Code Room
System designHardsd-g411
Subject Location trackingLevel Senior–Staff~50 minCommon in Distributed systems interviewsIndustries Technology

Question

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.

Narrate your design
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Run or narrate your approach, then ask the coach.