System Design – Rate Limiting
Practice system design interview questions focused on rate limiting. Cover algorithms, use cases, and protecting APIs from abuse. Answer questions and receive feedback on trade-offs and clarity. Ideal for software engineer system design prep. First 2 questions are free with full feedback.
- Level Intermediate
- Questions 12
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Sample system design – rate limiting interview questions
Preview 6 questions from this track in quiz order. In the full quiz you answer one at a time — type or speak — then get a score and feedback.
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What is rate limiting and why is it used?
What a strong answer includes
Restricts request frequency to protect the system.
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Explain the token bucket algorithm.
What a strong answer includes
Tokens refill over time; requests consume tokens.
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What is the leaky bucket algorithm?
What a strong answer includes
Requests are processed at a fixed rate.
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How do you rate limit in a distributed system?
What a strong answer includes
Uses a shared store like Redis.
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What are common rate limit dimensions?
What a strong answer includes
Per user, per IP, or per API key.
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How do you communicate a rate limit to the client?
What a strong answer includes
Returns 429 and includes retry headers.