4-Step Interview Framework
- Clarify Scope & Scale (5m):
- DAU/MAU, read:write ratio, SLA expectations, storage retention limits.
- High-Level Design & Data Flow (10m):
- API endpoints, schema models, ingress gateway, primary service boundaries.
- Deep Dive Critical Components (20m):
- Concurrency bottlenecks, distributed locking, caching invalidation, database sharding keys.
- Resiliency & Failure Modes (10m):
- Cascading failures, circuit breakers, split-brain scenarios, backup/restore procedures.
Personal engineering field notes compiled from production systems. Patterns and benchmarks are updated as runtimes evolve.