Describe a Company-Level Architecture Decision You Made, and What It Cost
Behavioral and LeadershipTechnical JudgmentAsked atPrincipalUpdated
They're checking whether you can make an architecture call that binds the company for years and account for its full price. Strong answers name the options, the costs of the one chosen, and how you made those costs visible to the people paying them.
Rubric by Level
Junior
- Explains an architecture decision your team made and how it shaped your work.
- Names one cost of it you ran into.
- Asked why it was made and can repeat the reasons.
Mid
- Made a design decision for a component with a clear tradeoff.
- Names what it made easier and what it made harder.
- Wrote it down so others could see the reasoning.
Senior
- Made an architecture decision for your system with the options and costs laid out.
- Shows the costs, like operational load or migration effort.
- Revisited it later and assessed whether it held up.
Principal
- Made a decision that set the company's architecture for years, like a data platform, a tenancy model, or a service boundary.
- Priced it fully, including lock-in, hiring, and the options it closed off.
- Made the costs visible to executives and the teams paying them.
- Assesses the result years later, including what you underestimated.
Red Flags
- Describes only the benefits, as if the decision was free.
- Made the call inside engineering with no business input.
- Can't say what the decision made harder.
Follow-Ups to Expect
- Which cost did you underestimate?
- Who disagreed, and what would their option have cost?
- Would you make the same call today?
A Story Shape That Holds Up
The Decision
What had to be decided, and why at the company level.
The Options
What you considered and how you compared them.
The Price
What the chosen option cost, including what it made harder.
Years Later
How it held up, and the cost you underestimated.