Single tool-loop, planner-executor, or multi-agent: how do you choose an agent architecture?
Multi-agent is the most over-prescribed architecture in the industry. A staff-level answer is a decision framework driven by task structure and context limits, with the orchestration failure modes named before the interviewer asks.
Updated Aug 2026 · Grounded in real Forward Deployed Engineer interview loops and written to a senior-engineer editorial bar.
Multi-agent is the most over-prescribed architecture in the industry. A staff-level answer is a decision framework driven by task structure and context limits, with the orchestration failure modes named before the interviewer asks.
Lead with where the obvious approach breaks, because that is the judgment they are screening for — most candidates jump straight to the happy path and lose the room.
Then walk the failure back through the pipeline in order, naming the one metric the customer's exec sponsor actually cares about before you propose the fix.
