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Hello friends, if you are preparing for Software Engineering interviews, then you must prepare for System design questions because this is where most of the people struggle.
Even experienced programmers struggle to solve common questions like how to design WhatsApp or YouTube, or to answer the difference between an API Gateway vs. a Load Balancer, Horizontal vs. Vertical Scaling, and a forward proxy vs. a reverse proxy.
In today’s increasingly distributed world, the ability to architect robust and scalable systems is a fundamental skill sought after by top-tier tech companies.
System design interviews have become a crucial component in evaluating a candidate’s capacity to solve real-world challenges, assess trade-offs, and design systems that can handle complex requirements.
In the past, I have also shared about Database Sharding, System design topics, Microservice Architecture, and System design algorithms, and today, I am going to share system design questions for interviews.
In this article, I have 50+ system design interview questions carefully crafted to guide candidates from the foundational concepts to intricate design scenarios.
Whether you’re a beginner aiming to grasp the essentials or an experienced engineer seeking to refine your skills, these questions will not only prepare you for interviews but also improve your knowledge about system design and software architecture.
By the way, if you are preparing for System design interviews and want to learn System Design in depth, then you can also check out sites like ByteByteGo, Design Guru, Exponent, Educative, Codemia.io, Bugfree.ai, and Udemy, which have many great System design courses
50 System Design Interview Problems for 2026
Here is a list of 50 popular System design interview questions for beginners and experienced developers, which you can solve to start your preparation.
In this list, I have not only shared easy, medium, and hard system design problems but also concept-based questions like API Gateway vs Load Balancer or Microservice vs Monolithic.
You can practice these system design problems and questions for interviews.
System Design Concept-Based Questions
1. What is the difference between API Gateway and Load Balancer? [solution]
2. What is the difference between a reverse proxy and a forward proxy? (answer)
3. What is the difference between Horizontal scaling and vertical scaling? (answer)
4. What is the difference between Microservices and Monolithic architecture? (Answer)
5. What is the difference between vertical and horizontal partitioning?
6. What is a rate limiter? How does it work? (answer)
7. How does Single Sign-On (SSO) work? (answer)
8. How does Apache Kafka work? Why is it so fast? (answer)
9. Difference between Kafka, ActiveMQ, and RabbitMQ? (answer)
10. Difference between JWT, OAuth, and SAML? (answer)
11. What is Single Point Failsure? How to solve them? (answer)
12. How does OAuth 2.0 work? (answer)
13. How does a database replica work? (answer)
14. How does a load balancer work internally? (answer)
15. What is the difference between Authentication and Authorization? (answer)
Here is also a nice diagram from DesignGuru.io which explains the difference between vertical and horizontal database partitioning
Easy System Design Problems
Now, let’s jump into easy system design problems. These are common questions where you need to design a small utility that is used everywhere like a URL shortener:
1. How to Design a URL Shortener like TinyURL [solution]
2. How to Design a Text Storage Service like Pastebin? [solution]
3. Design a Content Delivery Network (CDN)? [solution]
4. Design Parking Garage [solution]
5. Design Vending Machine [solution]
6. How to Design a Distributed Key-Value Store
7. Design Distributed Cache
8. Design Distributed Job Scheduler
9. How to Design an Authentication System
10. How to Design Unified Payments Interface (UPI)
And here is a high-level design of YouTube from Educative.io for your reference:
Medium System Design Problems
Now, is the time to see medium difficulty of System design problems. These questions are neither easy nor very tough, but you need good knowledge of various software architecture components and system design concepts to answer them.
11. Design Instagram [solution]
12. How to Design Tinder
13. Design WhatsApp (solution)
14. How to Design Facebook
15. Design Twitter (solution)
16. Design Reddit
17. Design Netflix [solution]
18. Design YouTube [solution]
19. Design Google Search
20. Design an e-commerce store like Amazon
21. Design Spotify (solution)
22. Design TikTok
23. Design Shopify
24. Design Airbnb
25. Design Autocomplete for Search Engines
26. Design Rate Limiter (solution)
27. Design Distributed Message Queue like Kafka
28. Design Flight Booking System
29. Design Online Code Editor
30. Design Stock Exchange System
31. Design an Analytics Platform (Metrics & Logging)
32. Design Notification Service
33. Design Payment System
And here is a high-level system design of Netflix from DesignGurus.io, one of my favorite places for learning system design
Hard System Design Problems
Now, let’s see some hard questions that demand more effort from you. You may feel uncomfortable solving these questions, but by doing this, you become better.
