System Design Q&A and Videos

Hello Taro!

I'm working as tech lead in company of approximately 500 people, we are creating tech products both internally and for external clients with a data-science focus.

As part of my yearly objectives, I'm working on improving technical architecture decisions across the company, and I'm looking for best practices, advice and references on the subject.

In the past we have faced some issues such as:

• tech lead looking for feedback on a target architecture not finding anyone willing/ready to do so
• an internal product whose code was so poor it had to be almost completely rewritten.
• teams struggling to solve a problem that had been already solved in other part of the company.

Actions I have been considering:

• encouraging the use of Architecture Decision Records
• set-up a team of senior technical profiles that could be mobilised to review an architecture

In general I'm weary of any solution that would:

• remove accountability from engineers
• create coupling between unrelated projects
• add a lot of meetings

Thanks a lot!

Hi! I'm a new member looking to participate in the book club sessions for the Designing data intensive applications book. How can I get a copy of the book?

How common is it that folks self-sabotage their interviews? I think I might have during one of them unintentionally. I had interviewed at a FAANGMULA company and mentioned a competitor. The pay was low compared to my level, but also, I felt like it was more junior and I tended to go very long winded (lack of practice) for various questions. It seems I am a bit out of practice for soft skill interview screens, though usually I kick butt on these and spend way more time on DSA than anything (my weakest area since I'm rusty and system design and behavioral interviews don't scare me at all).

Thoughts?

I recently got laid off working as a developer working within an agency. I currently have around 5 years of experience working in the agency setting utilizing React, Next js, Vue, Liquid, and the Shopify API to create custom eCommerce sites. During my time at these agencies, I also had the opportunity to act as a lead, interact with clients, set timelines, and cross collaborate with designers/projects managers to meet deadlines.

I have been looking for new opportunities since January and I've been able to secure a couple of interviews, technical challenges, and one onsite. Most of my interviews have been coming from agencies, but my preference is to join a tech startup or maybe more on the brand side of things within the Shopify niche. Below are a couple of questions:

1. Will working at another agency hurt my career in the long run? My ultimate end goal is to work for a bigger tech company if possible.
2. If an agency does want to hire me right now, should I take the job for now or just wait for one of my preferences?
3. I notice a lot of developers within the agency space freelance after their 9-5. Does studying for interviews or future jobs provide a higher ROI instead of freelancing?
4. Lastly, I just finished (super helpful!). It seems like the best course of action for me is to apply a lot, work on side projects instead of grinding leetcode, and study system design. Does this seem correct?

Thanks in advance!

I've been working as a software engineer for 9+ years. Even though graduated in CSE, I never put a great effort in learning DSA into deep. Nor did I found interest in solving problems in leetcode.

I mostly worked in startup jobs. The expectations are kind of clear here. Build apis and features and deploy.

I believe I know moderate amount of system design and build product from scratch using js tech.

Have hands on experience in Node, React and AWS. Lead ~4-5 members for a short time. Never had the opportunity to build product which needed a great scale. DB sharding, working in a system that had 100s of micrsoervices is something I have never experienced.

I'm making around $75k in UAE. How can I give myself a learning path which would lead me to a better paying job. Ideally ~120k+. Spending 2-3 hrs daily would be difficult because of personal commitment. Maybe 6-8hrs total in a week I can manage.

Thanks

I have Staff interviews lined up with FAANG companies and would like to learn from the best resources out there. What has helped you the most in your journey/experience?

• I need to practice questions for multithreading/ concurrency topics
• What resources to use for the practice? What type of questions am I expected to use it - leetcode type, low level design type?
• I need a few examples to know what to expect for Rubrik interview? Or any company that says they would ask those questions in system design round.

I am starting to prepare for system design questions. I would like to know if anyone has thought of grouping/categories when it comes to similarity among those problems?

For example, ecommerce (amazon) and service delivery platform (doordash) based problems has common trait of search, one can easily use the same solution across both the systems (to search for the products on amazon and to search for restaurants in doordash)

Also is there any list of must know system design problems for interviews at senior/staff level?

• I am not great with numbers so capacity planning part for storage, memory, cache, bandwidth takes 5-10mins as part of the initial requirement gathering
• Is there a way to keep it short or you just have to memorize some bytes and 1 million request/day = 12 request/second conversions?

Hello, I'm currently actively interviewing and more than once, I found myself not progressing due to some knowledge gaps on things that companies seem to expect at my level.

I worked as a backend engineer for 3 years after a coding bootcamp, mostly in product features and APIs. Distributed systems is not something I did on a daily basis.

I have struggled with system design interview questions asking about databases, concurrency, search, among other things. How can I fill those gaps to the level I can pass these interviews?

Here's what I'm going to do, and I'm looking to get advice on whether I should do, stop doing, or do something else that I didn't list.

1. Stanford Databases courses (5 total):
2. Read "Understanding Distributed Systems" by Roberto Vitillo
3. Practice system design interviews with a partner

Thank you for your help!

I have been practicing for system design interviews by reading through books like System Design Interview book by Alex Xu and Grokking the System Design Interview, however I sometimes struggle to internalize the knowledge and demonstrate it in an interview setting. I have done a few mock interviews which have been helpful, however the number of mocks I can do is somewhat constrained by other people's availability. Is there a way where I can improve at system design interviews quicker/more effectively while practicing on my own?

What differentiates a Senior vs Staff engineers in terms of :

• the design they come up with
• how they communicate in the interview and how they drive the conversation
• how deep they dive in to each area of the design