Design a Collaborative Notes Service
Company: Google
Role: Software Engineer
Category: System Design
Difficulty: hard
Interview Round: Onsite
Design a simple collaborative notes service, similar to a lightweight version of an online document editor.
The system should allow users to:
- Create, read, update, and delete notes.
- Edit notes from multiple devices.
- Synchronize changes across devices.
- Support near-real-time collaborative editing by multiple users on the same note.
- Preserve note history or allow basic recovery from accidental edits.
Focus on the backend architecture, data model, synchronization protocol, conflict handling, storage, scalability, and reliability.
Quick Answer: This question evaluates system design competencies including backend architecture, real-time synchronization, conflict resolution, data modeling, storage, scalability, and reliability for collaborative applications in the System Design domain.