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Compute top-N posts in a workspace

AtlassianSoftware Engineer · Onsite
MediumSoftware EngineerOnsiteSystem Design

Last updated

This question evaluates skills in designing scalable, low-latency analytics and aggregation systems, covering event tracking, time-windowed ranking, stream processing, storage trade-offs (OLTP vs OLAP), caching, API design, and handling late or duplicate events.

Design a feature that returns the top-N posts (e.g., Confluence pages/blog posts) in a workspace.

Requirements:

  • Define what “top” means (e.g., views, likes, comments, or a weighted score).
  • Support queries like: top N posts for the last 24 hours / 7 days / 30 days.
  • Low latency for reads.
  • Handle high write volume of events (views/likes).

Deliverables:

  • Event tracking and aggregation design.
  • Storage choices (OLTP vs OLAP) and schema.
  • API design and caching.
  • Handling late/duplicate events and backfills.