Whenever you're ready, walk me through how you'd approach this.
What are the trade-offs between a monolithic architecture and microservices?
Discuss the decision in practical system design terms, including service boundaries, deployment and scaling, reliability, data ownership, observability, team autonomy, and operational complexity. Explain when you would start with a monolith, when you would split services, and how you would migrate safely without a disruptive rewrite.