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Design an in-memory hotel booking system

Last updated: May 14, 2026

Quick Overview

This question evaluates a candidate's ability to design in-memory data models, concurrency control mechanisms, and temporal reservation logic for booking systems.

  • medium
  • Imc
  • System Design
  • Software Engineer

Design an in-memory hotel booking system

Company: Imc

Role: Software Engineer

Category: System Design

Difficulty: medium

Interview Round: Technical Screen

Design a **hotel booking system** that supports reservations **without using any database**. You may only use **in-memory data structures**. ### Requirements Define APIs/data structures to support at least: - Add hotels, room types, and room inventory (or individual rooms) - Search availability for a date range (check-in, check-out) - Create a booking (reserve room(s)) - Cancel a booking - Prevent double-booking under concurrent requests ### Constraints/notes - All state is in memory (assume a single process unless you choose to extend to multiple nodes). - Clarify assumptions (e.g., time zones, check-out exclusivity, maximum date horizon). - Discuss complexity trade-offs and how you would handle concurrency.

Quick Answer: This question evaluates a candidate's ability to design in-memory data models, concurrency control mechanisms, and temporal reservation logic for booking systems.

Imc logo
Imc
Nov 3, 2025, 12:00 AM
Software Engineer
Technical Screen
System Design
16
0

Design a hotel booking system that supports reservations without using any database. You may only use in-memory data structures.

Requirements

Define APIs/data structures to support at least:

  • Add hotels, room types, and room inventory (or individual rooms)
  • Search availability for a date range (check-in, check-out)
  • Create a booking (reserve room(s))
  • Cancel a booking
  • Prevent double-booking under concurrent requests

Constraints/notes

  • All state is in memory (assume a single process unless you choose to extend to multiple nodes).
  • Clarify assumptions (e.g., time zones, check-out exclusivity, maximum date horizon).
  • Discuss complexity trade-offs and how you would handle concurrency.

Solution

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