Real-Time Polling API — Technical Assessment

The Situation

This was the second half of a Tech Lead technical assessment for a hiring process.

The Task

Deploy a simple REST API application using C# on Linux
Deploy a simple WebSocket application using C# on Linux

The Action

I combined both requirements into one working example — a "Live Polling & Voting" app where:

The REST API handles poll creation — submitting a question and a set of options
Votes are cast and results update in real time via WebSocket, so anyone viewing the poll sees vote counts and percentages change live without refreshing
Everything runs on a Linux host, deployed under my own domain so it's reachable for review

Screenshot

Live polling and voting app, built with a C# REST API and WebSocket

The Result

Rather than building two disconnected toy endpoints to satisfy the letter of the requirement, I picked one small feature — live polling — that genuinely needs both a REST API (create/fetch polls) and a WebSocket connection (live vote updates) to work, so the two requirements demonstrate one real-time system instead of two unrelated snippets.

Note: this was a take-home technical assessment for a hiring process, not a production product — details of the hiring company have intentionally been left out.