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System Design Interview

00 Foreword 04
A Framework For Syste
01 Join the Community

02 Scale From Zero To Millions Of

Design Interviews
Users You have just landed a coveted on-site interview at you
company. The hiring coordinator sends you a schedule for t
03 Back-of-the-envelope
Estimation
Scanning down the list, you feel pretty good about it until your e
on this interview session - System Design Interview.
04 AInterviews
Framework For System Design System design interviews are often intimidating. It could be as
“designing a well-known product X?”. The questions are ambigu
seem unreasonably broad. Your weariness is understandable.
05 Design A Rate Limiter how could anyone design a popular product in an hour that h
hundreds if not thousands of engineers to build?
06 Design Consistent Hashing The good news is that no one expects you to. Real-world system
is extremely complicated. For example, Google search is de
simple; however, the amount of technology that underpins that s
07 Design A Key-value Store is truly astonishing. If no one expects you to design a real-world
in an hour, what is the benefit of a system design interview?
08 Design A Unique ID Generator The system design interview simulates real-life problem solvin
In Distributed Systems two co-workers collaborate on an ambiguous problem and come
a solution that meets their goals. The problem is open-ended, a
09 Design A URL Shortener is no perfect answer. The final design is less important compare
work you put in the design process. This allows you to demonst
design skill, defend your design choices, and respond to feedb
10 Design A Web Crawler constructive manner.

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Let us flip the table and consider what goes through the inte
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head as she walksNewsletter
into the conferenceYouTube
room to meet you.Login
The
goal of the interviewer is to accurately assess your abilities.
thing she wants is to give an inconclusive evaluation beca
session has gone poorly and there are not enough signals. W
System Design Interview interviewer looking for in a system design interview?
Many think that system design interview is all about a person's
design skills. It is much more than that. An effective system
00 Foreword interview gives strong signals about a person's ability to collab
work under pressure, and to resolve ambiguity constructively. T
01 Join the Community to ask good questions is also an essential skill, and many inte
specifically look for this skill.
A good interviewer also looks for red flags. Over-engineering
02 Scale
Users
From Zero To Millions Of
disease of many engineers as they delight in design purity an
tradeoffs. They are often unaware of the compounding costs
03 Back-of-the-envelope
Estimation
engineered systems, and many companies pay a high price
ignorance. You certainly do not want to demonstrate this tende
system design interview. Other red flags include narrow mind
04 AInterviews
Framework For System Design stubbornness, etc.
In this chapter, we will go over some useful tips and introduce
05 Design A Rate Limiter and effective framework to solve system design interview proble
A 4-step process for effective
06 Design Consistent Hashing
system design interview
Every system design interview is different. A great system
07 Design A Key-value Store interview is open-ended and there is no one-size-fits-all
However, there are steps and common ground to cover in ever
08 Design A Unique ID Generator
In Distributed Systems
design interview.
Step 1 - Understand the problem and
09 Design A URL Shortener establish design scope
"Why did the tiger roar?"
10 Design A Web Crawler A hand shot up in the back of the class.
"Yes, Jimmy?", the teacher responded.
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"Because he was HUNGRY".

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"Very good Jimmy.Newsletter
" YouTube Login
Throughout his childhood, Jimmy has always been the first to
questions in the class. Whenever the teacher asks a question,
System Design Interview always a kid in the classroom who loves to take a crack at the q
no matter if he knows the answer or not. That is Jimmy.
Jimmy is an ace student. He takes pride in knowing all the answ
00 Foreword In exams, he is usually the first person to finish the questions
teacher's top choice for any academic competition.
01 Join the Community DON'T be like Jimmy.
In a system design interview, giving out an answer quickly
02 Scale From Zero To Millions Of thinking gives you no bonus points. Answering without a t
Users understanding of the requirements is a huge red flag as the int
not a trivia contest. There is no right answer.
03 Back-of-the-envelope
Estimation So, do not jump right in to give a solution. Slow down. Think de
ask questions to clarify requirements and assumptions. This is e
04 AInterviews
Framework For System Design important.
As an engineer, we like to solve hard problems and jump into
design; however, this approach is likely to lead you to design th
05 Design A Rate Limiter system. One of the most important skills as an engineer is to
right questions, make the proper assumptions, and gather
06 Design Consistent Hashing information needed to build a system. So, do not be afraid
questions.
When you ask a question, the interviewer either answers your
07 Design A Key-value Store directly or asks you to make your assumptions. If the latter h
write down your assumptions on the whiteboard or paper. Yo
08 Design A Unique ID Generator need them later.
In Distributed Systems
What kind of questions to ask? Ask questions to understand t
requirements. Here is a list of questions to help you get started:
09 Design A URL Shortener
What specific features are we going to build?
How many users does the product have?
10 Design A Web Crawler How fast does the company anticipate to scale up? What
anticipated scales in 3 months, 6 months, and a year?
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What is the company’s technology stack? What existing

