Start by clarifying requirements and scale, then focus on the frontend architecture for handling high-follower accounts. Discuss data fetching strategies, rendering optimizations, and trade-offs between consistency and performance, emphasizing how the UI adapts to massive follower counts.
Pro tip: Emphasize that for high-follower accounts, the frontend should prioritize optimistic UI updates and graceful degradation to maintain responsiveness, even if backend data is delayed. This shows you understand real-world constraints and user experience.
Ask about expected user base, post frequency, and follower counts to understand the scale. Confirm whether the focus is on feed generation, post creation, or both.
Propose using paginated, cursor-based APIs for feeds and posts to avoid overwhelming the client. For high-follower accounts, consider pre-fetching or caching strategies to reduce latency.
Discuss virtualized lists, lazy loading, and efficient state updates to handle large volumes of posts. Use optimistic updates for likes/comments to keep UI responsive.
Explain how to manage real-time updates (e.g., new posts from followed accounts) without causing UI jank. Consider WebSockets or polling with backoff, and how to reconcile with local state.
Address trade-offs like consistency vs. availability, and how to handle scenarios like a celebrity posting causing a spike in feed updates. Mention fallback UIs for errors or slow networks.
AI-generated suggestions, not part of the candidate's original notes. May be inaccurate — verify before relying on them.