tutor-service/docs/planning/INTERVIEW_TRACKS.md

Interview Tracks

MVP Track: Backend Developer Interview

The first interview track is backend developer preparation. This track is broad enough to be valuable to job seekers and narrow enough to produce testable diagnostic, grading, memory, and progression behavior.

Target User

• Junior backend developer candidates.
• Bootcamp graduates preparing for backend interviews.
• Full-stack developers who need backend interview readiness.
• Developers changing stack into backend service work.

Canonical Concept Seed List

1. HTTP and Web Fundamentals

• request and response lifecycle
• headers, status codes, methods
• idempotency and safe methods
• cookies, sessions, tokens
• latency, timeout, retry basics

2. REST and API Design

• resource modeling
• endpoint shape
• validation and error responses
• pagination and filtering
• versioning
• backward compatibility

3. Databases and Indexes

• relational modeling
• primary keys and foreign keys
• index purpose and tradeoffs
• query plans at a conceptual level
• N+1 query problem
• migrations

4. Transactions and Consistency

• ACID
• isolation anomalies
• transaction boundaries
• optimistic vs pessimistic locking
• idempotent writes
• eventual consistency basics

5. Caching

• cache-aside
• TTL and invalidation
• stale data risks
• cache stampede
• CDN vs application cache
• when not to cache

6. Concurrency and Async Work

• race conditions
• locks and coordination
• worker queues
• retry and dead-letter basics
• backpressure
• Go goroutine/channel concepts for Go-oriented tracks

7. Testing and Reliability

• unit vs integration tests
• test doubles
• contract tests
• observability basics
• logging and metrics
• failure-mode thinking

8. System Design Basics

• load balancing
• horizontal scaling
• stateless service design
• database bottlenecks
• rate limiting
• file/object storage
• basic architecture tradeoffs

Challenge Ladder

Each concept should support five levels:

1. Define the concept.
2. Explain tradeoffs.
3. Debug a realistic scenario.
4. Design under constraints.
5. Answer under interview pressure.

First Boss Question

"Design a rate-limited backend API for submitting job applications. Cover HTTP API design, database transaction boundaries, duplicate submission prevention, cache behavior, failure handling, and test strategy."

MVP Exclusions

• Advanced distributed systems theory.
• Deep database internals.
• Language-specific trivia-heavy questions.
• Company-specific interview packs.
• Frontend, mobile, AI, and DevOps tracks.