are your strengths and weaknesses as a solutions architect?
• Tell me about a time when you took on something significant outside your area of responsibility and why was that important?
• Tell me about a recent successful project as a solutions architect?
• Tell me about a time a project was unsuccessful, what happened?
• Sometimes customers make unreasonable requests, can you tell me about a time you pushed back or said no to a customer? What did you do in response to that request?
• Name a problematic experience and how you overcame it.
• How many coding languages are you fluent in and what are they?
• What’s the major benefit of being a solutions architect?
• Explain any solutions architect projects in your portfolio.
• Describe 3 tier architecture?
• Explain Continuous Integration.
• Do you know what CIDR is?
• Web Application Firewall?
• Can you explain cloud computing?
• What does it mean to denormalize a table?
• Difference between RPO and RTO
• RAID database?
• Does Diff bet Scripting language vs compiler language?
• Share an example in which you analyzed a complex problem, came up with a solution, and evaluated results.
• Show me projects you’ve worked on that demonstrate technical skills in coding. (Asked at Google).
• How did you collect information to solve a problem?
• Describe a time that you diagnosed the cause of an operating error and fixed it.
• Describe your approach for working with a lot of data.
• What tools do you use to perform the duties of a solutions architect, and why do you use them?
• Explain your strategy for successfully improving upon existing software.
• In what ways have you applied new technology to being a solutions architect and innovated the company you were working for?