Code Room
On-callHardoc-g439
Subject Database incidentsLevel Senior–Staff~35 minCommon in Databases & SQL · Reliability & on-call interviewsIndustries Technology

Question

Your write-heavy Postgres primary shows a regular, painful pattern: every few minutes write latency p99 spikes from 5ms to 400ms for 20–30 seconds, then recovers, like clockwork. During each spike, disk write I/O and `iowait` jump, and the logs show frequent checkpoint activity with `checkpoints are occurring too frequently`. Traffic is steady — the spikes don't line up with traffic, they line up with each other at a fixed interval. The instance has plenty of CPU. 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.