Palo Alto Networks Senior Staff Engineer Mock Interview
Master 30 Senior Staff Engineer interview questions covering distributed systems, security architecture, and technical leadership at Palo Alto Networks.
Question 14 of 30
How would you design an internal program here at Palo Alto Networks so it can easily scale?
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William Swansen has worked in the employment assistance realm since 2007. He is an author, job search strategist, and career advisor who helps individuals worldwide and in various professions to find their ideal careers.
Designing an application so it can scale is the key account every senior staff engineer should possess. The benefit of this is that you can start with a single small application with limited processes that address a small number of the classes. If the architecture was designed properly, the system could scale as you add objects, classes, and data. Not only is this design methodology efficient, but it enables the application to grow without having to be reprogrammed. This is a key account the interviewer will be interested in and something you will be asked about.
Consider whether the system should be a monolithic service or a combination of microservices. For example, consider how many databases, caching layers, or message queues are required.
William Swansen has worked in the employment assistance realm since 2007. He is an author, job search strategist, and career advisor who helps individuals worldwide and in various professions to find their ideal careers.
"In my experience, the key to developing an application that can scale begins with the design. When starting to design an application for internal use here at Palo Alto Networks, I have the option of using a monolithic service or many small ones. Depending on the application, I choose one of these methodologies and document the design noting the patterns and code references. As the application scales, other Palo Alto Networks programmers or I can refer to the documentation to understand how the base application was built and can scale using the classes, inheriting or extending them."
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