Software Engineer · Phone Screen · System Design

[ OK ] fa62fa09-fa54-4a23-996c-d94d93885999 — full writeup

[ INFO ] category: Behavioral · System Design difficulty: 5 freq: first seen: 2026-03-02

[5][SYSTEM DESIGN]System DesignData LoggingDatabase

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Rippling — Software Engineer ✅ Passed

Level: Unknown Level

Round: Phone Screen · Type: System Design · Difficulty: 5/10 · Duration: 60 min · Interviewer: Neutral

Topics: System Design, Data Logging, Database

Location: San Francisco Bay Area

Interview date: 2026-01-20

Summary

I had a phone screen interview. I expected to be asked common questions but that wasn't the case.

Question: Design a data log transmission and storage system where logs are transmitted to a central database, allowing users to query logs for short-term checks and up to 3 months of historical data.

Details

The problem was to design a data log transmission and storage system for Rippling.

The system needs to:

Transmit logs to a central data center database.
Allow users to query logs.
Support short-term log checks.
Support queries for up to 3 months of data.

user@intervues:~/experiences/rippling$