Pastebin with expiration
Design a simple pastebin where a developer pastes a block of text or code, gets a unique link, and others can view it read-only. Pastes can be up to ~1 MB, some are set to expire after a day or a week, and the service handles a few thousand pastes per day. It is read-heavy — each paste is viewed many more times than it is created. Cover components, storage, and how expiration works.
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.
Clarify3:30 left
Estimate3:30 planned
Design10:00 planned
Deep dive8:00 planned
Failure5:00 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.