Systematic Problem Solving Questions

A structured, step by step methodology for diagnosing and resolving technical problems in software systems. Candidates should demonstrate how to decompose a system into its components, form and test hypotheses about likely causes, use binary search or bisection to isolate the faulty component, apply root cause analysis techniques (e.g. five whys, fault tree, fishbone diagrams), and enumerate edge and boundary conditions that could trigger a failure. Include how to instrument code paths for observability (logging, metrics, tracing), reproduce an issue reliably, validate that a fix actually resolves the problem, prioritize follow up actions, and document lessons learned (postmortems, runbooks) so future problems are solved faster.