APIs, Networking & Integration Topics
API design, management, and integration patterns including REST, GraphQL, and other protocols. Covers API contract design, versioning strategies, error handling, idempotency, deprecation planning, and SDK/integration frameworks. Includes system-to-system integration, webhook patterns, and integration platform considerations. Excludes network infrastructure and network-layer protocols (see Network Architecture under Cloud & Infrastructure or a dedicated networking category if needed).
Enterprise Integration and Automation
Covers end to end design, architecture, implementation, and operational management of integrating software systems across an enterprise. Candidates should be able to design integration architectures that connect products with enterprise technology stacks such as customer relationship management systems, enterprise resource planning systems, data warehouses, and cloud platforms. Key topics include common integration patterns and anti patterns such as point to point, hub and spoke, enterprise service bus, publish subscribe and event driven architecture, and batch based extract transform load pipelines; interface choices including application programming interfaces, messaging, streaming and batch data exchanges; and trade offs in latency, throughput, delivery semantics and complexity. Data topics include data flow mapping, data quality, reconciliation, master data management, schema evolution, privacy and data governance. Strategy and operational concerns include migration and cutover planning, testing and rollback strategies, monitoring and observability of data flows and dependencies, service level agreement and capacity planning, performance and scalability under load, and incident response. Engineering details include version and contract management for interfaces, dependency and compatibility management, idempotency and error handling strategies, reconciliation and eventual consistency patterns, and practical troubleshooting for driver, protocol and component incompatibilities. Automation and workflow topics cover orchestration, choreography, workflow automation to reduce manual work, vendor selection and governance, and the trade offs between customization and configuration. Candidates should be able to identify integration risks, propose architecture and operational mitigations, and reason about testing, monitoring, security, maintainability and continuous improvement for integrated systems.
Solution Architecture and System Integration
Designing end to end solutions that integrate multiple systems and services. Topics include API design and compatibility, protocol choices, data flow and transformation, middleware and orchestration, handling partial failures and eventual consistency, versioning and backward compatibility, and non functional requirements such as performance and security. Emphasis on mapping business requirements to technical solutions and integration strategies.
Integration Patterns and API Design
Focuses on integration concepts, data flow, and API design as the foundation for connecting systems and services. Coverage includes data integration techniques such as ETL and ELT, change data capture, data warehousing, synchronization and eventual consistency challenges, latency and throughput considerations, middleware and messaging solutions, and common integration patterns used in marketing and enterprise stacks. For APIs, topics include what APIs are and why they matter for developer products, REST versus GraphQL trade offs and use cases, HTTP methods and semantics, authentication and authorization patterns, rate limiting and throttling, versioning strategies, idempotency and error handling, documentation and developer experience, monitoring and service level considerations, and how API choices affect product and business decisions.
API Strategy and Integration Architecture
Designing integration strategies using application programming interface first approaches, event driven architectures, and partner integration patterns. Topics include API governance, versioning, authentication and authorization, rate limiting, contract design, webhooks versus polling trade offs, and how integration patterns enable composability across systems such as marketing, customer relationship management, and analytics platforms. Candidates should explain how to choose integration approaches that balance reliability, scalability, and developer experience.
Enterprise Software and System Integration
Covers the design, implementation, and operational practices for integrating enterprise application software and connecting disparate systems. Candidates should discuss experience with enterprise resource planning and customer relationship management systems, integration patterns such as point to point, enterprise service bus, publish subscribe and event driven architectures, application programming interface based integration, data synchronization and master data management, extract transform load and change data capture strategies for migrations, identity and access integration, transactional integrity and idempotent design, testing and cutover and rollback planning, performance and scalability considerations, security and privacy implications of integration, monitoring and observability for integrated flows, and vendor and middleware selection and governance.
Enterprise Applications and Integration
Covers understanding and designing an enterprise application portfolio and the approaches used to integrate systems and data across the organization. Candidates should be able to describe enterprise resource planning and customer relationship management systems, data warehouses and analytics platforms, and specialty line of business applications; explain integration approaches such as application programming interfaces, event driven messaging, and data extract transform and load processes; discuss data mapping and master data management, transaction and data consistency models, reconciliation strategies, and error handling patterns. The topic also probes trade offs between point to point integrations and mediated middleware, microservices based integration versus monolithic approaches, and cloud native integration versus on premise connectivity. Interviewers will evaluate the candidate ability to diagram an application landscape, propose integration patterns for common business flows, plan migration or modernization strategies, define service level agreements and monitoring, and address security privacy and data quality when moving information between systems.
Systems Integration and Technology Ecosystems
Assess the candidate s experience designing and operating integrations across a complex technology ecosystem. Topics include application programming interface design and versioning, middleware and integration platform options, synchronous and asynchronous integration patterns, event driven and messaging architectures, data synchronization and consistency strategies, orchestration and choreography choices, integration testing and monitoring, dependency management and interface contracts, vendor and partner ecosystem strategies, and approaches for incremental migration and decoupling. Interviewers may probe specific integration patterns and how candidates manage technical debt in integration layers.