Push Notification Service Design
Ace your staff mobile engineer push notification service design interview with our AI-powered real-time coach. Get instant guidance on notification delivery, cross-platform strategies, battery optimization, and scalable mobile architectures.
See Push Notification Design AI in Action
Interviewer [00:00:05]: Design a push notification service for a social media app with 50 million daily active users across iOS and Android platforms.
You [00:00:15]: I'd like to start by understanding the requirements better. What types of notifications do we need to support? What's the expected volume and frequency? And are there any specific latency or delivery guarantees we need to meet?
Interviewer [00:00:28]: Good questions. We need to support various notification types: direct messages, comments, likes, friend requests, and system announcements. During peak hours, we might send up to 100,000 notifications per second. Latency should be under 500ms for high-priority notifications like direct messages, and we need to ensure reliable delivery even when users are offline.
AI Suggestion:
- High-Level Architecture:
- Propose a layered architecture: Event Sources Notification Service Platform-specific Delivery Services Client SDKs
- Suggest a microservices approach with separate services for notification generation, prioritization, and delivery
- Platform Integration:
- Discuss integration with FCM (Firebase Cloud Messaging) for Android and APNS (Apple Push Notification Service) for iOS
- Mention token management system for device registration and updates
- Explain cross-platform abstraction layer to handle platform-specific requirements
- Scalability & Performance:
- Suggest message queuing system (Kafka/RabbitMQ) for handling high throughput
- Discuss sharding strategy based on user ID for horizontal scaling
- Mention rate limiting and throttling mechanisms to prevent platform-specific quotas
- Reliability & Delivery:
- Explain retry mechanisms with exponential backoff
- Discuss offline message storage and delivery upon reconnection
- Mention delivery receipts and tracking for analytics
- Battery & Bandwidth Optimization:
- Suggest notification batching and coalescence techniques
- Discuss priority-based delivery to optimize battery usage
- Mention client-side throttling and user preference management
📱 Cross-Platform Notification Architecture
Get expert guidance on designing unified push notification architectures that work seamlessly across iOS, Android, and web platforms, with strategies for handling platform-specific requirements and limitations.
⚡ Notification Delivery Optimization
Receive instant recommendations on optimizing notification delivery, including batching strategies, priority-based routing, and techniques to handle network connectivity issues while maintaining reliability.
🔄 Token Management Systems
Access real-time guidance on designing robust token management systems for device registration, token refreshing, and handling multiple devices per user with synchronization across platforms.
🔍 Battery & Bandwidth Efficiency
Get instant suggestions for optimizing battery usage and bandwidth consumption, including intelligent delivery timing, payload optimization, and client-side throttling mechanisms.
🔒 Security & Privacy Considerations
Receive guidance on implementing secure notification systems with proper authentication, payload encryption, and privacy controls that comply with platform guidelines and regulations.
📈 Scalability & High-Throughput Design
Access expert advice on designing notification services that can scale to millions of users and handle traffic spikes, with queueing systems, sharding strategies, and load balancing approaches.
Top Mobile Push Notification Resources
Ready to Ace Your Push Notification Design Interview?
Join thousands of staff mobile engineers who've used our AI coach to master push notification service design interviews and land positions at top tech companies.
Get Your Push Notification Design AI CoachRelated Technical Role Guides
Master more technical role interviews with AI assistance