In progressTechnical Screen

System Design Screen on the Bookstore Question, Passed After a Week

DatabricksSoftware Engineer · Technical Screen · Aug 2026

The interviewer seemed like a very senior person, I felt his level was really high. I got the hugely popular Bookstore question. He asked a lot of questions about failure modes. For example: if the request inserts into the DB but then SQS fails, what should happen? How can we prevent that? I said I would use a transaction outbox. He said he had never heard of that pattern, we spent a while with m…

Shared by a candidate · reported Aug 2026. Interview formats change; use it as a guide, not a script.