Code Room
On-callHardoc-p027
Subject Incident responseLevel Senior~20 minCommon in Reliability & on-call interviewsIndustries Technology

Question

Latency is spiking in a sawtooth pattern — periodic multi-second stalls every minute or so — on an otherwise healthy service. You suspect garbage-collection pauses. How do you confirm 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.