High-level design rounds at Oracle typically start with almost no given requirements — you are expected to drive the requirement- gathering conversation yourself before anything gets diagrammed. Interviewers reward a structured approach: requirements first, then API design, then data model and consistency, then failure handling.
Design a high-level system for a ticket or event booking service (e.g. movie shows, events). You are expected to drive requirement gathering yourself before proposing an architecture — the interviewer will not hand you the requirements up front.
- Clarify scope yourself: what can be booked, who the users are, and what 'available' means before diagramming anything.
- Cover the API design for browsing inventory and creating a booking.
- Address how the system keeps seat/slot availability consistent when many users try to book around the same time.
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The full architecture, API design, data model and failure-handling discussion for these are part of the Placement-Ready PYQ Kit.
2 more system design prompts with a full architecture writeup in the full Placement-Ready PYQ Kit