🎯 When to Use
Any network call to an external service — databases, APIs, message queues. Transient failures (network blips, brief overloads) are expected in distributed systems.
⚖️ Trade-offs
Retry storms if not careful; idempotency required for safe retries; set max retry limit and max cap on delay. Distinguish retryable from non-retryable errors.
💡 Interview Tip
"Always combine backoff with jitter in production. Cap the max delay (e.g., 32s). Distinguish retryable (503, 429) from non-retryable (400, 404) errors."