Globally distributed configuration consensus
Design a globally distributed configuration/secrets service (think a control plane for a cloud provider) that must remain available and consistent for writes even if an entire region goes offline, with replicas in 5 regions. Writes are rare but must be durable and ordered; reads are frequent and must reflect the latest committed config. How many replicas and where, what consensus approach, and how do you keep write latency tolerable when a quorum spans continents?
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.
Clarify5:00 left
Estimate5:00 planned
Design15:00 planned
Deep dive12:00 planned
Failure8:00 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.