Integration Patterns and API Design Questions

Focuses on integration concepts, data flow, and API design as the foundation for connecting systems and services. Coverage includes data integration techniques such as ETL and ELT, change data capture, data warehousing, synchronization and eventual consistency challenges, latency and throughput considerations, middleware and messaging solutions, and common integration patterns used in marketing and enterprise stacks. For APIs, topics include what APIs are and why they matter for developer products, REST versus GraphQL trade offs and use cases, HTTP methods and semantics, authentication and authorization patterns, rate limiting and throttling, versioning strategies, idempotency and error handling, documentation and developer experience, monitoring and service level considerations, and how API choices affect product and business decisions.

HardSystem Design

25 practiced

You must migrate an ecosystem of enterprise partners from legacy SOAP integrations to a new REST/GraphQL platform with minimal downtime and partner friction. Create a migration plan that includes adapter/proxy strategies, compatibility modes, partner communication, incremental testing, SDK/tooling to reduce partner work, and rollback/playback mechanisms.

EasyTechnical

21 practiced

Explain the difference between ETL and ELT in data integration. As a TPM responsible for a platform that feeds an analytics warehouse, describe which approach you'd choose for fast, near-real-time analytics vs. heavy transformation needs and why.

MediumTechnical

29 practiced

You must migrate a widely-used public v1 API to v2 with breaking changes. As TPM, outline a migration and deprecation plan that minimizes partner disruption. Include timelines, communication cadence, SDK updates, feature flags or adapter layers, migration metrics, and rollback triggers.

MediumSystem Design

22 practiced

Design a rate limiting and throttling strategy for a public API with three tiers (free, standard, enterprise). Include decisions on: per-key vs per-user vs per-tenant limits, burst handling (token bucket vs leaky bucket), enforcement location (gateway vs service), and how to surface limits and retry guidance to developers.

MediumTechnical

30 practiced

A third-party API your product depends on has become intermittently slow. As TPM, propose both immediate mitigations and longer-term product/partner strategies to reduce user impact. Consider fallbacks, caching, circuit breakers, user communication, and contractual or SLA changes with the partner.

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