System Design Interview Mastery: From Basics to Advanced Architectures
Master system design interviews with our comprehensive guide. Learn to design scalable systems, handle high traffic, and impress senior engineers with your architectural thinking.
Understanding System Design Interviews
System design interviews test your ability to design large-scale systems. Unlike coding interviews that focus on algorithms, these interviews evaluate your architectural thinking, trade-off analysis, and understanding of distributed systems.
Core Principles
Scalability
Design systems that can handle increasing load through horizontal and vertical scaling.
Reliability
Ensure systems remain functional even when components fail.
Availability
Minimize downtime and ensure high uptime percentages.
Performance
Optimize for speed, throughput, and response times.
Common System Design Questions
- • Design a URL shortener (like bit.ly)
- • Design a chat application (like WhatsApp)
- • Design a social media feed (like Twitter)
- • Design a video streaming service (like Netflix)
- • Design a search engine (like Google)
- • Design a ride-sharing service (like Uber)
Step-by-Step Approach
Clarify Requirements
Ask about functional and non-functional requirements, scale, and constraints.
High-Level Design
Create a basic architecture with major components and their interactions.
Deep Dive
Discuss specific components, data models, and algorithms in detail.
Scale and Optimize
Address bottlenecks, caching, load balancing, and scaling strategies.
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