Turing 
1900 Embarcadero Road #104, 
Palo Alto, California 94303, U.S.A 

Backend Challenge 
Overview 
In this challenge, you will build the backend of an e-commerce system which allows users to 
search, add items to their shopping cart, create orders, and checkout successfully. 

Given a database in MySQL (​Github​), you will need to implement the backend. Note that our 
challenge templates for the backend come already setup to use the Turing MySQL database. 

Please feel free to use whatever frameworks/languages you feel most comfortable using. We 
offer challenge templates in some languages that we have high demand for (Node.js, PHP 
Laravel, ASP.net, and Python Django). We have fewer customers interested in engineers skilled 
in other technologies, but they still exist and we can match you if you do exceptional work in this 
project. 

Any advanced techniques, tools, frameworks used in the code will also give you bonus points. 
Please add notes in the readme file so we can easily find and evaluate them. 

Our customer companies have very high standards for software engineers, so please do your 
best possible work here to impress them. 

Before You Start 

Prior to starting your challenge, you are required to set up your account on our 
Workspace​ site. It is built to provide you a good way to communicate with our Turing team while 
helping you track your own working time. 

Successfully set up your account on the site above will mark the start of your challenge. If you 
found that you have time to complete the challenge, please do the following: 

 
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1. Visit the following link when you are ready to start: ​Workspace 
2. Sign in with your Turing account and follow the instructions. 
3. Set up your stand up time on the S
​ tandups​ tab and make a report daily starting the next 
day 
4. Create tasks and use our time tracking system on the ​Workspace​ tab once you are 
working on the challenge. 

The actions above are ​mandatory​ to work on this challenge. ​Failing to do so will negatively 
affect your candidacy​. 

Code Template 
If you plan to implement the challenge using NodeJS, Django, ASP.net, or Laravel we 
provide Back End templates. Using one of these templates will greatly save your time on the 
project and help with our evaluation. We also offer the ability for challenges built off of these 
templates to be automatically hosted by us. More information about the templates can be found 
inside the links below: 

NodeJS Back End Template 

Laravel Back End Template 

Django Back End Template 

ASP.net Back End Template 

Getting Started - Important 

1. Endpoints 
a. Follow the ​API Template Document i​ n this l​ ink​, All endpoints, inputs, and outputs 
need to be ​exactly matched​ this documentation. This is your guide. 
2. Database 
a. You must use our Turing database’s data to implement the whole project, but you 
can modify the structure to fit your advanced implementation if you need. Our 
challenge templates come setup with our DB. 
3. Errors 

 
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a. Use this l​ ink​ to check the ​list of errors​, you need to use these codes and 
messages. 
4. Authentication 
a. The Authentication should use a header param named '​USER-KEY'​ using Bearer 
scheme.  
b. Your application needs to return the key preceded by the word 'Bearer' at 
'/customers' and '/customers/login'. 
5. Payment 
a. You should use our Stripe API key ​'sk_test_lomdOfxbm7QDgZWvR82UhV6D' ​to do 
the charge. 
b. You should send the '​ order_id'​ on metadata property to Stripe. 

Core expectations 
1. Project structure:​ Use best practices for your project structure so it can be scaled easily. 

2. Error handling:  

a. Clear error handling flows 

b. Document API errors:​ L
​ et your API callers know which errors might come in 
return so they can handle these thoughtfully without crashing.  
c. Use loggers to increase error visibility 

3. Functionalities:​ Work as expected. Precise inputs/outputs. Users can go through flows 

smoothly. No critical bugs. 

4. System Design:​ Use the most advanced backend architecture as you can. 

5. Coding:​ Clean code with best practices. Good coding style. Good comments. Easy to 
read, debug, and extend the APIs. 

6. Performance:  

a. The API should be able to support a high number of requests with low latency, 
CPU usage. If you can prove that through APM tools, that’s great. 

b. Use state management and caching techniques 

 
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7. Security:​ Use best practice to avoid DOS attacks, query injection vulnerabilities, 
cross-site scripting... 

8. Testing:​ You should add test cases for the main functions of the system. 

9. Deployment:​ Host your solution online and provide the URL. You may also use our 
hosting functionality if you used one of our challenge templates or if your project 
otherwise meets our hosting requirements (described below). 

10. Documentation:​ Describe the architecture, technologies you use in your documents and 
readme file (visually with images, diagrams…). Provide clear backend API documentation 
so other developers can follow and use your APIs easily. 

11. Source Code:​ please upload your source code on Github, set it private, and invite 
TuringCom as Collaborator. 

Feature requirements 
1. Users can view all items when entering the website 
2. Items are displayed properly based on the selected department and category 
3. Users can search items through search box 
4. Support paging if we have too many items 
5. Users can see item details by selecting a specific item 
6. Users can add items to their shopping carts 
7. Users can register/login using website custom forms, or social login libraries 
8. Users can update personal profiles with shipping addresses and other info 
9. Users can checkout with Stripe payment gateways. This requirement is ​mandatory​, you 
must use the related APIs for the payment. 
10. Users will get confirmations over emails about their orders 
11. Clear unused shopping cart frequently. 

Advanced requirements 

1. The current system can support 100,000 daily active users. How do you design a 
new system to support 1,000,000 daily active users? 
 
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● Describe your design clearly in the documentation so we can follow your 
steps 
● Implement backend code + database if possible 

2. A half of the daily active users come from the United States. How do you design 
a new system to handle this case? 
● Describe your design clearly in the documentation so we can follow your steps 
● Implement backend code + database if possible 

Design 
Please check out the design at ​Github​ to have a clearer product vision. 

Automated Hosting 
To help save you time, we offer the ability to host your project in an automated fashion. To use 
this feature, submit your project by filling in the form below. If you built your project using one of 
our challenge templates, then your project is already set up to be automatically hosted by us 
upon submission and you do not need to do anything extra. If you wish to have us host a custom 
solution that you built, then your project must contain an appropriate Dockerfile and entrypoint 
shell script. You can find an example setup in one of our backend challenge templates listed 
below: 

NodeJS Back End Template 

Laravel Back End Template 

Django Back End Template 

ASP.net Back End Template 

What to Submit  
Once you finished the whole project or the submission deadline is over, you may either 
submit your project to us via the form below or email. 

 
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If you wish to submit your project via our automated hosting and submission form, 
ensure that your project conforms to the Automated Hosting guidelines above, and then fill out 
the form appropriately. The source code that you upload should be in a .zip format. 

Please send an email to s

​ oftwarejobs@turing.com​ with the following information: your 
full name, the source code link, hours spent on the project, hosted link, documentation about the 
back end architecture, API documentation.  

Lastly, please log in to ​Workspace​ again and set up the N

​ otifications​(by clicking your 
Account Name) to stop sending reminder emails to your email address. 

Question 

If you have any question or concern about our challenge. Please send an email to 

softwarejobs@turing.com or create an issue on the Github repository we have given. We already 

created a list of Frequently Asked Questions, feel free to check it out: ​FAQ