Spent the first few minutes just trying to scope it down because calendar is deceptively broad.
Start by clarifying requirements and scope, then design a scalable architecture that handles core calendar features like event creation, storage, and sharing. Focus on data modeling for events and calendars, API design for CRUD operations, and integration with external calendars.
Pro tip: Emphasize how you would handle recurring events and time zones, as these are common pitfalls that demonstrate depth of understanding. Also, discuss trade-offs between consistency and availability for collaborative calendars.
Ask questions to understand functional and non-functional requirements, such as scale, features (recurring events, reminders, sharing), and constraints (latency, consistency).
Outline the system architecture: clients, API gateway, services (event, calendar, notification), and data stores. Consider microservices vs. monolith based on scale.
Design schemas for users, calendars, events, and attendees. Address indexing for efficient queries (e.g., by time range) and handling recurring events.
Define RESTful or GraphQL endpoints for CRUD operations on events and calendars, including batch operations and sync APIs for external integrations.
Discuss partitioning (e.g., by user or time), caching, replication, and conflict resolution for concurrent edits. Mention monitoring and alerting.
AI-generated suggestions, not part of the candidate's original notes. May be inaccurate — verify before relying on them.