Course Structure for Modern System Design
Explore this course in detail, designed into four sections, starting with core concepts and non-functional requirements, then covering the core building blocks of distributed systems, and culminating in sixteen end-to-end design problems to prepare you for system design interviews at larger companies.
We'll cover the following...
Structure of the course
This course consists of over 40+ chapters organized into four distinct sections.
Introduction: This section spans five chapters. It defines System Design and its importance to developers. It introduces the System Design interview and the role of mock interviews. Subsequent chapters cover preliminary concepts, essential non-functional requirements, and back-of-the-envelope calculations for resource estimation.
Building blocks: We explore sixteen essential building blocks, each detailed in a dedicated chapter. The section transitions into design problems.
Design problems: This core section analyzes nineteen comprehensive design problems.
Epilogue: This final section contains three parts. First, spectacular failures demonstrate how small errors can crash large systems and how to mitigate them. Second, concluding remarks summarize key learnings. Finally, supplementary chapters provide resources to strengthen your System Design concepts.
Note: While each of these chapters is independent, we recommend reading them in the presented sequence for smooth learning.
Strengths of the course
This course focuses on areas that are often underexplored in other System Design resources. The table below summarizes how it differs.
Strengths | Advantage |
Building blocks | This is a modern approach to system design where we construct bigger artifacts using smaller building blocks. |
Building blocks as design problems | We’ll treat each one of our building blocks as a stand-alone, mini design problem. |
Incremental improvement to design | Layer-by-layer design solution addresses added bottlenecks, designing simple and incremental solutions to complex systems. |
Evaluating the design | Accountability of the provided design solution shows the performance of our design. |
Solving the traditional problems with updated designs | This course is up to date with the latest industry demands. |
New design problems added | This course contains updates to decades-old system design courses. |
Careful collection of design problems | Each problem has its unique aspects in terms of problem-solving and designing. |
Contributions by experts from FAANG | Learn from the best. |
AI-based quizzes and assessments | These assessments and interviews evaluate learner’s concepts of system design. |
Let’s begin the System Design journey.