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you might leverage YouTube Login
to simplify the design?
Example
If you are asked to design a news feed system, you wan
System Design Interview questions that help you clarify the requirements. The conv
between you and the interviewer might look like this:
00 Foreword Candidate: Is this a mobile app? Or a web app? Or both?
Interviewer: Both.
Candidate: What are the most important features for the produc
01 Join the Community Interviewer: Ability to make a post and see friends’ news feed.
Candidate: Is the news feed sorted in reverse chronological o
02 Scale
Users
From Zero To Millions Of particular order? The particular order means each post is
different weight. For instance, posts from your close friends a
important than posts from a group.
03 Back-of-the-envelope
Estimation Interviewer: To keep things simple, let us assume the feed is s
reverse chronological order.
04 AInterviews
Framework For System Design Candidate: How many friends can a user have?
Interviewer: 5000
05 Design A Rate Limiter Candidate: What is the traffic volume?
Interviewer: 10 million daily active users (DAU)
Candidate: Can feed contain images, videos, or just text?
06 Design Consistent Hashing Interviewer: It can contain media files, including both ima
videos.
07 Design A Key-value Store Above are some sample questions that you can ask your intervie
important to understand the requirements and clarify ambiguitie
08 Design A Unique ID Generator
In Distributed Systems Step 2 - Propose high-level design an
get buy-in
09 Design A URL Shortener In this step, we aim to develop a high-level design and r
agreement with the interviewer on the design. It is a great
10 Design A Web Crawler collaborate with the interviewer during the process.
Come up with an initial blueprint for the design. Ask for fe
Treat your interviewer as a teammate and work together. Ma
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11/13/24, 11:30 AM ByteByteGo | Technical Interview Prep

interviewers love to talk and get involved.

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Draw box diagrams YouTube
with key components on the Login
paper. This might include clients (mobile/web), APIs, web
white
data stores, cache, CDN, message queue, etc.
Do back-of-the-envelope calculations to evaluate if your
System Design Interview fits the scale constraints. Think out loud. Communicate w
interviewer if back-of-the-envelope is necessary before di
it.
00 Foreword
If possible, go through a few concrete use cases. This will
frame the high-level design. It is also likely that the use cases wo
01 Join the Community you discover edge cases you have not yet considered.
Should we include API endpoints and database schema he
02 Scale
Users
From Zero To Millions Of depends on the problem. For large design problems like “Desig
search engine”, this is a bit of too low level. For a problem like d
the backend for a multi-player poker game, this is a fa
03 Back-of-the-envelope
Estimation Communicate with your interviewer.
Example
04 AInterviews
Framework For System Design
Let us use “Design a news feed system” to demonstrate
approach the high-level design. Here you are not required to un
05 Design A Rate Limiter how the system actually works. All the details will be explaine
"Design A News Feed System" chapter.
At the high level, the design is divided into two flows: feed p
06 Design Consistent Hashing and news feed building.
Feed publishing: when a user publishes a post, correspond
07 Design A Key-value Store is written into cache/database, and the post will be popul
friends’ news feed.
Newsfeed building: the news feed is built by aggregating
08 Design A Unique ID Generator
In Distributed Systems posts in a reverse chronological order.
Figure 1 and Figure 2 present high-level designs for feed publis
09 Design A URL Shortener news feed building flows, respectively.

10 Design A Web Crawler

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System Design Interview

00 Foreword

01 Join the Community

02 Scale
Users
From Zero To Millions Of

03 Back-of-the-envelope
Estimation

04 AInterviews
Framework For System Design

05 Design A Rate Limiter

06 Design Consistent Hashing

07 Design A Key-value Store

08 Design A Unique ID Generator

In Distributed Systems
Figure 1
09 Design A URL Shortener

10 Design A Web Crawler

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System Design Interview

00 Foreword

01 Join the Community

02 Scale
Users
From Zero To Millions Of

03 Back-of-the-envelope
Estimation

04 AInterviews
Framework For System Design

05 Design A Rate Limiter

Figure 2
06 Design Consistent Hashing
Step 3 - Design deep dive
07 Design A Key-value Store At this step, you and your interviewer should have already achi
following objectives:
08 Design A Unique ID Generator
In Distributed Systems Agreed on the overall goals and feature scope
Sketched out a high-level blueprint for the overall design
09 Design A URL Shortener Obtained feedback from your interviewer on the high-level d
Had some initial ideas about areas to focus on in deep dive b
her feedback
10 Design A Web Crawler
You shall work with the interviewer to identify and prioritize com
in the architecture. It is worth stressing that every interview is d
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11/13/24, 11:30 AM ByteByteGo | Technical Interview Prep

