A limit enforced per server is not a limit: ten servers each allowing a hundred requests a minute allow a thousand. And a counter per fixed window lets twice the limit through across a window boundary.
Infrastructure, platform and reliability engineers.
Your approach: Use diagrams or prose to explain responsibilities, state, capacity and failure behavior. Show the calculations requested by the question.
Token Bucket Rate Limiter. A limit enforced per server is not a limit: ten servers each allowing a hundred requests a minute allow a thousand. And a counter per fixed window lets twice the limit through across a window boundary. Work from the scoping questions below. State assumptions for any unspecified load, guarantee or target, then trace your design end to end. Explain one difficult case and a credible alternative; the worked example is a reference, not a required implementation.
Resolve the scoping questions for Token Bucket Rate Limiter. Separate stated behavior from assumptions, and identify what is outside your design.
Declare relevant volume, latency, freshness, quality or cost targets with units. Show calculations or an evaluation plan that can test them; unspecified targets are your assumptions, not hidden pass criteria.
Explain how your guarantees hold in a difficult case relevant to this subject. Address: What should callers observe after exhausting their quota? What is the required behavior if quota state cannot be reached?
Identify users, required behavior and exclusions. Answer: What identifies the caller and the operation being limited? What sustained rate and temporary burst are allowed?
Define the information owned by the system and the inputs, outputs and errors at its boundaries. Resolve: Must the quota hold across simultaneous requests on several gateways? What should callers observe after exhausting their quota?
Estimate the dominant workload and resource demand with units and explicit assumptions. For a learned system, also state how quality is measured and what data is available.
Draw or describe the responsibilities needed for Token Bucket Rate Limiter. Trace a representative request, event or job from its input to a visible result; identify durable state owners.
Walk through a difficult case step by step, including detection and recovery. Consider: What is the required behavior if quota state cannot be reached?
Compare a credible alternative using your chosen workload and guarantees. Explain a remaining risk, a signal to watch and when you would change the design.