GeneralBackendDevOps/Cloud
Single Point of Failure
Also written as SPOF
Any single component in a system that, if it fails, takes down the whole system — a design weak point teams work to eliminate through redundancy.
Think of it like
Like a bridge with only one support pillar — remove it, and there's no bridge left, no matter how strong everything else was.
Junior or senior?
Junior sounds like
Hasn't identified a single point of failure in a system they worked on.
Senior sounds like
Can name one and describe what they did about it — added redundancy, or consciously accepted the risk.
Ask them
“Tell me about a single point of failure you identified in a real system. Did you fix it, or was the risk accepted?”