Welcome to the Pocket Worlds URL Shortener Take-Home Project! In this repository, we'd like you to demonstrate your engineering skills by creating a small Python project that implements a URL Shortener web service.
This project will serve as the primary jumping off point for our technical interviews. We expect you to spend a couple of hours building an MVP that meets the requirements in the Product Description. You are free to implement your solution and modify the provided template in the way that makes the most sense to you, but make sure to update the README accordingly so that it's clear how to run and test your project. During the interviews, you will be asked to demo your solution and discuss the reasoning behind your implementation decisions and their trade-offs. Be prepared to share your screen for live coding and problem solving with your interviewers based on this discussion.
Using the provided Python project template, your task is to implement a URL Shortener web service that exposes the following API endpoints:
- POST
/url/shorten: accepts a URL to shorten (e.g. https://www.google.com) and returns a short URL that can be resolved at a later time (e.g. http://localhost:8000/r/abc) - GET
r/<short_url>: resolve the given short URL (e.g. http://localhost:8000/r/abc) to its original URL (e.g. https://www.google.com). If the short URL is unknown, an HTTP 404 response is returned.
Your solution must support running the URL shortener service with multiple workers.
For example, it should be possible to start two instances of the service, make a request to shorten a URL to one instance, and be able to resolve that shortened URL by sending subsequent requests to the second instance.
To begin the project, clone this repository to your local machine:
git clone https://github.com/pocketzworld/url-shortener-tech-test.git
This repository contains a skeleton of the URL Shortener web service written in Python 3.11 using the FastAPI framework.
The API endpoints can be found in server.py.
A Makefile and Dockerfile are also included for your convenience to run and test the web service.
Note that you are not required to use Docker or the provided FastAPI skeleton for your implementation, if you are more comfortable with other tools or frameworks. Your solution must still meet the requirements described in the Project Description. The following sections will assume that you are using Docker and FastAPI, but feel free to update the project and make sure to modify the README to reflect how your implementation should be run and tested.
To run the web service in interactive mode, use the following command:
make run
This command will build a new Docker image (pw/url-shortener:latest) and start a container
instance in interactive mode.
By default, the web service will run on port 8000.
Swagger UI is available as part of the FastAPI framework that can be used to inspect and test the API endpoints of the URL shortener. To access it, start run the web service and go to http://localhost:8000/docs
When you have completed the project, please follow these guidelines for submission:
- Commit and push your code to your GitHub repository.
- Update this README with any additional instructions, notes, or explanations regarding your implementation, if necessary.
- Provide clear instructions on how to run and test your project.
- Share the repository URL with the hiring team or interviewer.
Feel free to be creative in how you approach this project. Your solution will be evaluated based on code quality, efficiency, and how well it meets the specified requirements. Be prepared to discuss the reasoning behind your implementation decisions and their trade-offs.
Remember that this project is the basis for the technical interviews, which do include live coding. We will not ask you to solve an algorithm, but you will be expected to demo your solution and explain your thought process.
Good luck, and we look forward to seeing your URL Shortener project! If you have any questions or need clarifications, please reach out to us.