Resources to Prepare for a System Design Interview

Substantial preparation improves the chances of receiving a job offer. The preparation time varies based on a candidate’s seniority and proficiency. Many candidates spend three to four months preparing for a system design interview.

The following resources will help you prepare comprehensively for the System Design interview.

Additional resources

You have learned to analyze, architect, and scale complex systems. However, moving from knowledge to successful interview performance requires targeted practice. The following resources will help solidify your understanding and expedite your preparation.

Free System Design lessons

• Key Concepts to Prepare for the System Design Interview

• Scalable Systems 101

• Best practices for achieving low latency in System Design

• Distributed System Design Patterns

• System Analysis vs. System Design

• API Design Interview vs. System Design Interview

• System Design fundamentals for technical product managers

• NeetCode Pro: Does it hold up for System Design interviews?

• Does Google ask System Design interview questions for L4?

• Design interview guide: Low-level OOD to Advanced System Design

• System Design Interview PDF

• The All-in-One System Design Master Template

System Design case studies

• How Spotify Wrapped scales for 7M users: System Design case study

• Amazon System Design case study: How Amazon scales for Prime Day

• Tips from a System Design expert: How Twilio Builds for Scale

• Dropbox System Design

• Ticketmaster System Design

Educative shares extensive technical knowledge through interview guides and deep-dive articles. Our FAANG-specific System Design guides include Google, Microsoft, Netflix, Amazon, and Meta.

Note: Explore Educative’s blogs for more technical articles to help you ace System Design interviews.

We have also curated impactful technical blogs and deep dives into System Design from industry giants.

Technical blogs and articles

Companies regularly publish technical details of their work. Studying these blogs provides insight into real-world challenges and the design changes required to address them.

Key engineering blogs include:

Engineering at Meta, Meta Research, AWS Architecture Blog, Amazon Science Blog, Netflix TechBlog, Google Research, Engineering at Quora, Uber Engineering Blog, Databricks Blog, Pinterest Engineering, BlackRock Engineering, Lyft Engineering, and Salesforce Engineering.

Mock interviews

Mock interviews are a great way to prepare for System Design interviews. They involve pairing up with a friend and allowing them to ask questions. If it’s not possible to use a friend, another strategy is to record ourselves and play the role of both interviewer and interviewee. With this approach, we can critique ourselves or ask a knowledgeable friend for feedback.