I jumped straight into the database schema and the interviewer had to nudge me back toward requirements.
Start by clarifying the scope and requirements of the airline booking system, focusing on key user journeys and business goals. Then, outline a high-level architecture that addresses scalability, data consistency, and trade-offs, and dive into critical components like search, booking, and payment. Finally, discuss how you would measure success and iterate based on metrics.
Pro tip: Emphasize the importance of handling peak loads and concurrency (e.g., seat locking) and tie technical decisions back to user experience and business metrics like conversion rate and booking latency.
Ask questions to understand the scope: Is this for a single airline or an aggregator? What are the key features (search, booking, payment, cancellation)? What are the scale and latency requirements?
Identify the primary flows: searching for flights, selecting seats, booking, payment, and post-booking management. Prioritize based on business impact.
Sketch a scalable architecture with separate services for search, booking, payment, and inventory. Discuss data stores (SQL vs NoSQL), caching, and load balancing.
Focus on challenging areas: seat inventory management with concurrency control, payment integration, and search performance. Discuss trade-offs (e.g., consistency vs availability).
Define success metrics (e.g., booking conversion, latency, error rates) and how you would monitor and iterate on the system post-launch.
AI-generated suggestions, not part of the candidate's original notes. May be inaccurate — verify before relying on them.