Grade Calculator — DevLevelUp

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Role

Skills Self-Assessment

Role: Solutions Architect

Assessed: 0 Total: 0

API Gateway & Service Communication 1

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API Management 1

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Application Security 1

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Architecture Governance 3

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Architecture Patterns 3

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Authentication & Authorization 1

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CI/CD 1

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Concurrency & Parallelism 2

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Database Optimization 2

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Docs-as-Code 1

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Domain-Driven Design 2

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E2E Testing 1

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Event-Driven Architecture 2

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Infrastructure Security 1

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Designs secure cloud architectures following the Well-Architected Framework security pillar and zero-trust principles. Conducts threat modeling of distributed cloud systems. Integrates security guardrails into infrastructure-as-code pipelines and mentors teams on secure cloud design patterns.

Defines secure cloud architecture strategy based on zero-trust principles and the Well-Architected Framework security pillar. Establishes security policies for multi-cloud deployments. Coordinates incident response at the infrastructure level and trains engineering teams on secure cloud design and compliance requirements.

Defines enterprise secure cloud architecture strategy with zero-trust frameworks across multi-cloud and hybrid environments. Shapes organization-wide security architecture governance and reference designs. Coordinates compliance with regulatory and industry security standards and represents the organization in cloud security architecture forums.

Integration Testing 1

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Microservices Patterns 1

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Networking 1

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Prompt Engineering 1

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System Design 1

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Technical Documentation 1

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Defines architecture documentation strategy at the product and portfolio level using C4 and arc42 as canonical frameworks. Establishes documentation governance including review gates, freshness policies, and cross-team consistency standards. Conducts architecture reviews ensuring solution documentation captures integration points, quality attribute scenarios, and deployment constraints. Drives ADR adoption as the primary mechanism for capturing and communicating architectural decisions.

Defines architecture documentation strategy at the organizational level, establishing enterprise C4 and arc42 standards across all solution domains. Creates a federated documentation governance model enabling autonomous teams while maintaining enterprise-wide architectural coherence. Establishes ADR repositories with cross-cutting search, impact analysis, and architectural knowledge management. Mentors leads and architects on evolving documentation practices to support organizational scaling, M&A integration, and technology radar alignment.

Type Systems 1

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Additional skills (optional) 33

These skills do not affect the main grade but show the breadth of your profile.

AI Coding Assistants

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Designs GitHub Copilot adoption strategies for multi-team architectures: evaluates Copilot effectiveness across different technology stacks, implements organization-wide usage policies and quality standards, measures architectural impact of AI-assisted development on code consistency. Mentors teams on Copilot integration with architecture governance.

Defines GitHub Copilot strategy for multi-team architectures: establishes standards for AI-assisted development aligned with architecture governance, designs consistency validation for AI-generated code across services, drives Copilot adoption with focus on architectural pattern adherence.

Alerting & On-Call

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Designs enterprise observability strategy spanning microservice architectures — implements end-to-end distributed tracing, defines organizational SLI/SLO framework templates, and establishes cross-service dependency mapping. Conducts architectural post-mortems and designs multi-level graceful degradation strategies for complex distributed systems.

Defines enterprise observability strategy spanning product portfolios — establishes SLO-based approach for multi-service architectures, coordinates cross-organizational incident management, and optimizes MTTD/MTTR through platform observability tooling. Drives reliability engineering culture and error budget governance.

Algorithms & Data Structures

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Evaluates data structure choices at solution architecture level: domain model design for complex business processes, event sourcing data structures for audit trails, CQRS read model optimization. Designs cross-system data models that balance consistency, availability, and partition tolerance. Guides teams on data structure decisions with system-wide performance implications.

Defines data structure standards at solution architecture level: domain model design conventions, event sourcing schema patterns, cross-system data model alignment. Conducts architectural reviews of data structure decisions across teams. Establishes guidelines for data model interoperability and evolution.

Application Security

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Architecture Patterns

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Caching

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Designs enterprise Redis caching architectures — multi-tier caching strategies with Redis Cluster, cache-aside and write-through patterns for microservices, and distributed lock management for cross-service coordination. Optimizes Redis for high-availability with Sentinel and evaluates Redis vs alternatives for different workload profiles. Mentors team on caching architecture decisions and data consistency trade-offs.

