Major Technical Decisions and Trade Offs Questions

Behavioral and leadership oriented topic asking candidates to present real examples of significant technical decisions they influenced. Candidates should prepare two to three concrete examples that cover the problem context, options considered, reasoning and evaluation of trade offs, stakeholder engagement and buy in, the final decision, implementation approach, measured outcomes, and retrospective lessons including what they would do differently. This topic assesses ownership, influence, communication, cross functional collaboration, and ability to defend and learn from organizational level technical choices.

HardSystem Design

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Design a cost-optimized cloud architecture that must also meet a tight latency SLO. Compare serverless (pay-per-invocation) vs provisioned instances: estimate cost per request, tail-latency effects, operational overhead, and a phased migration plan including mitigation for cold starts and vendor limitations.

EasyBehavioral

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Tell me about a time you had to choose a database for a new service. Provide the problem context, workload characteristics (reads/writes, consistency, transactions), options you considered, trade-offs (latency, consistency, cost, operational complexity), your decision, and how you validated it.

HardTechnical

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A regulator requires data residency in a market you serve. Decide between (A) replicating data in-country, (B) pseudonymizing data and operating remotely, or (C) exiting the market. Compare technical complexity, legal risk, cost, and time-to-market, and propose a step-by-step implementation roadmap for the chosen option.

HardTechnical

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When recommending adoption of a complex paradigm (e.g., event sourcing, CQRS), how do you evaluate organizational readiness, operational complexity, data integrity risks, and long-term benefits? Provide heuristics and examples where you recommended for or against adoption.

EasyBehavioral

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Prepare two to three concrete examples of major technical decisions you influenced as a software engineer. For each example, describe: the problem context and constraints; options considered and evaluation criteria; the trade-offs and risks; stakeholders engaged and how you gained buy-in; the final decision and implementation approach; measured outcomes and metrics; and 2–3 retrospective lessons including what you would do differently.

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