Technical interview guide
CAP Theorem & Consistency Models
Why a distributed system can't have perfect consistency, availability, and partition tolerance all at once — and what real systems trade off.
- Read
- 23 min
- Practice MCQs
- 25
- Interview QA
- 25
- Edition
- v3
- Editorial status
- Reviewed
- Relevant for
- AI EngineerAgentic AI EngineerBackend EngineerBlockchain DeveloperCloud ArchitectCybersecurity EngineerData ArchitectData EngineerDevOps EngineerForward Deployed Engineer (FDE)Full-Stack DeveloperIdentity and Access Management (IAM) EngineerMachine Learning EngineerPlatform EngineerSecurity ArchitectSite Reliability EngineerSoftware EngineerSolutions ArchitectTechnical Product Manager
Scope: Vendor-neutral distributed-systems principles; current AWS architecture guidance.
Curated: · Written: · Reviewed: