Design Chat APIs, Storage, and Core Message Flows
Last updated: July 25, 2026
Quick Overview
Design a chat API system, including the storage solutions and core message flows necessary for a functional chat application.
Databricks
July 25, 20268
0
132 solved
Design a chat API system, including the storage solutions and core message flows necessary for a functional chat application.
This question is typically asked during the onsite interview round for software engineering roles at Databricks to evaluate a candidate's ability to design scalable and efficient systems. Interviewers are looking for a structured approach to system design, assessing the candidate's understanding of API design, data storage options, and message flow management within a chat application context.
What the Interviewer Expects
- Clearly define the requirements for the chat API and its functionalities.
- Outline a high-level architecture, including components and their interactions.
- Discuss data storage options and justify the choice of technology.
- Provide a deep dive into message flow, handling real-time communication and message persistence.
- Address potential trade-offs and scaling strategies for the system.
Key Topics to Cover
How to Approach This
- Start by clarifying functional and non-functional requirements with the interviewer.
- Estimate the scale: QPS, storage, bandwidth. This drives your design decisions.
- Draw a high-level architecture first, then deep dive into 1-2 critical components.
- Discuss trade-offs explicitly (e.g., consistency vs availability, SQL vs NoSQL).
- Address failure scenarios, monitoring, and how the system handles 10x traffic spikes.
Possible Follow-up Questions
- How would you handle message delivery guarantees?
- What strategies would you implement for user authentication?
- Can you discuss how you would ensure data consistency across distributed systems?
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Practice System Design ProblemsSample Answer
Requirements
To design a chat API, we first need to establish the core requirements. This includes:
- User Registration and Authentication: Users must be able to create accounts and log in securely.
- **Rea...
High-Level Design
The high-level architecture of the chat API can be broken down into several components:
- Client Application: The front-end interface where users interact with the chat system.
- API Gateway:...
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