34. How to Design a Location-Based Service like Yelp
35. Design Uber
36. Design a food delivery app like DoorDash
37. Design Google Docs
38. How to Design Google Maps
39. Design Zoom
40. How to Design a File Sharing System like Dropbox
41. How to Design a Ticket Booking System like BookMyShow
42. Design Distributed Web Crawler
43. How to Design a Code Deployment System
44. Design Distributed Cloud Storage like S3
45. How to Design a Distributed Locking Service
46. Design LeetCode (solution)
Here is a high-level design of Google Maps by Educative.io
And, if you need solutions to all of these problems, then they are also available in this GitHub repository by @ Ashish Pratap Singh: https://github.com/ashishps1/awesome-system-design-resources/blob/main/README.md#system-design-interview-problems
And now we will see the key resources for System design interview preparation
Best System Design Interviews Resources
And here is a curated list of the best system design books, online courses, and practice websites that you can check to better prepare for System design interviews. Most of these courses also answer questions I have shared here.
ByteByteGo: One of the most complete platforms for System Design and Coding interview preparation by Alex Xu, author of the popular System Design Interview- Insider Guide book, and other FAANG engineers. It contains all the content of the System Design Interview book volumes 1 and 2 and 7 other books, covering OOP Design, ML System Design, Gen AI System Design and much more. Currently, they are also offering a 50% discount, which makes them best resource. I took their lifetime plan because I know they will increase the price later when they add more content, and I also recommend all the folks to get their lifetime plan because it’s just 2.5X of the annual plan, but you get lifetime access and you will definitely need this down the road.
DesignGuru’s Grokking System Design Course: An interactive learning platform with hands-on exercises and real-world scenarios to strengthen your system design skills.
Codemia.io: This is another great platform to practice System design problems for interviews. It got more than 120+ System design problems; many of them are free and also a proper structure to solve them.
Educative’s System Design Course: An interactive learning platform with hands-on exercises and real-world scenarios to strengthen your system design skills.
Exponent: A specialized site for interview prep especially for FAANG companies like Amazon and Google. They also have a great system design course and many other material which can help you crack FAAN interviews.
“System Design Interview” by Alex Xu: This book provides an in-depth exploration of system design concepts, strategies, and interview preparation tips.
“Designing Data-Intensive Applications” by Martin Kleppmann: A comprehensive guide that covers the principles and practices for designing scalable and reliable systems.
LeetCode System Design Tag: LeetCode is a popular platform for technical interview preparation. The System Design tag on LeetCode includes a variety of questions to practice.
“System Design Primer” on GitHub: A curated list of resources, including articles, books, and videos, to help you prepare for system design interviews.
High Scalability Blog: A blog that features articles and case studies on the architecture of high-traffic websites and scalable systems.
YouTube Channels: Check out channels like “Gaurav Sen” (ex-Google engineer and founder of InterviewReddy.io and “Tech Dummies” for insightful videos on system design concepts and interview preparation.
image_credit - ByteByteGo
Remember to combine theoretical knowledge with practical application by working on real-world projects and participating in mock interviews.
Continuous practice and learning will undoubtedly enhance your proficiency in system design interviews.
That’s all about 55 System design interview problems for 2026. If you are preparing for technical interviews, then most likely you can solve these questions, but if you struggle, you can see the answer links, which go to free tutorials and YouTube videos as well as the online courses and books I have shared.
Whether you’re a candidate preparing for a technical interview or a seasoned professional looking to refine your skills, mastering system design is a pivotal step in advancing your career in the ever-evolving tech industry, and these questions will help you.
All the best !!
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