The schema, REST API contracts, rate limiting strategy, and SQL-vs-NoSQL decision for a URL shortener — the implementation details interviewers probe once the high-level architecture is settled.
Everyone can design a URL shortener that works for 10 requests a second. Here's what actually breaks when you hit 10,000 requests a second: database hotspots, cache stampedes, hash collisions, and the geographic latency problem nobody mentions in the whiteboard round.
A complete walkthrough of the URL shortener interview question — requirements gathering, architecture, hash generation strategies, and read-heavy scaling patterns interviewers actually look for.
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