Item Challenge

Welcome! This is a take-home coding assignment for a software engineering position. In this challenge, you'll be building a simplified version of an exam item management API with cloud infrastructure.

Once you're ready to get started, read through GETTING_STARTED.md.

Your Task (1-3 hours)

Please do not spend more than 3 hours on this. It is not expected for your solution to be perfectly polished and we want to be respectful of your time.

Build a simplified exam item management system that demonstrates your ability to design scalable, secure APIs with proper cloud infrastructure.

1. API Implementation (TypeScript + Node.js)

Create API endpoints for managing exam items:

POST   /api/items              - Create a new exam item
GET    /api/items/:id          - Retrieve an item
PUT    /api/items/:id          - Update an item
GET    /api/items              - List items (with pagination)
POST   /api/items/:id/versions - Create a new version of an item
GET    /api/items/:id/audit    - Get audit trail for an item

Goals:

• Write handlers designed for AWS Lambda (serverless architecture)
• Implement proper error handling and validation
• Use appropriate HTTP status codes for responses
• Focus on 2-3 endpoints working well rather than all 6 partially done

Note: A local development server is provided for testing. Your handlers should be written with Lambda deployment in mind, but you'll test them locally.

2. Infrastructure as Code

Define the cloud infrastructure needed to deploy this system using either AWS CDK or Terraform (your choice).

Goals:

• Use AWS CDK (TypeScript preferred) OR Terraform
• Define resources: Lambda functions, API Gateway, DynamoDB (optional), IAM roles, CloudWatch logs
• Include comments explaining your design choices
• Define environment-specific configurations
• You do not need to actually deploy - just provide valid infrastructure code

Validation:

• For CDK: Run cdk synth to validate
• For Terraform: Run terraform plan to validate

3. Data Modeling

Design storage for exam items with this structure:

{
  id: string,
  subject: string,           // e.g., "AP Biology", "AP Calculus"
  itemType: string,          // "multiple-choice", "free-response", "essay"
  difficulty: number,        // 1-5
  content: {
    question: string,
    options?: string[],      // For multiple choice
    correctAnswer: string,
    explanation: string
  },
  metadata: {
    author: string,
    created: timestamp,
    lastModified: timestamp,
    version: number,
    status: string,          // "draft", "review", "approved", "archived"
    tags: string[]
  },
  securityLevel: string      // "standard", "secure", "highly-secure"
}

Goals:

• Support versioning (keep history of changes)
• Design appropriate DynamoDB keys and indexes (documented in ARCHITECTURE.md)
• Implement basic CRUD operations

Note: An in-memory storage implementation is provided for local testing. You can optionally implement DynamoDB storage if you want to go the extra mile.

4. Architectural Decision Document

Include a brief ARCHITECTURE.md file (template provided) covering:

• Data model design and DynamoDB schema
• Infrastructure choices and rationale
• Scalability & performance considerations
• Security approach
• Trade-offs and future improvements

🚀 Project Setup

See GETTING_STARTED.md for detailed setup instructions.

Quick start:

pnpm install
pnpm dev

What We're Evaluating

• Code Quality: Clean, readable, maintainable code
• AWS Knowledge: Proper use of Lambda, API Gateway, DynamoDB, IAM, CloudWatch
• Infrastructure as Code: Well-structured CDK/Terraform with best practices
• NoSQL Design: Appropriate key design and access patterns
• Testing: Well-structured tests with good coverage of core functionality (optional but encouraged)
• Prioritization: How you approach the time constraint

Submission

Please fork this repository and submit your completed solution by sharing your forked repo link with your recruiter.

Include the following in your submission:

• Instructions on how to run your solution locally
• Include a brief ARCHITECTURE.md describing your system’s structure and key components
  Good luck! We're excited to see your solution.

See also the Glossary for definitions of key terms used in this challenge.