What is the Factory pattern and when would you use it?

Short answer: The Factory pattern is a creational design pattern that provides an interface for creating objects but allows subclasses or implementations to decide which class to instantiate.

Explain a bit more

It’s used to encapsulate object creation, promoting loose coupling and flexibility when the exact types of objects aren’t known until runtime. Use case: When a class can’t anticipate the class of objects it needs to create, or when you want to delegate responsibility for object creation to subclasses.

Say this in the interview

1. Define — one clear sentence (the short answer above).
2. Example — relate it to a project like ShopNest or your real work.
3. Trade-off — when you would not use it.