Parking Application System Design

You’re a data engineer and have been tasked with designing an app that allows users to find parking spots across a city. The app makes available parking spots across the city leased from various other organizations and companies.

You can assume that the list of available spots will be made available to you in a raw format, so you don’t need to worry about who owns which spot, for example.

How would you, as a data engineer, design the system that supports this application? You may make any needed assumptions, but be sure to identify them clearly.

Keep a few things in mind:

• The app will have a machine learning component that updates prices in real time in response to demand. You don’t have to design the ML algorithm, but the app will have to use its outputs. Once a user commits to a spot, the per-hour price for that spot does not change.
• The app needs to know the user’s location and should be able to return multiple nearby and available parking spots.
• The app should be able to display to the user how much cost they’ve incurred so far once they’ve parked.
• Be sure to identify the functional and non-functional requirements of the design.