Retry loop keeps service wedged
A brief 2x traffic blip pushes a backend service slightly over capacity for ~30 seconds. Latency rises, clients hit their timeouts and retry, and now the service is receiving far more than 2x — it's stuck at 100% CPU with a huge request queue and serving almost nothing useful, even though the original traffic blip ended minutes ago. Removing the extra load doesn't help; the service stays wedged until you intervene. The dashboards show timeouts → retries → more load in a self-sustaining loop. How do you triage and break the service out of this state?
What a strong answer looks like
Stop the bleeding first (mitigate), then form hypotheses from real signals. Separate root cause from symptom, communicate status as you go, and close with what prevents a repeat.
0:00 of about 45 min
Which questions mattered is sealed until you submit. Telling you now would just be handing over the edge cases.
Run or narrate your approach, then ask the coach.