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State Management and Data Flow Architecture Questions

Design and reasoning about where and how data is stored, moved, synchronized, and represented across the full application stack and in distributed systems. Topics include data persistence strategies in databases and services, application programming interface shape and schema design to minimize client complexity, validation and security at each layer, pagination and lazy loading patterns, caching strategies and cache invalidation, approaches to asynchronous fetching and loading states, real time updates and synchronization techniques, offline support and conflict resolution, optimistic updates and reconciliation, eventual consistency models, and deciding what data lives on the client versus the server. Coverage also includes separation between user interface state and persistent data state, local component state versus global state stores including lifted state and context patterns, frontend caching strategies, data flow and event propagation patterns, normalization and denormalization trade offs, unidirectional versus bidirectional flow, and operational concerns such as scalability, failure modes, monitoring, testing, and observability. Candidates should be able to reason about trade offs between latency, consistency, complexity, and developer ergonomics and propose monitoring and testing strategies for these systems.

MediumSystem Design
0 practiced
For a server-side rendered web app that hydrates into a client-side SPA, describe how to transfer state from server to client to avoid flash-of-incorrect-content and ensure consistent caching. Cover serialization format, size considerations, security (XSS risks), and incremental hydration strategies for large pages.
HardTechnical
0 practiced
Explain and design a cache coherency approach across multiple microservices that each maintain local caches of shared entities. Compare strategies such as push invalidation via events, pull with TTL, centralized cache, or distributed coherence protocols. Discuss scaling, failure modes, ordering guarantees, and operational complexity.
MediumSystem Design
0 practiced
Design a search API for an e-commerce application that supports faceted search, paging, sorting, and client-side autocomplete while minimizing overfetch. Provide endpoints or GraphQL field structure, describe response shapes optimized for small autocomplete payloads versus full search results, and suggest caching for hot queries.
EasyTechnical
0 practiced
Compare cursor-based pagination with offset-based pagination for APIs. For a frequently-updated feed (high insert rate at the head), explain which approach you would pick and why. Provide a sample response shape for a cursor-based page and mention how you would encode/expire cursors.
MediumSystem Design
0 practiced
Describe how you would design API pagination and sync endpoints for a mobile app that must support partial offline sync. The endpoints should allow the client to reconcile local mutations with server state and fetch only deltas since the last sync point. Provide the high-level request/response contract and conflict resolution hints.

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