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Design Smart Message Delivery Ranking

HardSystem Design00:00
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Your question is Design Smart Message Delivery Ranking. 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).

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Problem

Scenario

You are building a real-time messaging product where messages, notifications, and suggested conversation surfaces compete for limited attention. The system must decide what to deliver immediately, what to defer, and how to prioritize messages for each user across active chats and devices.

Question

How would you design a messaging system for real-time communication at scale?

What this tests

  • Multi-stage ML architecture for messaging surfaces
  • Retrieval, ranking, and re-ranking choices
  • Online serving versus batch features
  • Evaluation, drift, and failure-mode reasoning