Defines Redis caching strategy across the product ecosystem — establishes standards for multi-tier caching, distributed lock patterns, and cache consistency across microservices. Conducts design reviews of caching architectures and defines technical roadmap for enterprise caching infrastructure evolution.

Clean Code & Refactoring

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Designs code quality standards at the solution architecture level: reference implementation quality, proof-of-concept code structure, architectural fitness function definitions. Establishes cross-team review practices for consistency between architectural decisions and implementation. Evaluates technical debt impact on solution evolution.

Defines code quality standards at solution architecture level: reference implementation quality criteria, proof-of-concept code guidelines, architectural fitness function enforcement. Conducts cross-team reviews for design-implementation alignment. Establishes quality gates for architectural compliance.

Cloud Providers

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Designs enterprise AWS infrastructure solutions spanning multi-account architectures, shared service platforms, and cross-region disaster recovery. Optimizes cost through comprehensive FinOps practices — Savings Plans, spot strategies, and architectural cost optimization. Implements security hardening with AWS Control Tower, Security Hub, and compliance-as-code across the organization.

Defines enterprise AWS infrastructure strategy spanning multi-account architectures and cross-region deployments. Establishes IaC standards for organizational landing zones, shared services, and compliance frameworks. Conducts architecture reviews of cross-team infrastructure patterns and drives FinOps at organizational scale.

Code Review

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Collaboration Tools

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Designs enterprise documentation architecture: multi-project documentation sites, cross-reference systems, and architecture documentation frameworks (C4, arc42). Implements documentation pipelines that aggregate content from multiple repositories. Creates documentation governance standards for client-facing technical deliverables.

Defines documentation strategy for consulting/architecture practice. Establishes standards for architecture deliverables, solution documentation, and client-facing technical content. Creates documentation templates and frameworks for repeatable engagements. Drives adoption of documentation-as-code across client projects.

Containerization

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Distributed Tracing

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Designs enterprise observability strategy with OpenTelemetry — implements end-to-end distributed tracing across microservice architectures, defines organizational SLI/SLO frameworks, and architects telemetry pipeline infrastructure for high-cardinality data at scale. Conducts post-mortems and establishes observability standards across engineering teams.

Defines enterprise observability strategy with OpenTelemetry spanning product portfolios. Establishes SLO-based approach for multi-service architectures. Coordinates cross-organizational incident management and drives MTTD/MTTR optimization through platform observability tooling.

Git & Workflows

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Designs Git strategies for multi-team architectures: implements branching and repository strategies for microservices and distributed systems, optimizes monorepo vs multi-repo decisions for organizational structure, configures automated dependency tracking across repositories. Mentors teams on aligning Git workflows with architectural boundaries.

Defines Git strategy for multi-team architectures: establishes repository topology standards for microservices and platform teams, designs cross-repository dependency management and versioning policies, drives adoption of Git workflows aligned with architectural decision records.

GraphQL

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Designs enterprise-wide GraphQL API architecture with federation, gateway patterns, and cross-domain schema composition. Defines versioning strategy that supports backward compatibility across multiple consumer teams. Optimizes performance through persisted queries, caching layers, and intelligent query planning for complex business domains.

Defines enterprise GraphQL API strategy spanning business domains and organizational boundaries. Establishes federated schema governance, API gateway standards, and cross-team schema composition policies. Conducts architectural reviews of GraphQL implementations and coordinates API platform evolution across engineering teams.

gRPC

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Designs enterprise gRPC API architecture for microservice ecosystems — service mesh integration with gRPC health checking, proto schema registries for cross-team contract management, and multi-language code generation pipelines. Defines versioning and backward compatibility standards and optimizes gRPC performance through connection pooling and load balancing strategies.

Defines enterprise gRPC API strategy spanning product domains — establishes organizational proto governance, schema registry management, and cross-team backward compatibility policies. Conducts API design reviews and coordinates unified gRPC standards across engineering teams.

Infrastructure as Code

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Designs scalable multi-account/multi-region Terraform architectures. Implements infrastructure patterns: hub-spoke networking, shared services, and cross-account access. Creates reference architectures as Terraform modules for client implementations. Integrates Terraform with configuration management and service mesh tools.

Defines infrastructure strategy for client engagements and internal platform. Establishes IaC standards and module governance across the organization. Evaluates and drives adoption of Terraform alternatives where appropriate (Pulumi, Crossplane, CDK). Designs multi-cloud landing zones and account vending machines. Conducts architecture reviews for critical infrastructure changes.

