Design a News Subscription Processing Engine
Last updated: July 19, 2026
Quick Overview
Design a system that processes news subscriptions, allowing users to receive updates based on their preferences.
Optiver
July 19, 202619
0
305 solved
Design a system that processes news subscriptions, allowing users to receive updates based on their preferences.
This question is typically asked during the online assessment round for a Software Engineer position at Optiver. The interviewer is looking to evaluate the candidate's ability to design scalable systems, understand user requirements, and implement efficient processing mechanisms. The focus is on how well the candidate can translate business needs into technical specifications and architecture.
What the Interviewer Expects
- Identify key requirements for the news subscription engine.
- Outline a high-level architecture including components and data flow.
- Discuss trade-offs in design decisions, such as consistency vs. availability.
- Consider scalability and performance optimizations.
- Address potential challenges and how to mitigate them.
Key Topics to Cover
How to Approach This
- Apply SOLID principles. Single Responsibility makes code testable, Open/Closed makes it extensible.
- Choose data structures based on access patterns, not familiarity.
- Prefer immutable data and message passing over shared mutable state for concurrency.
- Design APIs with RESTful conventions, versioning, meaningful errors, and pagination from day one.
Possible Follow-up Questions
- How would you handle user preference changes in real-time?
- What database would you choose for storing user subscriptions and why?
- Can you explain how you would ensure the system is fault-tolerant?
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Practice System Design ProblemsSample Answer
Requirements
To design a news subscription processing engine, we first need to identify the core requirements:
- User Management: Users should be able to create accounts, manage preferences, and subscribe/uns...
High-Level Design
The high-level architecture of the news subscription processing engine can be broken down into several components:
- User Interface: A web or mobile interface for users to manage subscriptions.
- ...
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