Sometimes, the interviewer may give off hints that she likes foc
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high-level design.Newsletter
Sometimes, for a YouTube
senior candidate Login
discussion could be on the system performance characteristi
interv
focusing on the bottlenecks and resource estimations. In mos
the interviewer may want you to dig into details of some
System Design Interview components. For URL shortener, it is interesting to dive into
function design that converts a long URL to a short one. Fo
system, how to reduce latency and how to support online/offlin
00 Foreword are two interesting topics.
Time management is essential as it is easy to get carried aw
01 Join the Community minute details that do not demonstrate your abilities. You must b
with signals to show your interviewer. Try not to get into unn
details. For example, talking about the EdgeRank algorithm of F
02 Scale
Users
From Zero To Millions Of feed ranking in detail is not ideal during a system design intervie
takes much precious time and does not prove your ability in de
scalable system.
03 Back-of-the-envelope
Estimation Example
04 AInterviews
Framework For System Design At this point, we have discussed the high-level design for a ne
system, and the interviewer is happy with your proposal. Next
investigate two of the most important use cases:
05 Design A Rate Limiter 1. Feed publishing
2. News feed retrieval
06 Design Consistent Hashing Figure 3 and Figure 4 show the detailed design for the two us
which will be explained in detail in the "Design A News Feed
07 Design A Key-value Store chapter.

08 Design A Unique ID Generator

In Distributed Systems

09 Design A URL Shortener

10 Design A Web Crawler

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System Design Interview

00 Foreword

01 Join the Community

02 Scale
Users
From Zero To Millions Of

03 Back-of-the-envelope
Estimation

04 AInterviews
Framework For System Design

05 Design A Rate Limiter

06 Design Consistent Hashing Figure 3

07 Design A Key-value Store

08 Design A Unique ID Generator

In Distributed Systems

09 Design A URL Shortener

10 Design A Web Crawler

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System Design Interview

00 Foreword

01 Join the Community

02 Scale
Users
From Zero To Millions Of

03 Back-of-the-envelope
Estimation

04 AInterviews
Framework For System Design
Figure 4
05 Design A Rate Limiter
Step 4 - Wrap up
In this final step, the interviewer might ask you a few follow-up q
06 Design Consistent Hashing or give you the freedom to discuss other additional points. He
few directions to follow:
07 Design A Key-value Store The interviewer might want you to identify the system bot
and discuss potential improvements. Never say your d
perfect and nothing can be improved. There is always som
08 Design A Unique ID Generator
In Distributed Systems improve upon. This is a great opportunity to show you
thinking and leave a good final impression.
09 Design A URL Shortener It could be useful to give the interviewer a recap of your des
is particularly important if you suggested a few solutions. Re
your interviewer’s memory can be helpful after a long sessio
10 Design A Web Crawler Error cases (server failure, network loss, etc.) are interestin
about.
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Operation issues are worth mentioning. How do you monito

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and error logs?Newsletter YouTube Login
How to roll out the system?
How to handle the next scale curve is also an interesting t
example, if your current design supports 1 million use
changes do you need to make to support 10 million users?
System Design Interview Propose other refinements you need if you had more time.
To wrap up, we summarize a list of the Dos and Don’ts.
00 Foreword Dos
Always ask for clarification. Do not assume your assum
01 Join the Community correct.
Understand the requirements of the problem.
02 Scale From Zero To Millions Of There is neither the right answer nor the best answer. A
Users designed to solve the problems of a young startup is differ
that of an established company with millions of users. Make
03 Back-of-the-envelope
Estimation understand the requirements.
Let the interviewer know what you are thinking. Communic
your interview.
04 AInterviews
Framework For System Design
Suggest multiple approaches if possible.
Once you agree with your interviewer on the blueprint,
05 Design A Rate Limiter details on each component. Design the most critical com
first.
06 Design Consistent Hashing Bounce ideas off the interviewer. A good interviewer works
as a teammate.
Never give up.
07 Design A Key-value Store
Don’ts
Don't be unprepared for typical interview questions.
08 Design A Unique ID Generator
In Distributed Systems Don’t jump into a solution without clarifying the requirem
assumptions.
09 Design A URL Shortener Don’t go into too much detail on a single componen
beginning. Give the high-level design first then drills down.
If you get stuck, don't hesitate to ask for hints.
10 Design A Web Crawler Again, communicate. Don't think in silence.
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Don’t think your interview is done once you give the design
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not done until Newsletter
your interviewer saysYouTube
early and often.
you are done. AskLogin
for f

Time allocation on each step

System Design Interview System design interview questions are usually very broad,
minutes or an hour is not enough to cover the entire desig
00 Foreword

01 Join the Community

02 Scale
Users
From Zero To Millions Of

03 Back-of-the-envelope
Estimation

04 AInterviews
Framework For System Design

05 Design A Rate Limiter

06 Design Consistent Hashing

07 Design A Key-value Store

08 Design A Unique ID Generator

In Distributed Systems

09 Design A URL Shortener

10 Design A Web Crawler

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