Do you want to be a Cloud Architect ? Are you stuck in a Sysadmin / DBA job ,and want to transition into the Cloud? Are you interested , but do not know how/where to start ? Then, you are in the right place . This is Part 1 of a 3-Part series , where I share the secret sauce how best to get started on the journey to become a Cloud Architect , and enhance your career.

2. Azure Dublin Meetu
Hugo Barona

3. Overall Agenda (Part I , 2 and 3 ) -

4. What did we cover in Part 1 ?

5. What did we cover in Part 2 ?

6. What do we intend to cover in Part 3 ?

8. Let me (briefly) introduce myself -

9. Currently , an Assistant Director,
Cloud Practice at EY (Ernst & Young).
Before that I led the CCOE ( Cloud
Centre Of Excellence Team ) at Accenture.
Have 10+ years of IT experience , working on
Cloud since 2017.
But , most importantly (and I want to
focus on this for a minute) , I successfully transitioned
my career
from being a C#,SQL developer
to a CSA(Cloud Solution Architect).

10. My journey

11. What happened in 2017-2018 ?
1 . Realization that I needed to
transition to something else ( Most
important).
2 . I documented my purpose / future
goals clearly.
3 . Then , I took appropriate steps to
enable my cloud journey.

12. I want to help you do the same , in case
you guys are interested in making
this transition !!

13. I will try to leave 5-10 minutes at the
end ,and in-between to address any queries you might
have on this topic.
So , you can ask the questions on chat .
If I cannot answer them during the session
I promise , I will personally reach out to you ,
and answer them later.

14. What did I learn from my previous
sessions?
You all were kind enough to share me
some extensive feedback based on Part 1
and 2 , and in spirit of continuous
learning and reinforcement , I have tried
to incorporate the suggestions , into this
talk , as much as possible .

15. So , what changes ?
1 . You said the session was too long , so I have reduced it to 40
minutes , this time.
2 . You said there was less time for questions , with the reduced
presentation time , the Q&A time will go up automatically.
3 . You said there was not a lot of interaction with the audience . In
this talk , after every major section , I will leave around 5 minutes
for interaction with audience , asking questions , and candid
discussions.
4 . You said you wanted more real-life experiences , so this time I
have modelled this talk around actual interview questions that I
have faced when I applied for Cloud architect positions.

17. So , let me introduce you to Turja (myself)
We will use my persona in mock interview scenarios , and
try to introspect on the questions , and gather valuable
insight from them .

18. Before , we get into the crux of our session ,
let me quickly set some context , by going over
some of the best practices
that you can follow to be a better cloud
architect !
This is more directed towards
individuals who missed
Session 2 , and directly
joined us for Session 3

19. 1 . Follow other ,
better solution
architects ( LinkedIn ,
Twitter , Slack ,
whatever).

20. 2 . Listen to cloud
podcasts while
talking a walk , or
chilling out.

21. 3 . Write a small
program , in
whatever language ,
at least once a
month.

22. 4 . Subscribe to good
newsletters to stay
updated.

23. 5 . Get the basics
right .
Start with the why ,
before the how .

24. 6 . At work , try to get
a gig that lets you
think about
architecture.

25. 7 . Write at least one
blog , a month , on
technology , and
architecture , no
matter what.

26. 8 . Get certified , as
much as possible.

27. 9 . Try to speak on
cloud
technologies/software
architecture at events.

28. 10 . Attend as many
cloud interviews as
possible

30. Now , let us go through a few interview
questions , and their analysis -

31. The idea is to not go through hundreds of technical
interview questions in this forum.
The idea is not even to answer everything correct from a
technology perspective.
The idea is more to understand / capture what happens in
an actual interview , and then try to analyze the questions
so that we can come up with a valid strategy to face those
questions and similar ones in future.
Disclaimer

32. All the questions that I will discuss
below are actual questions that I have been
asked in an interview , at some point
or another , when trying to get a job
in the Cloud architect role.

33. Continuous integration vs. continuous
delivery vs. continuous deployment.
Explain each of the above , and their
differences -
benefits , comparison , etc.

