System Design Q&A and Videos

A meta recruiter reached out to me and I asked for study materials and he sent back materials for IC6. What level is this and is there anything special I should study for this role besides DSA?

Hi! Will the recording for the chapter 9 of the Taro Book Club: Designing Data Intensive Applications - Chapter 9 (Consistency & Consensus) be available? Thanks!

Recently, while working on a project that is very open-ended, I realized part way through the project that the initial solution I had come up with for the problem would work only partially and in order to solve the problem fully, I would actually need double the amount of time I had estimated earlier. Since the initial estimate was in months, I feel really terrible about this. I made sure to report this to my chain as soon as I discovered this, but I'm curious: how common is it for others to miss their estimates? I'd like to gauge whether I am alone in this situation. Furthermore, how do people typically manage the disappointment and pressure that arise from missed deadlines, especially in exploratory or open-ended projects?

Hi!

I had mic issues in the OH and couldn't ask live. How would you recommend I prepare for System Design interview questions, especially since I feel my experience at my previous company didn't prepare me well for these?

I have 2.5 years of experience at a big tech company and was recently laid off. Ideally, I’m aiming for an ~L4 level position as I was L3 in my past role and was nearing promotion. I’m getting more interviews at start-ups now, and they typically focus on system design rather than leetcode questions. At my past company, the tools were so powerful that I didn’t get the same breadth of experience a new grad might get at a smaller company. For example, I never touched or thought about our database or considered scalability for our services. In hindsight, I should have taken the initiative to find projects outside of my team with more scope, but now I know better!

My current plan is to read "System Design Interview" by Alex Xu and go through the Taro System Design Masterclass. Do you have any feedback on this plan? I recently had my first system design interviews and have more coming up. I want to prepare as best as I can with the time I have. I’ve accepted that I may not excel at first, but any feedback to improve my preparation plan and mindset would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Recently had an interview with big tech where I proposed a solution that was pretty much textbook From the Alex xu books. I have had similar experiences with educative. They are all undeniably detailed and great but I feel there are some edge cases that are hard to figure out unless you have worked in those systems.

Educative and Alex Xu books are not perfect representations of system design either. There are some small gotchas that a big tech experienced interviewer would catch. This also happened with cochroach db interview where this very senior engineer figured out the material I was using and asked a targeted question that he knew was a flaw in design but not discussed in educative course

So I guess the question is how do I do better ?

I have studied DDIA, alex xu books, Educative.

This is question for staff interviews for senior engineers

I'm currently studying for software engineering interviews, but I'm having a hard time deciding how to divide up my time between doing LC problems and going over system design concepts. It can feel overwhelming since both categories have so much to cover. I also have a family, so most of my studying gets done after my kid goes to sleep at around 7 PM. Since my team is in the west coast and I'm in the east coast, I do get some extra time in the morning to work out at the gym and go through some LC problems. I'm currently going through Neetcode's course as a refresher. For those of you who have aced your interviews, how did you divide up your time on different topics? Did you mostly spend your time on LeetCode? I'd be happy to hear any recommendations.

My main goal: I want to be interview-ready no matter what. I currently work at a big tech company and I've been there for 4 years now, but I haven't seen much growth and now I'm seeing that I could have negotiated more when I first got my offer. I was asked 2 LC-type problems, and I feel I got lucky with them because I hadn't extensively gone through all the different patterns and data structures. It was my first time getting RSUs and I wish I had known more about negotiation tactics as well. I feel that if I be ready for interviews, I can apply and definitely increase my comp by a lot. The motivation is for me to overcome the fear of DS&A problems and not stop myself from applying to positions just because I'd be asked LC-type questions. I also know that I can double my comp with the right negotiation tactics and with my years of experience.

I was recently asked to design an autocomplete system. I suggested a solution where results by prefix are physically cached to a CDN. I was told that this solution isn't optimal because it represents an inefficient storage approach. I'm trying to understand an optimal solution.

Some alternatives I can think of:

1. S3 - better storage cost, too slow
2. Redis - about as fast, but more expensive
3. Dynamo - about as fast, I don't know how it compares on cost

I think the main two cost components will be storage and read cost. I'm having trouble finding useful comparative data on these. Is it commonly understood/thought that Dynamo is cheaper than a CDN at scale, or is there some other design I'm not thinking of?

I received feedback from my manager indicating that I need to improve my understanding of upstream and downstream dependencies when working on big ambiguous problems. They suggested that I should propose solutions that properly consider these dependencies' requirements as in my preview project I missed a few so the tech lead on my team had to point those out. Could you recommend any resources? techniques?

What I've noticed is that FAANG companies don't seem to look beyond Data Structure and Algorithms (DSA) or system design in interviews, whereas medium-sized companies also consider other skills. For example, for a Python web framework, they might look at Django, Flask, or FAST. For a data engineer role, Apache Airflow might be important. ATS may not even pickup your resume unless they see very specific word like Django or Apache Airflow in your resume. It seems like it might be easier to prepare for big tech companies since they focus only on DSA, System Design, and behavioral rounds. In contrast, other companies look for such a wide range of skills that it's hard to master and work on all of them.

Let me know your views.

I have gone through a post in Slack about paper reading and its benefits.

As an Android developer, I did not find paper reading will be useful in my day to day job. Because the system design for a frontend Android is different.

I have this doubt from long time: How can i improve my design skills in Android? I see many people in our org come up with a good doubts and points in architecture discussions, but I am not able to do that. Could you please help me with what I can do to improve these design skills? I believe I should constantly do something to master this, but I am not sure what to do.

One way is I can learn it by doing - I am learning from my current project but that is not so scalable. I want to multiply my learning curve here.

Thank you in advance.

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?