Trade-Off Analysis and Justification Questions

Ability to identify key nonfunctional requirements and constraints and to compare alternative designs with clear, quantitative reasoning. Expect discussion of consistency versus availability, latency versus throughput, cost versus performance, operational complexity, and implementation risk. Candidates should demonstrate how to quantify trade offs using metrics such as latency percentiles, throughput, cost per request, and availability targets, how to choose appropriate consistency models and failure modes, and how to document and justify the selected architecture given product and business priorities.