34. Most/many of the questions in a cloud architecture interview will
be more about understanding your overall knowledge / approach
to a problem , rather than a specific technical solution.
There might be a few extremely specific technical questions , but
very frankly , from my experience they are rare.
Also , it is equally important to understand / acknowledge that the
interviewer cannot also realistically know every single
cloud/associated technology at a granular level.
So , while you might get questions on CI / Jenkins , with relation to
DevOps , it is very unlikely , they will ask you to write a Groovy
script . It is much more probable they might ask you how to create
a highly-available master-slave architecture in Jenkins.
Insight - 1

35. From my personal experiences , out of the 30-40 odd cloud architect interviews I have
participated in , there has hardly been any interview where I was asked specific
technical queries like :
- How does AZ CLI authenticate OR
- How many AZ(s) does the us-east1 region has and so on
From my experience , most of the interviews were focused on solving actual enterprise-
wide problems , rather than syntax .
And this is the same approach that I take when I interview candidates – I don’t ask
specific questions on implementation as that is something that can be done via some
google search , reading through documentation , etc ; what matters to me is whether
the candidate has ‘cloud awareness’ and can think of solutions from a holistic
perspective.
My Experience 1

36. Some of you may be wondering why a Cloud architecture interview should start with
a question on DevOps .
That is both the beauty of the Cloud architect role , as well as it’s most difficult point.
A cloud architect is , by theory supposed to know all of the associated cloud
technologies also , at a high level.
This is because as part of your daily responsibilities as an architect , you might have
to coordinate or work closely with the DevOps practice in your company .
In some cases , you might even have to ensure that your DevOps
infrastructure/practices are well-architected , highly available and there are no
bottlenecks.
The idea I am trying to push here , is that during your preparation , do not put any
virtual boundary that you will only learn Azure , and not Jenkins . Try to keep a wider
approach and accommodate as much information as realistically possible.
Insight - 2

37. Do not think that you will just give a binary/Boolean answer to this ,
and the interviewer will go on to the next question , as if it is a MCQ
exam .
Most probably , your answer will lay the foundation for the next
question , and subsequent discussions .
An interview for the role of a Cloud architect is more of a conversation
or a journey , rather than a specific set of arbitrary questions and
answers.
Most of the time , you will feel as if you are discussing a solution , the
potential architectural trade-offs , and associated NFRs with a
colleague , trying to prove that your solution works , rather than giving
a formal interview.
Insight - 3

38. Once , when I was interviewing for a Cloud Architect position in a Financial Services
organization , during the 2nd round , that lasted for almost 45-60 minutes , I still remember
that we only discussed a single question.
Basically , the question was about designing a fault-tolerant geo-distributed application
that could cater to users across the globe with low latency.
I was asked to come up with a solution ; and based on that I got a lot of follow-up
questions , and while discussing those questions , potential solutions , architectural trade-
offs and so on , we covered the entire slot .
No other question was discussed , which seemed weird to me at that time , but now I
understand and appreciate it – the number of questions do not matter that much , what
matters is whether your though process is precise and clear , and if you are imaginative
enough to think through your solution.
My Experience 2

39. Do not answer incorrectly or ambiguously if you have no clue as to the
question , or the topic discussed .
This is bad practice, and mostly leads to a very low perspective / idea of
you , in the eyes of the interviewer .
Also , it does not help a lot , when follow-up questions on the same
topic come up , and you are unable to answer them perfectly also.
Nobody presumes/expects that you will know everything , not even the
interviewer .
In case you don’t know something , just be upfront and tell your
interviewer about it , and then move on to the next question / topic.
Insight - 4

40. Ensure that your CV is aligned with your knowledge / actual work .
Take full ownership of everything that you have mentioned in your CV ;
if you are not comfortable with something , do not mention it in your
CV .
Most interviewers will start with your CV , as the basis of what they will
ask you about .
And , they will get terribly disappointed / doubtful if you are unable to
answer simple queries related to topics that you have mentioned in
your CV .
Be upfront , and transparent , that will work to your advantage in an
actual interview.
Insight - 5

41. While interviewing for a Cloud Architect role in one of the Big 4s , I remember while
answering a specific DevOps question , I mistakenly mentioned that I had managed CI/CD
pipelines for deployment into GCP instances .
Unfortunately , even though I had done the same in Azure , and AWS , I had never done
that in GCP before , but I though it would be mostly same.
However , my interviewer had actual experience on this topic , and had faced a few
roadblocks , that he/his team had fixed later , with a lot of time and effort.
So , as a follow-up , he started asking me about these topics , but I could not answer them
properly , because I had not done it , by myself , from scratch.
My Experience 3

42. As a cloud architect ,what do you
consider as somethings that can fail in
the cloud , and how can you design your
applications to withstand them.
You can talk about generic approaches ,
or service/component specific
approaches.