Infrastructure Security

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Designs enterprise secrets management architecture: multi-cluster Vault deployment, cross-region secret replication, and integration with cloud-native secret services (AWS Secrets Manager, Azure Key Vault). Implements Vault transit encryption for application-level data protection. Creates reference architectures for client secrets management implementations.

Defines enterprise secrets management architecture strategy. Evaluates Vault vs cloud-native solutions (AWS Secrets Manager, Azure Key Vault, GCP Secret Manager) for different use cases. Designs multi-tenant secrets infrastructure with isolation guarantees. Establishes standards for secrets management in client-facing architectures.

Kubernetes & Orchestration

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Designs enterprise Kubernetes platform architecture for multi-team production workloads. Implements comprehensive cost optimization through FinOps practices, resource right-sizing, and multi-cluster management. Applies security hardening including zero-trust networking, workload identity, and compliance automation.

Defines enterprise Kubernetes platform strategy spanning multiple clusters and cloud providers. Establishes IaC standards for multi-tenant cluster management, federation, and GitOps workflows. Conducts architecture reviews of cross-team deployment patterns and drives FinOps optimization across the Kubernetes estate.

Logging

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Designs observability architecture for distributed systems: implements cross-service tracing and correlation patterns, defines SLI/SLO frameworks aligned with architecture tiers, conducts post-mortems driving architectural improvements. Mentors teams on observability patterns for microservices and event-driven architectures.

Defines observability strategy for distributed architectures: establishes SLO-based approach aligned with architecture tiers, coordinates incident management across platform and product teams, optimizes MTTD/MTTR through architectural observability patterns and tooling standardization.

Message Queues & Event Streaming

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Designs Kafka architectures for enterprise systems: multi-cluster deployments with MirrorMaker 2, event mesh topologies for cross-domain communication, and Kafka Streams/ksqlDB for real-time data processing. Implements exactly-once semantics across microservices. Creates reference architectures for event-driven systems. Mentors teams on Kafka architecture patterns.

Defines Kafka strategy for enterprise: event-driven architecture standards, schema governance with Schema Registry, and multi-cluster management policies. Evaluates Kafka vs alternatives (Pulsar, Redpanda, cloud-native messaging). Conducts architecture reviews for event-driven systems across teams.

Metrics & Monitoring

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Designs observability architecture with Prometheus & Grafana for distributed systems: implements cross-service monitoring patterns and federation, defines SLI/SLO frameworks aligned with architecture tiers, conducts post-mortems driving architectural improvements. Mentors teams on observability patterns for microservices.

Defines observability strategy for distributed architectures with Prometheus & Grafana: establishes SLO-based approach aligned with architecture tiers, coordinates cross-team incident management through monitoring standardization, optimizes MTTD/MTTR through architectural observability patterns.

Microservices Patterns

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OOP & Design Patterns

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Has deep expertise in design patterns across technology stacks: designs cross-service architectural patterns for distributed systems, implements integration patterns (saga, circuit breaker, bulkhead) for resilient architectures, optimizes pattern selection for organizational tech landscape. Mentors teams on strategic pattern application for system evolution.

Defines design pattern standards across multi-team architectures: establishes cross-service pattern governance and architectural review practices, creates guidelines for integration and resilience pattern selection, conducts architecture forums on strategic pattern application for distributed systems.

Relational Databases

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Designs PostgreSQL architecture for distributed systems: evaluates PostgreSQL vs alternative databases for different service requirements, implements multi-database strategies with PostgreSQL as primary store, configures cross-region replication for global availability. Mentors teams on data architecture patterns and database technology selection.

Defines PostgreSQL data strategy for multi-service architectures: establishes standards for database technology selection per service, designs cross-service data consistency patterns, drives adoption of PostgreSQL architectural best practices across platform and product teams.

REST API

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System Design

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Designs system architecture for complex enterprise solutions: distributed systems with consistency guarantees, event-driven architectures for real-time processing, and multi-tenant platform design. Makes architectural decisions considering scalability, reliability, security, and cost trade-offs. Creates reference architectures for common solution patterns.

Defines product architectural strategy: establishes architecture principles, design patterns catalog, and technology radar for the organization. Conducts architecture reviews for critical system changes. Creates architecture governance framework with clear decision-making processes. Drives adoption of architectural best practices across teams.

Unit Testing

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