Grokking The System Design Interview
Table of Contents
Transform Your Approach to System Design
System design interviews can feel like open-ended riddles until you have the right playbook. This course demystifies the process, helping you build scalable systems from scratch and communicate your decisions like a seasoned architect.
Course Overview
Imagine walking into a System Design interview where you’re asked to build the next Twitter, scale it overnight, and keep it running when the traffic spikes 100x, all in under an hour. No pressure, right? The truth is, System Design interviews aren’t about perfection; they’re about how you think, what you prioritize, and how clearly you can articulate your plan when the stakes are high.
This course is your training ground. We don’t just throw problems at you, we teach you how to untangle them. You’ll break down complex systems into manageable parts, map out trade-offs like a product-minded engineer, and apply a battle-tested framework to bring order to the chaos. It’s not about memorizing answers; it’s about learning to navigate ambiguity, push your thinking, and design like it matters. Because when you’re in the room, it does.
Grokking System Design Interview: Patterns & Mock Interviews
A modern approach to grokking the System Design Interview. Master distributed systems & architecture patterns for System Design Interviews and beyond. Developed by FAANG engineers. Used by 100K+ devs.
What You'll Learn
- Develop a strong understanding of how scalable and reliable systems are built in the real world.
- Dive deep into core infrastructure components like queues, caches, databases, and CDNs.
- Build fluency in applying modern architecture patterns used by top-tier engineering teams.
- Work through hands-on case studies inspired by real-world systems like YouTube, WhatsApp, and Google Docs.
- Practice making quick, accurate estimations under pressure.
- Analyze real system failures to sharpen your intuition and improve decision-making.
System Design Interviews
- Getting Ready for the System Design Interview
- Key Concepts to Prepare for the System Design Interview
- The Do’s and Don’ts of the System Design Interview
- Let AI Evaluate your System Design Interview Preparation
Introduction
- Introduction to Modern System Design
- Course Structure for Modern System Design
Abstractions
- Why Are Abstractions Important?
- Network Abstractions: Remote Procedure Calls
- Spectrum of Consistency Models
- The Spectrum of Failure Models
Non-Functional System Characteristics
- Availability
- Reliability
- Scalability
- Maintainability
- Fault Tolerance
- Let AI Evaluate Your Understanding of Non-Functional Requirements
Back-of-the-envelope Calculations
- Put Back-of-the-envelope Numbers in Perspective
- Examples of Resource Estimation
Building Blocks
- Introduction to Building Blocks for Modern System Design
Domain Name System
- Introduction to Domain Name System (DNS)
- How the Domain Name System Works
Load Balancers
- Introduction to Load Balancers
- Global and Local Load Balancing
- Advanced Details of Load Balancers
Databases
- Introduction to Databases
- Types of Databases
- Data Replication
- Data Partitioning
- Trade-offs in Databases
Key-value Store
- System Design: The Key-value Store
- Design of a Key-value Store
- Ensure Scalability and Replication
- Versioning Data and Achieving Configurability
- Enable Fault Tolerance and Failure Detection
Content Delivery Network (CDN)
- System Design: The Content Delivery Network (CDN)
- Introduction to a CDN
- Design of a CDN
- In-depth Investigation of CDN: Part 1
- In-depth Investigation of CDN: Part 2
- Evaluation of CDN’s Design
- Quiz on CDN’s Design
Sequencer
- System Design: Sequencer
- Design of a Unique ID Generator
- Unique IDs with Causality
Distributed Monitoring
- System Design: Distributed Monitoring
- Introduction to Distributed Monitoring
- Prerequisites of a Monitoring System
Monitor Server-side Errors
- Design of a Monitoring System
- Detailed Design of a Monitoring System
- Visualize Data in a Monitoring System
Monitor Client-side Errors
- Focus on Client-side Errors in a Monitoring System
- Design of a Client-side Monitoring System
Distributed Cache
- System Design: The Distributed Cache
- Background of Distributed Cache
- High-level Design of a Distributed Cache
- Detailed Design of a Distributed Cache
- Evaluation of a Distributed Cache’s Design
- Memcached versus Redis
Distributed Cache System Design
Mock Interview
Distributed Messaging Queue
- System Design: The Distributed Messaging Queue
- Requirements of a Distributed Messaging Queue’s Design
- Considerations of a Distributed Messaging Queue’s Design
- Design of a Distributed Messaging Queue: Part 1
- Design of a Distributed Messaging Queue: Part 2
- Evaluation of a Distributed Messaging Queue’s Design
- Quiz on the Distributed Messaging Queue’s Design
