Web Systems Tech Architect role - Questions

[Ruprect]

Hi All,

I've got an interview for a Web Systems Tech Architect role, and even though this is the role I have been doing for the last 2 years I have never interviewed for an architect role specifically. Any ideas/suggestions/questions you would ask/expect - help me gem up a bit before the day?

TIA,

Rup.

[portseven]

Any Architect should know about the popular methodologies, so I would have a gen up on the popular ones

TOGAF - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TOGAF
Zachman - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zachman_framework

Other than that bribery is a good option

[eyetie]

Ideas...

This kind of role requires a mix of theoretical and architectural understanding so, in your interviewer's shoes I would be asking you about:

• Design patterns
• UML
• Front-end architecture
• N-Tier considerations (difference between a business layer and a data layer, say)
• Database schema concepts (e.g. normalisation)

I would also expect the TA to know the tech inside out so for a web TA I would ask about how AJAX worked both from a theoretical viewpoint and practically given the techs being used (e.g. ASP.NET AJAX Toolkit or Prototype), how the latest techs have helped make a TA's job easier and how they saw the techs improving over the next 2-3 years.

In terms of tools, I would expect a TA to know Visio pretty well but tools like Axure RP Pro are now a much better alternative and you might get brownie points for implementing it.

Have fun!