Cloud Architect
Updated for 2026: Cloud Architect interview questions and answers covering core skills, tools, and best practices for roles in the US, Europe & Canada.
What is a cloud landing zone and why do enterprises build one?
A landing zone is a standardized foundation for cloud accounts/projects. It includes: - Account structure and network baseline - IAM policies and guardrails - Logging and security monitoring - IaC standards It enables consistent governance and reduces drift across teams, making scaling and compliance easier.
How do you design VPC networking for secure, scalable cloud systems?
VPC design balances isolation, connectivity, and operations. Key concepts: - Subnets (public/private) - Routing tables and NAT - Security groups/NACLs - Private endpoints Design for least privilege, minimize public exposure, and plan CIDR ranges to avoid future IP exhaustion and peering conflicts.
How do you design IAM in the cloud using least privilege and scalable patterns?
Start with least privilege and strong identity boundaries. Use: - Roles over long-lived keys - Separate environments/accounts - Policy-as-code and reviews - MFA and break-glass accounts Design for humans and workloads separately and audit permissions regularly to prevent privilege creep.
How do you design high availability (HA) for cloud applications?
HA focuses on eliminating single points of failure. Patterns: - Multi-AZ deployments - Load balancers + autoscaling - Health checks and graceful degradation - Managed databases with replicas Define SLOs first, then choose redundancy and failover patterns that meet uptime goals and budget.
What is disaster recovery (DR) and how do you choose RTO/RPO targets?
DR plans for rare but severe failures. - RTO: time to restore service - RPO: acceptable data loss window Architectures range from backups (cheap) to warm standby to active-active (expensive). Choose based on business impact and test DR regularly with runbooks and game days.
When should you deploy multi-region and what are the main challenges?
Multi-region improves latency and resilience, but adds complexity. Challenges: - Data replication and consistency - Global routing and failover - Operational complexity and cost Use multi-region when latency or availability requirements justify it, and practice failover drills to avoid brittle setups.
Serverless vs containers: how do you choose for a cloud workload?
Serverless is great for event-driven, spiky workloads with minimal ops. Containers are better for long-running services, custom runtimes, and predictable performance. Consider: - Cold starts - Observability and debugging - Vendor lock-in - Cost model Many systems use both: serverless for glue and async tasks, containers for core APIs.
What are the core building blocks of Kubernetes architecture in cloud environments?
Kubernetes schedules containers across nodes. Core concepts: - Pods, Deployments, Services - Ingress and networking - ConfigMaps/Secrets - Autoscaling Cloud architects must also design cluster isolation, IAM integration, observability, upgrade strategy, and cost controls for multi-tenant workloads.
How do you choose between SQL, NoSQL, and managed cloud databases?
Choose based on access patterns, consistency needs, and scale. SQL: strong transactions, complex queries. NoSQL: scale and flexible schemas (often eventual consistency). Also consider managed options (backups, HA, upgrades). Start with the simplest database that meets requirements, then evolve based on measured bottlenecks.
When should cloud architectures use queues, pub/sub, or event streams?
Use messaging to decouple services and handle spikes. - Queues: work distribution - Pub/Sub: fan-out notifications - Streams: immutable event logs Key concerns: delivery semantics, ordering, retries, DLQs, and observability. Design consumers to be idempotent.
What observability stack do you recommend for cloud systems and why?
Observability combines metrics, logs, and traces. A strong stack provides: - Standardized structured logs - Distributed tracing across services - SLO dashboards and alerts Design for correlation IDs and consistent telemetry across teams, then build runbooks so on-call can diagnose issues quickly.
Why use Infrastructure as Code (IaC) and what are Terraform best practices?
IaC makes infrastructure repeatable and reviewable. Terraform best practices: - Use modules and naming standards - Separate state per environment - Use remote state with locking - Review changes in PRs Also scan IaC for security misconfigurations and avoid manual drift in production.
How do you manage secrets and encryption keys in cloud architectures?
Use managed secret stores and key management services. Best practices: - Rotate secrets regularly - Use envelope encryption with KMS - Restrict access by role and environment - Audit usage Avoid storing secrets in code, images, or plaintext env files. Prefer short-lived credentials whenever possible.
How do CDNs and edge caching improve performance and security?
CDNs cache content near users and reduce origin load. Benefits: - Lower latency - Better availability under spikes - DDoS absorption and WAF integration Use cache-control headers and versioned assets. For dynamic content, cache selectively and protect origin endpoints with rate limiting and authentication.
How do cloud architects optimize cost without reducing reliability?
Cost optimization should be measurement-driven. Tactics: - Right-size compute - Use autoscaling - Reduce data egress - Choose appropriate storage tiers - Enforce budgets and tagging Optimize the biggest spend first and ensure changes don’t violate SLOs (e.g., removing redundancy).
How do you plan a migration to the cloud with minimal downtime and risk?
Start with workload discovery and risk classification. Common approach: - Migrate in phases (strangler pattern) - Use blue/green or canary - Plan data migration and cutover - Keep rollback options Validate with load tests and observability before switching traffic. Align stakeholders on RTO/RPO and success metrics.
Backups vs replication: what’s the difference and what should you back up?
Replication improves availability; backups protect against corruption and deletion. Back up: - Databases and critical object storage - Config/state (IaC state, secrets metadata) Test restores regularly. A backup you haven’t restored is not a real backup.
How do you approach cloud compliance (SOC2, ISO27001) in architecture design?
Compliance is controls + evidence. Architect for: - Strong IAM and auditing - Encryption and key management - Network segmentation - Change management via IaC Automate evidence collection (logs, configs). Build guardrails so teams can ship fast without repeatedly reinventing compliance.
What is a cloud security baseline and what should it include?
A security baseline is the minimum secure configuration for cloud environments. Typically includes: - IAM guardrails (least privilege, MFA) - Central logging and alerts - Encryption defaults - Network segmentation - Policy-as-code checks Baselines reduce drift and make compliance repeatable across teams and accounts.
How do you connect on-prem systems to cloud privately and securely?
Private connectivity reduces exposure and improves reliability. Options: - Site-to-site VPN - Dedicated links (Direct Connect/ExpressRoute) - Private endpoints and DNS Design with redundancy, clear routing, least-privilege firewall rules, and monitoring. Plan IP ranges early to avoid overlapping CIDRs.