Technical interview guide

Integration Patterns

The standard ways two systems exchange data — sync API calls, async messaging, batch, and webhooks — and when each fits.

Read: 42 min
Practice MCQs: 25
Interview QA: 25
Edition: v4
Editorial status: Reviewed
Relevant for: Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE)Solutions Architect

Scope: Azure Architecture Center and AWS Prescriptive Guidance integration patterns current 2026-08-31.

Interview QA

Treat each question like a live interview question: answer out loud first (structure, assumptions, tradeoffs), then open the model answer to spot gaps and rehearse a tighter follow-up.

Curated: 2026-10-05 · Written: 2026-09-10 · Reviewed: 2026-10-03

QA-1

Choose synchronous or asynchronous integration for order submission.

QA-2

Design an idempotent payment-command consumer.

QA-3

Implement a transactional outbox for customer updates.

QA-4

Design competing consumers for bursty image processing.

QA-5

Preserve per-customer order while scaling consumers.

QA-6

Design a reliable webhook receiver for a SaaS provider.

QA-7

Design a daily partner file exchange.

QA-8

Choose between a queue and an event stream.

QA-9

Design a multi-service checkout saga.

QA-10

Migrate a legacy integration with the Strangler Fig pattern.

QA-11

Evolve an event contract used by unknown consumers.

QA-12

Handle a downstream API outage from an integration service.

QA-13

Design request-reply over asynchronous messaging.

QA-14

Prevent tenant data leakage in a shared integration pipeline.

QA-15

Design dead-letter queue operations.

QA-16

Use change-data capture as an integration source.

QA-17

Build reconciliation for an event-driven projection.

QA-18

Choose orchestration or choreography for account onboarding.

QA-19

Integrate a rate-limited external API for bulk synchronization.

QA-20

Design integration observability without logging sensitive payloads.

QA-21

Recover an asynchronous integration after regional failure.

QA-22

Handle backpressure across an integration pipeline.

QA-23

Evaluate an enterprise integration platform proposal.

QA-24

Test an integration before production release.

QA-25