Explain SRE architecture and troubleshooting scenarios

Q: Explain SRE architecture and troubleshooting scenarios

This is a System Design interview question from TikTok for Software Engineer roles. View the full question and solution on PracHub.

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Question

Kubernetes, Reliability, and Data Store Concepts (Technical Screen)

Context: Assume you operate a high-scale, latency-sensitive microservices platform running on Kubernetes. Answer the following practical questions.

1) Kubernetes Building Blocks

Explain the difference between a Pod and a Deployment in Kubernetes.
Describe the role of a Service.

2) Debugging a Pod That Fails to Start

List concrete steps and typical kubectl commands you would use to troubleshoot a Pod that is Pending, ImagePullBackOff, CrashLoopBackOff, OOMKilled, or failing health probes.

3) SLO, SLA, and SLI

Define and contrast SLO, SLA, and SLI.
If the actual error rate exceeds the SLO, what actions would you take and how would you prioritize them?

4) Elevated Request Latency in a Distributed System

Outline a structured troubleshooting approach across the network, load balancer, database, cache, and the service itself. Include:

Specific metrics to check at each layer.
Concrete experiments to run to isolate the bottleneck.

5) SQL vs NoSQL

Compare SQL and NoSQL data stores and describe scenarios where NoSQL is the better fit.