What Is a System Design Interview?
Learn about system design interviews (SDIs) and how to strategically approach them.
A System Design interview is a technical evaluation of a candidate’s ability to build robust and scalable systems. Unlike coding interviews, which typically involve a single solution, System Design interviews are open to discussion and involve multiple possible solutions that can be re-iterated.
For many software engineers, System Design Interview questions remain a mysterious challenge. Most engineers have never actually worked on large-scale systems before, so explaining how to build one seems daunting. Since System Design interview questions are often open-ended, it can be difficult to know the best way to prepare.
However, as someone who has participated in hundreds of System Design interviews, I can assure you there is a correct way to approach these questions. With the right mindset and preparation, you can feel confident and ready to tackle any System Design question that comes your way.
It is important to note that System Design questions not only test the technical knowledge of the candidate but also their ability to approach a problem, think critically, and make trade-offs. Therefore, preparing for a System Design interview is not only about understanding the technical details but also about understanding the problem, breaking it down, and finding the most optimal solution.
Author’s background in System Design
Hi, I’m Fahim ul Haq, the co-founder of Educative and co-author of this course. In April 2008, I joined an internal team at Microsoft working on a large-scale project to build a distributed storage solution. Amazon launched its Simple Storage Service in 2006, and Google launched its PaaS solution, Google App Engine, the same month I joined the team, so we were in the early land grab of cloud computing. Less than two years later, that project was launched to the world as a new product category: Microsoft Azure.
When I joined the Azure team, I came from working on Exchange. I understood server storage and client management, but not at this scale and certainly not distributed across the world. It required a lot of learning on the job. ...