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Airbnb System Design
Visual Problem Diagram
Scenario
Super Bowl weekend in one city: every listing shows available until four guests pay simultaneously for the same dates—the host gets four confirmations and trust dies. Search must surface geo-relevant stays in < 200 ms while calendars and pricing change constantly. Double-booking prevention and search ranking are the interview core.
Design a vacation rental marketplace where guests search listings by location and dates, book stays, and pay hosts while hosts manage calendars and pricing. Trust collapses on double-booking and stale availability; search must be fast and geographically relevant.
You should support listing CRUD, geo search, availability calendars, booking with payment integration, and reviews. Be ready to explain overlap prevention, geo indexing, and hold/confirm flows under concurrent demand.
Constraints
Listings with photos, geo search and filters, availability calendar, book/cancel, payments integration, reviews
< 200 ms search p95, 99.99% booking path availability, no double-book on confirmed dates
150M users, millions of listings, peak holiday booking spikes per city, search QPS >> booking writes
Stages ahead
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