On-callHardoc-p009

Subject Incident responseLevel Senior–Staff~20 minCommon in Reliability & on-call interviewsIndustries Technology

Question

A downstream dependency slowed down, and now your whole service is failing as requests pile up and retries multiply — a cascading failure. How do you stop it?

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

Loading whiteboard…

Run or narrate your approach, then ask the coach.