Professional Architect Interview Preparation Guide

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The interviewer is not looking for a long or flowery dissertation here. Do you have strong feelings that the job gets done? Yes. That’s the type of answer that works best here. Short and positive, showing a benefit to the organization.

Trick question. If you know about blind spots, they are no longer blind spots. Do not reveal any personal areas of concern here. Let them do their own discovery on your bad points. Do not hand it to them.

Do not be trivial. It would take disloyalty to the organization, violence or lawbreaking to get you to object. Minor objections will label you as a whiner.

Be honest but do not spend a lot of time in this area. Keep the focus on this job and what you can do for this organization. Anything else is a distraction.

Be aware of the policy on relatives working for the organization. This can affect your answer even though they asked about friends not relatives. Be careful to mention a friend only if they are well thought of.

Whatever your skill level just make sure you are honest. Many firms complain that staff say they are experts just to get their foot in the door but it soon becomes evident they don’t know the software. Offices are now conducting CAD tests to address this.

Numerous answers are good, just stay positive. A few good examples: Your ability to prioritize, Your problem-solving skills, Your ability to work under pressure, Your ability to focus on projects, Your professional expertise, Your leadership skills, Your positive attitude .

Be generic and positive. Safe qualities are knowledgeable, a sense of humor, fair, loyal to subordinates and holder of high standards. All bosses think they have these traits.

Have a good one ready. Be sure and use a suggestion that was accepted and was then considered successful. One related to the type of work applied for is a real plus

Be prepared with a quote or two from co-workers. Either a specific statement or a paraphrase will work. Jill Clark, a co-worker at Smith Company, always said I was the hardest workers she had ever known. It is as powerful as Jill having said it at the interview herself.

Specifics here are not good. Something like this should work: I’d like it to be a long time. Or As long as we both feel I’m doing a good job.

The Zachman Framework is a framework for Enterprise Architecture developed by IBM in the 1980s.

It provides a way of defining an enterprise according to a 6x6 matrix of architecture documentation. The columns of this matrix ask the questions why, how, what, who, where, when. The rows look at these questions from different levels of detail: contextual, conceptual, logical, physical and detailed.

The Zachman Framework provides a view for Planners, Owners, Designers, Builders and Subcontractors. The basic idea is that the same thing can be described for different purposes in different ways. This creates a holistic view ― it allows different people to look at the Enterprise from different perspectives.

The Zachman Framework has been incorporated into many Enterprise Architecture frameworks. (often as a reference model)

This is becoming an increasingly asked for qualification.

I recommend anyone in the architecture profession become LEED Accredited. At best it will help your career and open doors, at worst you will learn a new skill and not look uninformed when it comes up in a meeting.

You should be anxious for this question. It gives you a chance to highlight your best points as they relate to the position being discussed. Give a little advance thought to this relationship.

This is a dangerous question. You certainly don’t want to mention something you will be expected to do nor do you want to speak poorly of your previous company.

Try to keep it somewhat vague:

“Often with a large team there can be overlaps with work, so the same work may end up being done twice. This is obviously a waste of time. So it is important that everyone on the team is communicating”

The Architecture Vision is created during the project initiation phase of a project. The purpose of the vision is to agree from the start what the desired outcome should be for the architecture.

The Architecture Vision is the enterprise architect's elevator pitch. It needs to simply and powerfully sell the benefits of the proposed architecture to decision-makers. It also needs to show how the proposed architecture will support business goals and strategy and stakeholder concerns and objectives.

Typical contents of an Architecture Vision are:
☛ Problem description
☛ Objectives
☛ Process descriptions
☛ Roles and actors
☛ Constraints
☛ IT principles
☛ Architecture overview
☛ Mapping of the proposed architecture to processes and requirements

A successful building project requires coordination with a diverse team. The potential employer is interested in knowing how capable you are of working with others and whether you are likely to recognize their accomplishments or blame them for a project’s problems. Most questions invite you to brag a little about your skills and accomplishments, but your response to this question should emphasize the role of others on your team. Describe your responsibilities and demonstrate how the team worked together to achieve your common goal. It’s ok to admit that a team member may have been difficult, and this can give you the opportunity to describe how you handle conflict, but your overall response should be positive and show that you understand that you did not achieve success completely on your own.

A lot of architects see this as an opportunity to brag about how many job offers they have. First of all, this should be obvious but the number one rule in an interview is: DO NOT LIE.

If you have other job offers, that is fine go ahead and say so. If not, don’t try to leverage your situation. I will discuss a good answer and justification for both responses.

A loaded question. A nasty little game that you will probably lose if you answer first. So, do not answer it. Instead, say something like, That’s a tough question. Can you tell me the range for this position? In most cases, the interviewer, taken off guard, will tell you. If not, say that it can depend on the details of the job. Then give a wide range.

This is a straight loyalty and dedication question. Do not worry about the deep ethical and philosophical implications. Just say yes.

This is always a tricky question. Since I am mainly discussing getting a job in an office a response you normally want to avoid is “I want to start my own office”. I see this quite often in the architecture world and for good reason, most architects do aspire to own their own firm at some point. While this may be a goal of yours, an interview isn’t the time to share.

What the interviewer is looking for is someone to fill the position now but is also looking for a long term commitment. Admitting you would like to jump ship and go out on your own, while admirable, doesn’t accomplish this goal.

Every response to these questions needs to reinforce your willingness to join the firm. A more appropriate response might be, depending on the stage of your career, “I would like to get my architecture license to expand my knowledge base” or “I want to lead a residential project”.

Scalability is the ability of a system, network, or process to handle a growing amount of load by adding more resources. The adding of resource can be done in two ways

☛ Scaling Up
This involves adding more resources to the existing nodes. For example, adding more RAM, Storage or processing power.
☛ Scaling Out
This involves adding more nodes to support more users.
Any of the approaches can be used for scaling up/out a application, however the cost of adding resources (per user) may change as the volume increases. If we add resources to the system It should increase the ability of application to take more load in a proportional manner of added resources.

An ideal application should be able to serve high level of load in less resources. However, in practical, linearly scalable system may be the best option achievable.

Poorly designed applications may have really high cost on scaling up/out since it will require more resources/user as the load increases.

An EA Roadmap describes a current and target architecture and a transition plan to achieve the target state.

An EA Roadmap should include the business, application, data and technical architecture for each state.

The Roadmap lists the projects required to implement the proposed architecture. This should include project prioritization, risks and issues, migration strategy, estimated costs, success factors and project measurements.

This question serves several purposes. For one thing, it lets your interviewer see your skill level. It also allows them to see how you feel about your accomplishments. Whether you are excited about your past work or feel that you are capable of more, you don’t want the interviewer to get the sense that you feel past projects were beneath you. Instead, speak with confidence about the project, but don’t be afraid to explain what you learned and how much you are looking forward to applying your knowledge and experience to a bigger challenge.

This question also gives you the opportunity to show that you really understand the various factors that contribute to the success of a project. You might choose to highlight the importance of an innovative design, strong negotiation skills, detailed plans and schedules or effective and ongoing communication with the client and construction personnel. However you respond, be sure you include plenty of detail about the scope of the work, the problems that were overcome and how you achieved a successful outcome.

Emphasize benefits to the organization. Things like, determination to get the job done and work hard but enjoy your work are good.