On-callEasyoc-g532

Subject Cron failureLevel Entry–Mid~15 minCommon in Reliability & on-call interviewsIndustries Software development, Technology

Question

Every morning a nightly cron job rebuilds a summary report that the business team reads at 9am. Today the report is stale — it still shows yesterday's numbers. No alerts fired overnight, and the web service itself is healthy. The cron is the only thing that updates this report. Where do you start, and how do you get today's report out?

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.

Learn the concepts

Diagram & narrate the incident

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Run or narrate your approach, then ask the coach.