Data Management and API Design Questions
Designing how applications structure, expose, and consume data through APIs and backend systems. Covers API design principles for data endpoints, pagination, filtering and sorting, idempotency, versioning, rate limiting, schema design, normalization versus denormalization, consistency models, caching strategies, client side fetching patterns, and error handling. Includes considerations for data integrity across integrations, transactional boundaries, master data management, and how API decisions affect downstream consumers and performance.
EasyTechnical
36 practiced
Explain normalization versus denormalization in backend data models from an API consumer perspective. When would you prefer a highly normalized model, and when would you intentionally duplicate data in a read model or response payload?
MediumTechnical
41 practiced
A partner integration is generating frequent 429 responses and occasional timeouts. As the engineering manager, how would you lead the investigation, decide whether the issue is client behavior or server capacity, and define the remediation plan?
MediumTechnical
46 practiced
Your team wants to add a computed field to an existing API response, but the value is expensive to calculate and may change the response time materially. How would you decide whether to compute it synchronously, cache it, materialize it in storage, or expose it through a separate endpoint?
MediumTechnical
41 practiced
An external customer relies on an older API contract, but your team wants to remove or change a field to improve performance and simplify the backend. How would you plan the deprecation, communication, and rollout so that you protect the customer relationship and the engineering roadmap?
MediumSystem Design
44 practiced
Design a GET /orders endpoint for a product with thousands of active users. The API must support pagination, sorting, and multiple filters such as status, customer_id, and updated_at range. How would you structure the contract, and what trade-offs would you call out in the design review?
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