43. Even if the question itself is cloud-agnostic/vendor neutral , you can
still use your own experience from working in a specific cloud to
answer the query .
You do not need to consider which cloud the interviewer is comfortable
in , or explain everything in a cloud-agnostic fashion.
The idea is to be able to take your practical experiences , feedback ,
limitations , best practices when interacting with a single cloud , and
then using that as a reference to answer the specific question asked .
You can always say ‘ In Azure , we have [X] which can solve this problem
in a [Y] way’ ; and that is okay.
The interviewer will appreciate the fact that you understand the basics
– the cloud specific implementations will vary anyhow.
Insight - 6

44. The fundamentals will come to the rescue , always .
As mentioned in my Part-1 talk , the fundamentals of architecture in
general , and cloud architecture in particular , has a huge role to play in
your success in any cloud architecture interview .
Most interviewers will focus on your understanding of the basic NFR(s)
like scalability , reliability , performance , etc .
They will ask you questions about the same , and might also go into
implementation details of the same .
So , as a Cloud architect , you must understand – what fault-tolerant
applications are ,but at the same time , also be in a position to define a
fault-tolerant solution implementation using the provided cloud
constructs like availability zone , load balancing , and so on.
Insight - 7

45. Understanding cloud services of at least one major cloud provider is a
must.
You will never be able to answer solution implementation questions by
only understanding the Level-100 fundamentals/basics.
You must understand the different cloud services that are provided as
an offering by the CSP , and how you can integrate them together to
get to your solution.
Obviously NFR(s) / architectural requirements will influence/drive your
choices for service selection , but , ultimately , the actual work will be
done by the cloud services , and without them , you will not be able to
articulate / explain your solution to the interviewer.
Insight - 8

46. Get comfortable with drawing architectural diagrams in a tool of your
choice .
Some of the most popular choices are Visio , diagrams.net ( formerly
knows as draw.io ) , etc.
At some point or time in your interview , you will likely be asked to
share your screen , and draw a basic architectural diagram to explain
your solution.
At that point , being prepared , having the software ready , having the
icon set ready , really helps .
Also , these things are not easy , and difficult to do , out-of-the-box.
So , having a lot of practice really helps .
Insight - 9

47. Once , when I was being interviewed by a Supply chain unicorn start-up , in the 1st round ,
middle of the interview , the interviewer asked me to draw the architectural
implementation of a solution we were discussing involving some Kubernetes components.
At that time, for some reason I was giving the interview on my wife’s laptop , which did not
have Visio installed , or any icon package pre-loaded.
So , I took up a lot of time in setting this up , as a result of which , the interviewer asked me
to stop , and went on to the next question.
However , I could understand that this irritated the interviewer , and made him feel , I am
not used to drawing architecture diagrams as part of my current job, and I never heard
from them again.
So , that was a lesson for me !
My Experience 4

48. Your company has invested in docker and
Kubernetes extensively .
All development teams are creating docker images .
You just got notified that the base image that a lot
of your teams use has been upgraded to a newer
version , to take care of a critical security
vulnerability .
How can you manage this ?
As a cloud architect , what are some of the best
practices that you can put in place to ensure that
proper security patches / OS + Framework updates
are pushed into the system , without any impact.

49. In all likelihood , one or two docker/container /kubernetes related
questions will crop up in your cloud architecture interview , if not
more.
Truly speaking , Kubernetes has become the de-facto for application
development in today’s software ecosystem.
It is highly unlikely , that a firm will hire a Cloud architect with zero
knowledge of Kubernetes , in the present context.
The good thing is you don’t need to be an expert on k8 , just a high
level understanding should be enough to get started with.
Also , there is no other way to say this – ‘You need to put in the hard
work , and learn Kubernetes – it is the only way , there is no
tricks/shortcut here’
Insight - 10

