3-D Secure payment reconciliation
Design the backend for handling 3-D Secure / redirect-based payments (cards requiring a bank challenge, plus APMs like iDEAL/SEPA that redirect the user to their bank). The user leaves your site, authenticates at their bank, and returns; the authoritative result also arrives asynchronously via a PSP webhook that may come before, after, or instead of the redirect-back. ~1,500 payment attempts/sec. Describe the payment state model and how you reconcile the redirect-return and the webhook into one correct final status.
What a strong answer looks like
Clarify scale and constraints first. Propose a clean component breakdown, then go deep on the hard parts (data model, bottlenecks, consistency, failure modes) and name the trade-offs you are making.
Clarify4:30 left
Estimate4:30 planned
Design13:30 planned
Deep dive10:30 planned
Failure7:00 planned
Which questions mattered is sealed until you submit. Telling you now would just be handing over the edge cases.
Run or narrate your approach, then ask the coach.