Specify Proximity-Based Request Routing
StripeSoftware Engineer · Online Assessment
Last updated
Clarify proximity metrics, destination eligibility, tie rules, and capacity before designing a request-routing algorithm.
Design proximity-based request routing. Explain what information a request and a destination must provide, how proximity is measured, and how the routing decision should account for unavailable or unsuitable destinations.
Constraints
Only the proximity-routing objective is supplied. The distance metric, destination eligibility, capacity, tie rule, and output format are unresolved. Do not infer a particular external routing problem. Any concrete selection algorithm must be tied to explicitly stated assumptions.
Clarifying Questions
- Does proximity mean geographic distance, network latency, topology distance, or another score?
- Which destinations are eligible, and are health and capacity constraints part of selection?
- How are ties and the absence of an eligible destination handled?
- Are inputs a fixed snapshot or changing while requests are routed?
Hints
Hint 1
Filter before optimizing the score: The nearest destination is useful only if it is allowed and able to serve the request under the declared policy.
Follow-up questions
- When would a spatial index help, and when would it be irrelevant?
- How would you avoid routing every request to one nearby destination?
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