50. As a cloud architect , you are kind of the SME for all cloud topics in
your company , so there is a huge probability that you will be involved
in topics that are not directly related to architecture , even though
they are related to cloud.
This might include topics like patching , AV , operational excellence ,
support queues , monitoring and so on.
So , it makes sense to have an understanding of the operational
aspects of your entire cloud ecosystem also.
As I said before , it does not matter where you are right now , you
might be in IT support / part of the monitoring team , none of your
knowledge will go to waste , you will be able to leverage all of that
and it will ultimately help you to become a better cloud architect.
Insight - 11

51. It doesn’t necessarily matter who/where you are right now -
All roads lead to Rome , Cloud Architect
Ref - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2pXoh3Cmo8

52. Once , when I was giving an interview for a Cloud architect position at a Telecom giant in
India , there were multiple interviewers on the panel .
One of them was their Head of Operations , who handles their 200 odd operations team.
He started asking questions on ITIL , support model , monitoring , observability , alert
thresholds , support queues , and so on.
What I am trying to emphasize here is that , in an actual interview , there is enough chance
that different things , obviously related to the cloud ecosystem , but not directly related to
cloud architecture might be asked . This might include quite diverse topics starting from
operations , to team building , to cloud strategy , and so on.
As a cloud architect , you need to develop T shaped skills that I discussed earlier , in order
to be truly successful in both your interview , and your actual job.
My Experience 5

53. Focus on developing T shaped skills

54. The IT Industry is changing at such a rapid
pace , almost at the speed of a rocket .
Solutions which were pretty relevant even a
year ago , are being replaced by new trends ,
and it is hard to keep up with them.
As a Cloud architect , how do you plan on
keeping up to date with all that is happening
in the technology world , and ensuring that
your team is not far behind , rather at par.

55. This was a question that I got asked in my last round , from the CTO of
a FinTech startup that I interviewed with.
As you can see, there are multiple aspects to a cloud interview , apart
from technical solution planning .
The idea is , as a Cloud architect , you might be responsible / own a
lot of important practices ,or portfolios in the company , as a result of
which , the company tries to judge to the best of its capability ,
whether you will be up to the task or not.
This is extremely different from interviewing for a Cloud engineer role
, because , at that level , the company as a whole is not relying on you
for guidance/ best practices/ way forward as such.
Insight - 12

56. It is really beneficial to build up an online presence , connecting
with people over LinkedIn , networking , attending community
events and so on – they do really add value to your career , and
even to your interviews .
As a cloud architect , you need to use all tools that you have at
your disposal , and internet is surely one of them .
So , take some time out of your daily routine , and invest it in
building a strong online presence , it will surely go a long way in
ensuring that you have the right contacts and networking to
succeed in the IT/cloud landscape.
Insight - 13

57. Once , while interviewing for an IT service firm , in the 2nd round , I was interviewed by a
senior architect , with around 12-14 years of experience.
I did not know the person beforehand , but just to give you some context – I had around
25,000 connections on LinkedIn at that time .
During the course of the interview , my interviewer said he already knew me , and likes my
posts a lot , and that he regularly follows the articles / blogs that I share , and it helps him a
lot to keep himself up-to-date.
The rest of the interview went very smoothly and I advanced to the next round.
I might have aced the interview even without that , but the fact that the person was aware
of my online presence , and my community work was an added benefit for sure.
My Experience 6

58. Create a cloud-study loop -

60. Where can I find more information
on this topic ?

61. This video series will be available at the following YouTube channel -
https://www.youtube.com/c/CloudLunchandLearn/videos
I will work with Hugo to create a new playlist for this , so that you can focus on them in an orderly manner.
The slide deck will be available at SlideShare at –
Part 1 : https://www.slideshare.net/turjac/cloud-lunchn-learnhowtobecomeacloudarchitectpart1
Part 2 : https://www.slideshare.net/turjac/cloud-lunchn-learnhowtobecomeacloudarchitectpart2
Part 3 : Will be updated soon
I have an YouTube playlist on Cloud Architecture Interview questions that you can check out -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZhTQdcBlTM&list=PL5VXZTK6spA0PTEij7uLqwl5JVc6pofis

62. Scan below QR code to
contact me on LinkedIn
Or if you are URL kind-
of-a-guy , use the below
hyperlink -
TurjaChaudhuri-LinkedIn

64. Overall Journey -

66. Thank you so much for being a part of this journey of over
3 weeks .
I hope the time you invested in this series , was worth it .
I am overwhelmed by the support I got from the
community , and the organizers which will surely motivate
me to keep doing this in future .