Start by clarifying requirements and scope, then propose a high-level architecture that separates the frontend, backend, and model serving layers. Focus on real-time interaction, scalability, and trade-offs between streaming and batch responses, while emphasizing reliability and cost efficiency.
Pro tip: Highlight the importance of streaming responses and graceful degradation—showing you understand both user experience and backend resilience will set you apart. Also, mention how you'd handle rate limiting and model versioning to demonstrate production maturity.
Ask about expected user load, latency requirements, supported models, and whether features like conversation history or file uploads are needed. This ensures your design aligns with actual needs.
Outline the main components: a web frontend (React), an API gateway, a backend service (e.g., Python/Node.js) that manages sessions and calls the model API, and a model serving layer. Emphasize separation of concerns.
Explain how to achieve real-time streaming using WebSockets or Server-Sent Events (SSE) from the backend to the frontend, and how the backend streams tokens from the model API. Discuss handling partial responses and errors.
Describe scaling strategies: load balancing, horizontal scaling of backend services, caching frequent requests, and using queues for long-running tasks. Mention rate limiting, retries, and fallback models for reliability.
Discuss trade-offs between streaming and batch, cost vs. latency, and consistency vs. availability. Suggest optimizations like prompt caching, model distillation, and edge caching for static assets.
AI-generated suggestions, not part of the candidate's original notes. May be inaccurate — verify before relying on them.