Solution Architect
Solution architects produce the documents that guide entire engineering organisations — ADRs, RFCs, and system design diagrams. This path focuses on precise, nuanced English for documenting decisions and their rationale.
Topics covered
- ADR writing
- RFC format
- Trade-off language
- System design interviews
- Architecture presentations
Vocabulary spotlight
4 terms every Solution Architect should know in English:
Architecture Decision Record — a document capturing a key decision, its context, and consequences
"I've filed an ADR for the decision to move from REST to gRPC."
The degree of interdependence between software modules
"High coupling between billing and auth makes independent deployments impossible."
A model where replicas converge over time rather than synchronously
"The profile service uses eventual consistency — changes may take 30 seconds to propagate."
A migration strategy where a new system gradually replaces a legacy one
"We're using the strangler fig pattern to migrate off the monolith over 18 months."
📚 Vocabulary Reference
Key terms organised by category for Solution Architects:
Architecture Patterns
Quality Attributes
Design Principles
Documentation
System Design
Stakeholder Language
Recommended exercises
Real-world scenarios you'll practise
- Writing an ADR for a significant architectural decision
- Presenting system design options with trade-offs to leadership
- Facilitating an RFC review meeting
- Explaining a distributed systems concept to junior developers
- Justifying a technology choice to management in business language — cost, risk, and long-term maintainability
- Explaining technical debt to a product owner — what it is, why it matters, and what it costs to ignore
- Leading a design review meeting — presenting, gathering feedback, handling objections, reaching consensus
- Writing an RFC and inviting constructive criticism — setting the right tone for collaborative review
🎯 Interview questions specific to this role
Practise answering these questions out loud — or in writing. Each question targets a real interviewer concern for Solution Architects.
- Walk me through the most complex system you have designed.
- How would you design this system for 10 million users?
- How do you handle conflicting requirements between security and performance?
- How do you communicate technical decisions to non-technical executives?
- What is your process for evaluating and adopting new technologies?
Recommended reading
Reference glossaries for Solution Architects
Deep-dive glossaries covering terminology specific to this role: