System Design

Part of the Interview Prep Roadmap. Coverage ratings are explained there.

Core principles — scalability, load balancing, caching, trade-offs — applied to concrete systems like URL shorteners, delivery platforms, and social feeds.

Coverage: moderate

Resources · System Design Primer — work through it end to end · ByteByteGo system design newsletter

Design Fundamentals

• Functional and non-functional requirements
• Capacity estimation
• CAP theorem and consistency vs. availability

Practice

• Architect for massive unstructured data — World University
• Design an API for a music streaming service — AppsCode

Scalability

• Vertical vs. horizontal scaling
• Load balancing strategies
• Statelessness and session handling

Practice

• 1000 requests per second through a load balancer — ShopUp

Data Layer

• Database selection for scale
• Replication and sharding
• Caching strategies and eviction policies
• Content delivery networks

Practice

• Schema for a warehouse inventory system — Chaldal

Communication Patterns

• Synchronous vs. asynchronous communication
• Message queues and event-driven design
• Rate limiting

Practice

• Authentication across microservices — Priyo

Reliability & Observability

• Redundancy and failover
• Monitoring, logging, and alerting
• Graceful degradation

Classic Design Problems

• URL shortener
• Social media feed
• E-commerce product listing
• Delivery and logistics platforms

Practice

• Design a URL shortener — Spectrum
• Design a social media system — Astha IT
• Real-time electricity meter monitoring — RoBenDevs, with answer
• Nationwide restaurant delivery — RoBenDevs, with answer
• Backend for internet banking — Optimizely, with answer
• A file/text compression system — Chaldal