Crack System Design Interviews with These 6 High-Impact Problems
Preparing for System design? Here are my favorite System Design Problems from interviews which you can use to practice
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System design is one of the biggest hurdles in getting a job at Amazon, Google, Netflix, or most startups. I have seen many experienced developers with years of experience on their resumes struggle in this round due to a lack of preparation and knowledge.
That’s why it's extremely important to prepare well for interviews. It's best to start by preparing for frequently asked System design problems, such as designing YouTube and WhatsApp.
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, DesignGuru, Exponent, Educative, Bugfree.ai, Codemia.io, Bugfree.ai, and Udemy, which have many great System design courses.
Here are my favorite System design problems you can also use to start with. I have also linked to a detailed article where you can find the solution, but I suggest you try it on your own before looking at it:
6 System Design Problems for Practice
Here are a couple of my favorite System design questions to learn essential System design concepts and principles
1. Design YouTube or any other video streaming service like Netflix, Hotstar, or SonyLiv (Solution)
We all have used YouTube, and the best thing about this question is that we all are familiar with most of the functionality, but when it comes to designing it, it’s tricky. Since we are only considering the technical aspect and not the functional one, this is a good question to start with.
Think about different functions, scalability, performance, and resiliency.
If you cannot solve it, see this solution for a detailed discussion.
2. Design WhatsApp or any other chat system (Solution)
Similar to the previous question, think about message distribution, recovery, and scalability.
3. Designing a URL Shortening service like TinyURL (Solution)
This is a classic system design question that tests your ability to design a read-heavy, high-throughput service with real-world constraints like vanity URLs, expiration policies, and hash collisions.
What you'll practice:
