Java LLD: Designing a Thread-Safe Parking Lot with Strategy Pattern

Designing a parking lot is a staple of Java LLD and machine coding interviews, yet most candidates fail to write production-grade code. As an ex-FAANG interviewer, I've seen countless designs fall apart under concurrent traffic or when asked to support multiple slot allocation algorithms.

If you're prepping for interviews, I've been building javalld.com — real machine coding problems with full execution traces.

The Mistake Most Candidates Make

Monolithic locking on the entire ParkingLot class: Using a global synchronized keyword on the entry method, which serializes all gate entries and destroys system throughput.