Interviews are where jobs are won or lost. A résumé – especially a strong one – will ensure you get your foot in the door but to actually secure the position you need to shine during the interview, which means being prepared. Preparation makes you look knowledgeable and relaxed, two traits that people generally prize in their work colleagues. To give you that extra edge during an interview, here at BiZZdesign we prepared 100 questions that will help you ace an enterprise architect role interview. Some of them are aimed at junior enterprise architects, others are for more experienced professionals – together they will give you a pretty good idea of what to expect. Without further ado, here are 100 Questions to Ace an Enterprise Architecture Job Interview:
- How easy to you find it to think in terms of the big picture and can you give me an example of you drawing upon this quality at work?
- Why do you see yourself as a good fit for our company?
- How do you go about improving your professional network?
- Have you dealt with organizations that had a siloed structure before, and how did you deal with it?
- What was the most successful initiative you ever took part in and how would you describe your contribution to it?
- How do you balance your relationship with different stakeholder groups, especially ones that challenge your ideas?
- How would you assess your leadership skills?
- What is the role of architecture in an Agile environment?
- Do you have any experience working with security architecture frameworks, and if so, which ones?
- Where do you see yourself a decade from now career-wise?
- Do you have any experience with data management standards and practices?
- Do you have any experience in negotiating service-level agreements with vendors?
- Have you ever failed to successfully deliver a project, and if so what have you learned from the experience?
- Where do you think enterprise architecture is headed as a field?
- What does a successful first year establishing an EA practice look like to you?
- What qualities do you look for in fellow architects?
- Can you provide a brief definition of enterprise architecture?
- In your experience, what stakeholder groups would be involved in the Enterprise Architecture lifecycle?
- In simple terms, what is an architectural pattern?
- How do you evolve the enterprise architecture of a company that functions in a volatile environment?
- Can you name some recent tech developments that are, in your opinion, important for EA professionals to be aware of?
- What is your view on the role of EA in strategic decision making?
- Do you have any examples of you collaborating with teams across the wider organization?
- What is your experience in dealing with high-level business stakeholders?
- How do you go about obtaining buy-in from management?
- How does enterprise architecture support business goals and strategy?
- Can you briefly describe a mature enterprise architecture practice?
- Do you have any experience working in an Agile environment?
- How would you describe your approach to finding key value-add business activities?
- Do you have experience building architectural roadmaps?
- What was the most difficult project you ever participated in and how did you rise to the challenge?
- How comfortable would you be appraising an EA practice’s maturity?
- How do you ensure a solution is in alignment with the architecture?
- What tools have you used so far in your career?
- Do you have any experience setting up an architecture governance function?
- Can you think of a situation when you were proud of your approach to solving a problem?
- How do you ensure business stakeholders’ requirements are observed?
- What metrics would you use to prove the EA practice has a positive effect on the business?
- Can you give an example in which you evangelized architectures and strategies to executives?
- What are some business goals that your contributed towards and how did you achieve that?
- Are you certified in the latest version of the ArchiMate standard?
- Do you enjoy participating in defining the business strategy?
- How do you go about highlighting areas of weakness or mistakes in your colleagues’ work?
- How can architecture contribute to DevOps?
- Have you carried out risk impact analyses before?
- How do you respond when a colleague corrects you, and should junior architects be able to correct senior staff?
- How do you encourage cross-departmental collaboration?
- Can you provide a brief overview of TOGAF?
- What is your experience with Agile methods and frameworks?
- How does an enterprise architecture practice differ in different organizational cultures?
- Can you give an example of successfully implementing a solution that minimized costs for the business?
- Can you briefly define ITSM?
- How would you position business architecture relative to enterprise architecture?
- Do you have experience introducing a new standard to the EA department?
- Have you ever guided an organization out of a crisis using architecture?
- Can you briefly define Application Portfolio Management?
- What technology trends are you currently most interested in?
- How do you maintain your skills and stay current with IT trends?
- Do you have experience working with a modeling tool?
- Can you describe how you leveraged workflows in a previous position to increase your work output?
- What are some stakeholder groups that you’ve interacted with outside the EA department while delivering a project?
- What EA framework are you most experienced with?
- Do you have experience working with an ArchiMate-certified tool?
- Are you certified in the latest version of TOGAF?
- Can you describe the most mature EA practice you’ve worked in?
- What can architects do to maximize the value they bring in an Agile environment?
- How would you go about elevating an organization’s EA maturity?
- What does “Just in time, just enough” architecture mean?
- What is your opinion on microservices?
- Do you have experience with application cloud migrations?
- Have you had any experience with capability-based planning in previous roles?
- What is ArchiMate?
- Can you provide some examples of how you have previously helped to identify security threats and then delivered controls to mitigate these?
- Do you have experience with Service-Oriented Architecture?
- What aspects would you take into account in assessing EA maturity?
- What experience do you have using ArchiMate?
- Can you name some examples of Personally Identifiable Information?
- Do you have any experience working with ITIL?
- Can you briefly define business architecture?
- Have you ever worked on improving an organization’s customer experience via architecture?
- Can you briefly define security architecture?
- Do you have any experience mentoring junior architects?
- Do you know what the GDPR is?
- Can you explain the difference between object-oriented and aspect-oriented design?
- What is the most comprehensive technology architecture upgrade program you have taken part in and how did you contribute to its success?
- Can you describe your experience with customer journey mapping?
- Have you ever witnessed a security breach first hand, and if so what did the experience teach you?
- What are some aspects that you would change about how enterprise architects do their job?
- Do you think there is a “most important” architectural layer?
- Can you share an example of a successful APM practice you were a part of and describe your role in its success?
- What is the role of reference architectures?
- For what purposes would you use the ArchiMate, BPMN or UML modelling languages, respectively, and how would you relate them?
- What are, in your opinion, the most important predictors for success during a project?
- Are you able to briefly describe the role of a solution architect during the software development life cycle?
- What are the best aspects of your job?
- Have you ever participated in the implementation of an Internet-of-Things project?
- Have you ever run scenario analyses to guide investment decisions?
- Do you have any experience implementing a GDPR compliance program?
- Which architectural views in TOGAF do you consider especially relevant in a low-maturity practice?
- Can you provide an example of how you successfully adjusted after the objectives of a project unexpectedly changed?
We think answering these questions ahead of time will allow you to perform without pressure during a real interview for an enterprise architect role and increase your chances of success. To learn more about the state of digital transformation today and how important it is for organizations to become adaptive, feel free to download our eBook, The Adaptive Enterprise: Thriving in an Era of Change.
