Code RoomLocation sharing service
HardPrep Room Coding #3529

Location sharing service

System designDistributed systemsSenior–Staff~50 min

Design a friends/family location-sharing service (like 'find my friends') for 200M users, where a user shares live location with a chosen set of contacts and can stop sharing at any time. Requirements: a sharer's location reaches their contacts within seconds; sharing is bidirectional and granular (per-contact, time-limited 'share for 1 hour' modes); revocation is immediate; and historical location is minimized for privacy. Describe the data model for the sharing graph, the real-time delivery, how revocation propagates instantly, and the privacy/retention trade-offs.

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.

Clarify5:30 left
Estimate5:30 planned
Design16:30 planned
Deep dive13:30 planned
Failure9:00 planned
0:00
Which questions mattered is sealed until you submit. Telling you now would just be handing over the edge cases.