Comprehensive System Design Interview Guide
Basics
What is System Design?
System Design is the process of defining the components, data flow, interfaces, and architecture to
meet specified requirements.
Vertical vs Horizontal Scaling?
Vertical Scaling: Increasing resources (CPU, RAM) in a single machine. Horizontal Scaling: Adding
more machines to distribute load.
Load Balancing
Distributes incoming traffic across multiple servers for fault tolerance and better performance.
CAP Theorem
Consistency, Availability, Partition Tolerance – a distributed system can only strongly guarantee two
at a time.
Intermediate
Caching Strategies
Techniques like write-through, write-around, and write-back improve performance by storing
frequently accessed data in faster storage.
Database Sharding
Splitting databases into smaller shards for better performance and scalability.
Message Queues
Systems like Kafka, RabbitMQ handle asynchronous communication between services ensuring
reliability and scalability.
CDN
Geographically distributed servers that deliver content faster to users based on location.
Advanced
Design URL Shortener
Requirements: unique short IDs, scalability, availability. Challenges: collision handling, database
partitioning, caching popular links.
Design Chat System (WhatsApp)
Key points: message delivery via WebSockets, data replication, offline message storage, scaling to
millions of users.
Design News Feed (Facebook/Twitter)
Fan-out on write vs fan-out on read strategies, caching, ranking algorithms, real-time updates.
Design Video Streaming (YouTube/Netflix)
Consider storage (chunked video files), CDN, adaptive bitrate streaming, recommendation system,
load balancing.
Case Studies
Design Uber
Core components: rider/driver matching, location tracking, surge pricing, fault tolerance. Scaling:
sharding based on geography, caching nearby drivers, event-driven communication.
Design E-commerce Platform (Amazon)
Features: product catalog, shopping cart, order processing, payment systems, recommendation
engines, inventory management. Challenges: scalability during peak sales, database sharding, high
availability.
Design Instagram
Photo storage (object storage like S3), CDN for fast delivery, feed generation, follower graph
storage, caching popular posts.
Design Google Docs (Collaborative Editor)
Real-time collaboration using Operational Transformation (OT) or CRDT, conflict resolution,
distributed storage, scaling to millions of concurrent users.
