Systems Architecture Interview: Clarifying the Question 

Aw thanks! Really appreciate the kind words!

Thanks so much for the kind words! It's good to be back. ❤️

That's amazing to hear! I'm sure you put in the work and found yourself the better role though.

Hi @koftunka! Sorry to keep you waiting. I'm actually planning to shoot the video next week. You won't have to wait much longer for the next episode!

You're certainly not alone in facing that part of the challenge. I'm happy to share that the very next video in the miniseries is titled "Breaking the Problem Down" and focuses on exactly this part of the challenge. Hopefully it's helpful for you.

@@jackson-gabbard much appreciated. Thank you!

Ah, this is a good question! The ace move here is to figure out questions that reduce the complexity by as much as possible with each question. Say, for instance, you start by asking "What programming language should I write the code in?" Then, you haven't really narrowed down the complexity by much. Many programming languages can be used to solve the same problems. So that detail doesn't help you. You want to make sure you're asking the most thoughtful detail-clarifying questions you can. As to how many to ask -- if you're going on for more than about 5 minutes, you've probably overdone it. These interviews are generally 45 minutes long. 2 or 3 minutes are usually taken up with intros. Then they try to give you 5ish minutes for questions at the end. So, that leaves ~37ish minutes of time to dig into the content. If you take 10 minutes for clarifying questions, you've dramatically reduced the time you have to actually solve the problem. If you were trying to be a top-tier interviewee, you'd be trying to find the fewest questions you can possibly ask that get you clarity. I'd expect you'd have a hard time doing that with fewer than at least 4 or 5 follow-up questions.

That's a great point. If you asked me in an interview, it would be a strong indicator that you're the sort of thoughtful teammate I'd love to work with.

Aw, thanks! Great to hear you enjoyed it.

Hi Ebrahamovic! Without more context, it's hard to say. Can you send me your CV? jg (at) jg.gg. I can probably tell you something useful from there.

Nice to meet you, too! Hope you enjoy the video!

Sorry you missed the premiere! The video went live at 2:30pm.

Lol

If they do say that, you at least know you've gotten the most information from the interviewer that you could. It's better to ask and be told, "No, please just solve the problem," than to *not* ask and potentially be solving the *wrong* problem.