PracHub
QuestionsPremiumCoachesLearningGuidesInterview Prep
|Home/System Design/Amazon

Design a replicated key-value store with quorums

Last updated: Mar 29, 2026

Quick Overview

This question evaluates understanding of replication, quorum protocols, data partitioning, consistency models, failure detection and recovery, and conflict resolution in distributed key–value stores.

  • medium
  • Amazon
  • System Design
  • Software Engineer

Design a replicated key-value store with quorums

Company: Amazon

Role: Software Engineer

Category: System Design

Difficulty: medium

Interview Round: Take-home Project

Design a distributed system that replicates key–value pairs across **multiple replicas**. The interviewer wants to focus on **replication**, **quorums**, and **failure handling**. Specify: - APIs (e.g., `Get(key)`, `Put(key, value)`), consistency goals, and assumptions. - How data is partitioned and replicated. - Quorum read/write rules (e.g., N/R/W) and how they affect consistency/availability. - How you detect and recover from bad nodes, network partitions, and replica lag. - Handling conflicts (if writes can be concurrent). Keep it high-level but concrete enough to reason about correctness and trade-offs.

Quick Answer: This question evaluates understanding of replication, quorum protocols, data partitioning, consistency models, failure detection and recovery, and conflict resolution in distributed key–value stores.

Related Interview Questions

  • Design a Log Collection System - Amazon (medium)
  • Design Human Avoidance for Warehouse Robots - Amazon (medium)
  • Design a High-Availability Load Balancer - Amazon (hard)
  • Design a Ride-Hailing Matching System - Amazon (medium)
  • Design a cloud database write path and recovery - Amazon (hard)
Amazon logo
Amazon
Dec 17, 2025, 12:00 AM
Software Engineer
Take-home Project
System Design
6
0

Design a distributed system that replicates key–value pairs across multiple replicas.

The interviewer wants to focus on replication, quorums, and failure handling.

Specify:

  • APIs (e.g., Get(key) , Put(key, value) ), consistency goals, and assumptions.
  • How data is partitioned and replicated.
  • Quorum read/write rules (e.g., N/R/W) and how they affect consistency/availability.
  • How you detect and recover from bad nodes, network partitions, and replica lag.
  • Handling conflicts (if writes can be concurrent).

Keep it high-level but concrete enough to reason about correctness and trade-offs.

Solution

Show

Submit Your Answer to Earn 20XP

Sign in to leave a comment

Loading comments...

Browse More Questions

More System Design•More Amazon•More Software Engineer•Amazon Software Engineer•Amazon System Design•Software Engineer System Design
PracHub

Master your tech interviews with 8,000+ real questions from top companies.

Product

  • Questions
  • Learning Tracks
  • Interview Guides
  • Resources
  • Premium
  • For Universities
  • Student Access

Browse

  • By Company
  • By Role
  • By Category
  • Topic Hubs
  • SQL Questions
  • Compare Platforms
  • Discord Community

Support

  • support@prachub.com
  • (916) 541-4762

Legal

  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of Service
  • About Us

© 2026 PracHub. All rights reserved.