Technical Screening Questions for Cloud Architects
Hire architects who can build scalable, resilient cloud infrastructure. Use these 20 knockout questions to filter for experience with a specific cloud provider, IaC, and high-availability design.
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20 Knockout Questions for Cloud Architects
| # | Question | Type | Knockout Rule |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | How many years of cloud architecture experience do you have? | MCQ: 0-1 / 1-3 / 3-5 / 5+ | Below minimum = Knockout |
| 2 | Which cloud platform are you most experienced with? | MCQ: AWS / GCP / Azure / Multi-cloud | Mismatch = Knockout |
| 3 | Do you hold a cloud architect certification? | MCQ: AWS Solutions Architect / GCP Professional Architect / Azure Architect / None | None = Knockout for cert-required roles |
| 4 | Have you designed multi-region or multi-availability-zone architectures? | Yes / No | No = Knockout for enterprise-scale roles |
| 5 | Have you architected solutions for high availability and disaster recovery? | Yes / No | No = Knockout |
| 6 | Have you worked with Infrastructure as Code? (Terraform, CloudFormation) | Yes / No | No = Knockout |
| 7 | Have you designed microservices-based cloud architectures? | Yes / No | No = Knockout |
| 8 | Have you worked with serverless architectures? (Lambda, Cloud Functions) | Yes / No | No = Red flag for serverless teams |
| 9 | Have you implemented cloud networking? (VPC, VPN, peering, load balancers) | Yes / No | No = Knockout |
| 10 | Have you managed cloud costs and implemented FinOps practices? | Yes / No | No = Red flag for cost-sensitive roles |
| 11 | Have you worked with container orchestration at scale? (Kubernetes, ECS) | Yes / No | No = Knockout for container-heavy architectures |
| 12 | Have you designed cloud data pipelines or data lake architectures? | Yes / No | No = Knockout for data-heavy roles |
| 13 | Have you worked with cloud security architecture? (IAM, KMS, WAF) | Yes / No | No = Knockout for security-focused roles |
| 14 | Have you led cloud migration projects from on-premise? | Yes / No | No = Knockout for migration-focused roles |
| 15 | Have you worked with event-driven architectures? (SQS, EventBridge, Pub/Sub) | Yes / No | No = Red flag for async systems |
| 16 | Have you presented architecture decisions to senior stakeholders? | Yes / No | No = Knockout for senior architect roles |
| 17 | Are you authorized to work in [country] without visa sponsorship? | Yes / No | No = Knockout |
| 18 | What is your expected salary range? | MCQ: Range bands | Out of budget = Knockout |
| 19 | What is your current notice period? | MCQ: Immediate / 2 weeks / 1 month / 2+ months | Mismatch = Knockout |
| 20 | Are you available for an interview within the next 7 days? | Yes / No | No = Deprioritize |