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Also forApplied Solutions ArchitectSolutions Acceleration ArchitectCustomer EngineerSolutions architect loops differ from pure engineering loops in who the answer is for. The design is usually being explained to a customer rather than to a peer, so the assessment includes whether you can hold a coherent story across the whole stack and justify a recommendation to someone who did not read the same documentation you did. Breadth is weighted heavily: you are more likely to be asked about six areas at moderate depth than one area exhaustively.
A design question framed around a customer scenario, several broad discussion questions spanning security, performance, delivery and data, and frequently a migration or modernisation scenario. Expect to be interrupted with constraints mid-answer — a budget, a compliance requirement, an existing investment — and to be assessed on whether you adapt the design rather than defend the original one.
Answering as though the interviewer is a peer engineer. Jargon without explanation, and a recommendation without the reasoning that supports it, both read as inability to communicate with a customer, which is the core competency this role screens for.
Fully unlocked, solutions included. Enough to see whether the format suits you.
Broad questions with no system to draw. Free, and frequently where this loop is decided.
Easiest first. 45 in total for this role.
At senior level it eliminates more candidates than the technical rounds do. Free interactive guides to the questions that come up most.
The technical ground overlaps almost completely. The difference is audience: solutions architect loops weight explanation and adaptability more heavily, often with a customer-facing scenario, while cloud architect loops go deeper on the internals of the design itself.
Usually the emphasis rather than the material. Those variants tend to sit closer to delivery, so expect more on migration sequencing, adoption blockers and getting an existing workload running well, and slightly less on greenfield design.