intermediate · latency

The Endpoint That Got 20× Slower

An endpoint went from 100 ms to 2 seconds. How do you find out why?

Practical scenario

GET /orders/{id} has a p95 of 2.1 s since roughly 09:00. It was 100 ms yesterday. Traffic is normal, error rate is normal, and three people are already suggesting fixes in the incident channel.

What it tests

  • Whether the candidate measures before theorising
  • Whether "what changed?" is their first question
  • Whether they can localise time to a layer rather than guessing at fixes

Lessons behind this question