Full Stack Architecture and Feature Design Questions
Ability to design complete features considering frontend UX, backend API design, database schema, and data flow. Understanding of separation of concerns and communication between layers. API-first design thinking. Discussing trade-offs (e.g., complex queries on backend vs post-processing on frontend). Designing for extensibility and maintainability.
HardSystem Design
43 practiced
Propose a step-by-step plan to progressively migrate a large monolithic full-stack application to microservices while preserving feature delivery velocity. Include criteria for selecting the first services to extract, the strangler pattern, API contracts and adapters, CI/CD and testing changes, data ownership, and organizational considerations to avoid a distributed monolith.
HardSystem Design
55 practiced
You are designing an API gateway for a large microservices platform. Describe how the gateway will handle authentication/authorization, rate-limiting, request routing and aggregation, schema validation, timeout and retry policies, observability (traces/logs/metrics), and protecting backends from overload (circuit breakers, bulkheads). Also explain what logic should never live in the gateway.
MediumSystem Design
82 practiced
Design a tiered rate-limiting system for authenticated API users with free, standard, and enterprise plans. Explain how you would assign quotas, enforce limits per API key/organization/user, allow bursts, report usage for billing, and decide between centralized counters versus distributed caches for enforcement. Discuss trade-offs of consistency, cost, and complexity.
EasyTechnical
69 practiced
You are designing a 'Create Post' feature for a social app used on web and mobile. Describe the responsibilities of each layer (frontend, backend API, database) for this feature: client-side validation and optimistic UI, server-side validation and business rules, idempotency, transactional boundaries, schema and indexing. Show an example sequence: endpoint(s), sample request/response JSON, key HTTP status codes, and how errors reconcile with optimistic updates.
HardSystem Design
58 practiced
Design a comprehensive A/B testing pipeline: deterministic user assignment/bucketing, experiment configuration storage, client and server exposure tracking, event collection for metrics, an analysis pipeline for deciding winners, and rollout of winning variants. Discuss cross-device identity, statistical considerations, powering real-time guardrails, and how to safely end or roll back experiments.
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