Code Room
On-callMediumoc-g208
Subject Cascading failureLevel Mid–Senior~35 minCommon in Concurrency · Algorithms & data structures interviewsIndustries Technology, Software development

Question

Your Node.js notification service started timing out across all endpoints at 08:15. Dashboards: event-loop lag on the pods is 4s+; CPU is only 40%; a downstream template-render call to a Python sidecar over HTTP has p99 of 6s since 08:10; the in-process async queue depth is climbing without bound; memory is rising steadily. No deploy on your service, but the template sidecar got a new model at 08:08. How do you triage and mitigate?

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.

Diagram & narrate the incident
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Run or narrate your approach, then ask the coach.