Start by clarifying functional and non-functional requirements, then design the core data model and APIs for review CRUD operations. Next, design the rewards system with a points ledger, ensuring idempotency and fraud prevention. Finally, discuss scalability, consistency, and trade-offs.
Pro tip: Emphasize idempotency and fraud prevention in the rewards system, as these are critical for financial integrity and often overlooked. Also, discuss how you would handle eventual consistency between review submission and reward crediting.
Ask questions to understand scale, read/write patterns, consistency needs, and reward rules (e.g., what qualifies as a review, payout thresholds).
Define schemas for reviews, users, products/restaurants, and the points ledger. Specify CRUD APIs with authentication and authorization.
Outline how points are earned, stored, and redeemed. Include idempotent operations, fraud detection, and ledger consistency.
Discuss partitioning, caching, read replicas, and trade-offs between consistency and availability for reviews and rewards.
Summarize key decisions (e.g., SQL vs NoSQL, sync vs async reward processing) and potential improvements like moderation or analytics.
AI-generated suggestions, not part of the candidate's original notes. May be inaccurate — verify before relying on them.