How do I answer a debugging question?

Short explanation:

A debugging answer is an investigation plan that narrows a symptom to a cause using evidence. It should explain what you would measure, what the result would mean and what you would do next. Separate reducing user impact now from proving and preventing the underlying defect.

Key points:

• Confirm the problem and who is affected.

• Check logs, metrics and recent changes.

• Find the cause, fix it and check the result.

• Prefer statements such as “If pool wait is high but query time is normal, I will inspect connection ownership and concurrency.”

Interview point:

• Make hypotheses testable; a list of random tools does not show a clear debugging process.