[motorest]

> I've failed system design interview where they repeatedly asked me to design "for scale" but all the volume and latency requirements I could get from them could be handled by a single HA pair running a monolithic server+ external managed data store.

It's nice that you estimated throughputs and provided your assessment. Odds are that's not the problem you were tasked to solve?

I mean, arguing your way out of proposing a design for scale reads as if you're at a test and you're claiming you shouldn't be asked some questions.

> They also seemed annoyed that I am asking them questions that are not part of the problem statement instead of getting down to drawing a fancy diagram.

Clarifying questions are an expected part of the process, but by it's own nature the design process is iterative and has a initial design on where to iterate over. If you do not show forward progress or present any tangible design, your own system design skills are immediately called into question as, in the very least, it shows you're succumbing to analysis paralysis.

Think about it: you're presented with a problem, and your contribution is to complain about the problem instead of actually offering a solution? What do you think is the output valued by interviewers?