#fairness

5 fairness interview questions, asked at Airbnb, Microsoft, Microsoft AI and 4 more companies. Last asked Sep 2026.

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Typed task lock for mutually exclusive job typesCodingSome jobs on a shared accelerator pool must not run alongside jobs of a different kind. Each job runs on its own thread and has one of two types: "gen" or "score". Any number of…
Last asked Sep 2026
Design a scheduler for bursts of short serverless tasksSystem designTenants submit short serverless tasks, each needing some CPU, memory and maybe a GPU, a container image, possibly data on certain machines, a deadline and a priority. A burst can…
Last asked Sep 2026
Design a driver queue for a pickup areaSystem designDrivers waiting in a dedicated pickup area join a queue and are offered trips in order. Design it: how drivers enter and leave the queue, how their place is kept fairly, and how…
Last asked Feb 2026
Design a task queue that splits large jobs into subtasksSystem designYou already have a durable scheduler for small independent jobs. Some jobs are much bigger: they run from seconds to hours and can fan out into up to 100,000 subtasks. Extend the…
Last asked Nov 2025
Design a waitlist for in-demand listingsSystem designWhen a popular listing is not available for the dates a guest wants, the guest can join a waitlist. Design the API and system behind it: joining and leaving, detecting when the…
Last asked Jul 2025