System Design: Online Marketplace Backend
Context
Design the backend for a two-sided online marketplace facilitating transactions between sellers listing items and buyers making purchases. The system must accommodate tens of millions of listings, millions of monthly active users (MAUs), and handle significant peak traffic spikes, such as those experienced during flash sales. Key non-functional requirements include security, scalability, reliability, and support for global deployment.
Requirements
The design should cover the following functional and non-functional aspects:
- Core APIs and Data Model
- Search and Filtering capabilities
- Image Handling
- Payments and Escrow system
- Inventory and Availability management
- Notifications system
- Fraud and Abuse Prevention mechanisms
- Rate Limiting
- Observability
- Scaling Strategies, including partitioning, indexing, caching, and CDN utilization
- Consistency across Orders and Listings
- Multi-Region Deployment and Disaster Recovery
Candidates are expected to provide a comprehensive architecture, discuss key trade-offs, and provide rationale for decisions made in each section.
AI interview prep
Core dilemma
Balancing extreme read/write scalability and global availability with strong consistency requirements for critical financial transactions and inventory management, all while maintaining a secure and resilient platform.
3 tradeoffs and 3 stress tests locked
Interview prep
Unlock the interviewer X-Ray rubric, tradeoff matrix, stress tests, clarifying questions, and key concepts.
System Design: Online Marketplace Backend
Context
Design the backend for a two-sided online marketplace facilitating transactions between sellers listing items and buyers making purchases. The system must accommodate tens of millions of listings, millions of monthly active users (MAUs), and handle significant peak traffic spikes, such as those experienced during flash sales. Key non-functional requirements include security, scalability, reliability, and support for global deployment.
Requirements
The design should cover the following functional and non-functional aspects:
- Core APIs and Data Model
- Search and Filtering capabilities
- Image Handling
- Payments and Escrow system
- Inventory and Availability management
- Notifications system
- Fraud and Abuse Prevention mechanisms
- Rate Limiting
- Observability
- Scaling Strategies, including partitioning, indexing, caching, and CDN utilization
- Consistency across Orders and Listings
- Multi-Region Deployment and Disaster Recovery
Candidates are expected to provide a comprehensive architecture, discuss key trade-offs, and provide rationale for decisions made in each section.