How do you handle errors when using `async/await`?

0-2 years experience

1. 1You need to fetch user data with fetch and async/await. How would you catch a network error and return a default object?
2. 2If an async function throws inside a try block, what does the caller receive if you don't use try/catch?

2-5 years experience

1. 1We have a function that calls two async services sequentially. It sometimes fails on the second call, leaving the first call's side effects persisted. How would you restructure error handling to ensure consistency?
2. 2During debugging you notice an unhandled promise rejection warning even though you wrapped the await in try/catch. What could cause that?

5-8 years experience

1. 1Our microservice layer uses async/await throughout and we need a centralized way to log and transform errors before they bubble up. How would you design such a mechanism without losing stack traces?
2. 2When scaling to thousands of concurrent requests, what impact does using try/catch in every async handler have on performance, and how would you mitigate any overhead?

8+ years experience

1. 1We are migrating a legacy callback‑heavy codebase to async/await across multiple teams. What strategy would you use to enforce consistent error handling patterns and avoid silent failures?
2. 2How would you integrate async/await error handling with a distributed tracing system to ensure errors are captured across service boundaries?