Your question is Design for Traffic Spikes. Take a moment with it on the right.
Talk me through your thinking if you like. When you're confident, submit your answer and I'll grade it like a real screen (7/10 or better passes).
Design an API and explain how you would prepare your servers to handle a sudden traffic bust like Black Friday at The Hartford.
Clarify the API's functional and ML inference requirements, then describe how you would size, deploy, autoscale, protect, and monitor the system during an unpredictable traffic surge. Cover online and batch components, capacity planning, graceful degradation, and how you would detect model or feature issues without violating security and compliance expectations.