Design a Hotel / Airbnb Reservation System
Design a hotel or vacation rental reservation system like Booking.com or Airbnb. The core challenge isn’t the search UI — […]
System Design
System Design
Learn to design scalable, reliable systems that handle millions of users. System design interviews test your ability to architect real-world applications, considering tradeoffs, scalability, and best practices.
Core Topics:
Scalability: Load balancing, horizontal vs vertical scaling
Storage: Databases (SQL vs NoSQL), caching (Redis, Memcached)
Reliability: Replication, failover, disaster recovery
Performance: CDNs, caching strategies, database indexing
Common Design Questions:
Design URL shortener (bit.ly)
Design rate limiter
Design Twitter/Instagram feed
Design messaging system (WhatsApp)
Design file storage (Dropbox)
Interview Level: Senior engineers (L5+) at FAANG companies. Requires 3-5+ years experience to tackle effectively.
Preparation: Study system design patterns, understand distributed systems fundamentals, and practice mock interviews.
System Design
Design a Proximity Service (Yelp / Nearby Search)
Design a proximity service like Yelp’s “restaurants near me” or Google Maps’ nearby search. The core challenge is geospatial indexing
System Design
Design a Payment System
Design a payment system like Stripe, PayPal, or an internal payments platform at a company like Uber or Amazon. This
System Design
Design a Distributed Key-Value Store
Design a distributed key-value store like DynamoDB, Cassandra (its KV layer), or Redis Cluster. This is one of the most
System Design
Design a News Feed (Facebook-style)
Design a news feed system like Facebook’s. This is a richer problem than the Twitter feed design — Facebook’s feed
System Design
Design a Web Crawler
Design a web crawler that can index a significant portion of the internet. This question tests whether you understand distributed
System Design
Design Dropbox / Google Drive
Design a file storage and sync service like Dropbox or Google Drive. This problem tests your ability to handle large
System Design
System Design: Search Autocomplete (Google Typeahead)
Search autocomplete — the suggestions that appear as you type into Google, Amazon, or YouTube — is a deceptively interesting
System Design
System Design: Notification System (Push, Email, SMS)
A notification system is asked at almost every senior system design interview because it surfaces real architectural challenges: fanout at
System Design
System Design: Ride-Sharing App (Uber / Lyft)
Designing a ride-sharing app is a rich system design problem that tests your ability to handle real-time location data, geospatial
System Design
System Design: YouTube / Video Streaming Platform
Video streaming is one of the most infrastructure-intensive system design problems. YouTube streams 1 billion hours of video per day.
System Design
System Design: Twitter / Social Media Feed
Designing a social media feed is one of the most nuanced system design problems you’ll encounter in interviews. It looks
System Design
System Design: Chat System (WhatsApp / Messenger Scale)
A chat system is a perennial system design interview question. It requires you to reason about real-time communication, persistent storage,
System Design
API Design: REST vs GraphQL vs gRPC
Every system you design needs an API. In system design interviews, choosing the right API style — and explaining why
System Design
SQL vs NoSQL: How to Choose the Right Database
“Which database would you use?” is one of the most common follow-up questions in system design interviews. Many candidates default