InterviewsVector
AdvancedPrincipalArchitecture Leadership & Decisions60 minutesPro answer

SDV-074

Sunset a platform when the last users are the most powerful stakeholders

Retire long-tail capability through usage evidence, migration economics, exceptions, contractual leverage, and executive accountability.

Change ManagementTechnical DebtGovernanceApi Design

Interview prompt

Problem context

A legacy reporting platform costs millions and blocks security upgrades. Most users migrated, but two executive-sponsored business units depend on custom features and reject deadlines. The platform team cannot support both systems indefinitely. Design the technical and organizational sunset.

Skills being evaluated

deprecation leadershipstakeholder managementmigration designcost transparency

The full reasoning guide is part of Pro

The scenario and evaluation focus above remain public. Pro unlocks the structured answer, trade-off analysis, follow-up probes, common weak answers, rubric, related reasoning, and any architecture diagram.

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What the full guide covers

Clarify the decision
Establish scale assumptions
Functional and non-functional requirements
High-level architecture
Data model and flow
Consistency and transaction boundaries
Failure modes and recovery
Security and privacy
Observability and SLOs
Capacity and cost
Alternatives and trade-offs
Evolution and migration
What Staff and Principal candidates should emphasize

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