Pub-sub
- System Design: The Pub-sub Abstraction
- Introduction to Pub-sub
- Design of a Pub-sub System
Mock Interview
Rate Limiter
- System Design: The Rate Limiter
- Requirements of a Rate Limiter’s Design
- Design of a Rate Limiter
- Rate Limiter Algorithms
- Quiz on the Rate Limiter’s Design
Blob Store
- System Design: A Blob Store
- Requirements of a Blob Store’s Design
- Design of a Blob Store
- Design Considerations of a Blob Store
- Evaluation of a Blob Store’s Design
- Quiz on the Blob Store’s Design
Mock Interview
Distributed Search
- System Design: The Distributed Search
- Requirements of a Distributed Search System’s Design
- Indexing in a Distributed Search
- Design of a Distributed Search
- Scaling Search and Indexing
- Evaluation of a Distributed Search’s Design
Distributed Logging
- System Design: Distributed Logging
- Introduction to Distributed Logging
- Design of a Distributed Logging Service
Distributed Task Scheduler
- System Design: The Distributed Task Scheduler
- Requirements of a Distributed Task Scheduler’s Design
- Design of a Distributed Task Scheduler
- Design Considerations of a Distributed Task Scheduler
- Evaluation of a Distributed Task Scheduler’s Design
Sharded Counters
- System Design: The Sharded Counters
- High-level Design of Sharded Counters
- Detailed Design of Sharded Counters
- Quiz on the Sharded Counters’ Design
Concluding the Building Blocks Discussion
- AI Evaluation of Building Blocks in E-Commerce Platform
- AI Evaluation of Building Blocks in Online Education System
- Wrapping Up the Building Blocks Discussion
- The RESHADED Approach for System Design
Design YouTube
- System Design: YouTube
- Requirements of YouTube’s Design
- Design of YouTube
- Evaluation of YouTube’s Design
- The Reality Is More Complicated
- Quiz on YouTube’s Design
Mock Interview
Design Quora
- System Design: Quora
- Requirements of Quora’s Design
- Initial Design of Quora
- Final Design of Quora
- Evaluation of Quora’s Design
Design Google Maps
- System Design: Google Maps
- Requirements of Google Maps’ Design
- Design of Google Maps
- Challenges of Google Maps’ Design
- Detailed Design of Google Maps
- Evaluation of Google Maps’ Design
Design a Proximity Service / Yelp
- System Design: Yelp
- Requirements of Yelp’s Design
- Design of Yelp
- Design Considerations of Yelp
- Quiz on Yelp’s Design
Design Uber
- System Design: Uber
- Requirements of Uber’s Design
- High-level Design of Uber
- Detailed Design of Uber
- Payment Service and Fraud
- Detection in Uber Design
- Evaluation of Uber’s Design
- Quiz on Uber’s Design
Mock Interview
Design Twitter
- System Design: Twitter
- Requirements of Twitter’s Design
- High-level Design of Twitter
- Detailed Design of Twitter
- Client-side Load Balancer for Twitter
- Quiz on Twitter’s Design
Design Newsfeed System
- System Design: Newsfeed System
- Requirements of a Newsfeed System’s Design
- Design of a Newsfeed System
- Evaluation of a Newsfeed System’s Design
Design Instagram
- System Design: Instagram
- Requirements of Instagram’s Design
- Design of Instagram
- Detailed Design of Instagram
- Quiz on Instagram’s Design
Mock Interview
Design a URL Shortening Service / TinyURL
- System Design: TinyURL
- Requirements of TinyURL’s Design
- Design and Deployment of TinyURL
- Encoder for TinyURL
- Evaluation of TinyURL’s Design
- Quiz on TinyURL’s Design
Design a Web Crawler
- System Design: Web Crawler
- Requirements of a Web Crawler’s Design
- Design of a Web Crawler
- Design Improvements of a Web Crawler
- Evaluation of Web Crawler’s Design
Design WhatsApp
- System Design: WhatsApp
- Requirements of WhatsApp’s Design
- High-level Design of WhatsApp
- Detailed Design of WhatsApp
- Evaluation of WhatsApp’s Design
- Quiz on WhatsApp’s Design
Facebook Messenger System Design
Mock Interview
Design Typeahead Suggestion
- System Design: The Typeahead Suggestion System
- Requirements of the Typeahead Suggestion System’s Design
- High-level Design of the Typeahead Suggestion System
- Data Structure for Storing Prefixes
- Detailed Design of the Typeahead Suggestion System
- Evaluation of the Typeahead Suggestion System’s Design
- Quiz on the Typeahead Suggestion System’s Design
Design a Collaborative Document Editing Service / Google Docs
- System Design: Google Docs
- Requirements of Google Docs’ Design
- Design of Google Docs
- Concurrency in Collaborative Editing
- Evaluation of Google Docs’ Design
Spectacular Failures
- Introduction to Distributed System Failures
- Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, Oculus Outage
- AWS Kinesis Outage Affecting Many Organizations
- AWS Wide Spread Outage
Mock Interview
Concluding Remarks
- Conclusions
- Resources to Prepare for a System Design Interview
Ace your next system design interview
Master the patterns, practice real-world problems, and stand out.