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System Design Interview Questions

Review this list of 374 System Design interview questions and answers verified by hiring managers and candidates.
  • Meta logoAsked at Meta 
    Video answer for 'Design a vending machine.'
    Engineering Manager
    System Design
    +1 more
  • Meta logoAsked at Meta 
    Machine Learning Engineer
    System Design
  • Google logoAsked at Google 
    +2

    "I broke the vehicles down by regions in the world. Designed a wireless api interface to sync with a database backend that linked to google maps through another service and api."

    James H. - "I broke the vehicles down by regions in the world. Designed a wireless api interface to sync with a database backend that linked to google maps through another service and api."See full answer

    Technical Program Manager
    System Design
    +1 more
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  • DocuSign logoAsked at DocuSign 

    "The real discussion was very much similar o what exposed at https://www.tryexponent.com/courses/software-engineering/system-design/design-rate-limiter, but - as I commented the video - the real interviewer wasn't so naive to do not forgive the client identification only because IP. I had to introduce glimpses of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knowyourcustomer practice, I quoted JWT. I proposed a logical map of id addressing a "deque" of time-stamps of requests, with a threshold for the deque an"

    Luca D. - "The real discussion was very much similar o what exposed at https://www.tryexponent.com/courses/software-engineering/system-design/design-rate-limiter, but - as I commented the video - the real interviewer wasn't so naive to do not forgive the client identification only because IP. I had to introduce glimpses of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knowyourcustomer practice, I quoted JWT. I proposed a logical map of id addressing a "deque" of time-stamps of requests, with a threshold for the deque an"See full answer

    Software Engineer
    System Design
  • Meta logoAsked at Meta 

    "Evication Strategy: LFU Access Pattern: Write Around"

    Yomna H. - "Evication Strategy: LFU Access Pattern: Write Around"See full answer

    Software Engineer
    System Design
  • Google Cloud (GCP) logoAsked at Google Cloud (GCP) 

    "Design an elevator for the blind Clarification Questions A person who is not able to see at all or a person who can partially see? - completely blind Are we we focusing on the people who are visually impaired but, no other physically challenge? - Yes Goal Company already have the elevator products and now company is trying to enter into new market space. Users Blind users with some assistance - we are not focused on these people as they already have some a"

    Vishal B. - "Design an elevator for the blind Clarification Questions A person who is not able to see at all or a person who can partially see? - completely blind Are we we focusing on the people who are visually impaired but, no other physically challenge? - Yes Goal Company already have the elevator products and now company is trying to enter into new market space. Users Blind users with some assistance - we are not focused on these people as they already have some a"See full answer

    Product Manager
    System Design
    +1 more
  • "Why is it answered like a Product Design Question? Shouldn't this be a strategy type answer analyzing the pros/cons of the service etc.?"

    Aditya O. - "Why is it answered like a Product Design Question? Shouldn't this be a strategy type answer analyzing the pros/cons of the service etc.?"See full answer

    System Design
    Product Strategy
  • Uber logoAsked at Uber 

    "Clarification - is it Uber that is building the feature? Answer: Yes Assuming if Uber is the one building this feature, I would start with if and how does the feature help Uber's mission and north star metrics. Uber's mission is to provide reliable transportation around the world and the primary metric that i can think on a high level is Number of rides , Number of drivers and from business revenue perspective revenue per ride, revenue per rider and driver. I picked revenue per ride because it"

    Ramesh Y. - "Clarification - is it Uber that is building the feature? Answer: Yes Assuming if Uber is the one building this feature, I would start with if and how does the feature help Uber's mission and north star metrics. Uber's mission is to provide reliable transportation around the world and the primary metric that i can think on a high level is Number of rides , Number of drivers and from business revenue perspective revenue per ride, revenue per rider and driver. I picked revenue per ride because it"See full answer

    Product Manager
    System Design
    +1 more
  • Google logoAsked at Google 
    Video answer for 'Design a visual landmark recognition system.'
    +3

    "I understand this is more focused on ML. However, I have a system question. If users allow us to access their location, or they send location via text box, could we use CDNs for the search without hitting our database? We only query the database when we have zero information on location. Other questions: does embedding always guarantee information on location? Do we discharge the user images after we return a prediction? I heard the feedback that we should keep it for future learning. What would"

    Bini T. - "I understand this is more focused on ML. However, I have a system question. If users allow us to access their location, or they send location via text box, could we use CDNs for the search without hitting our database? We only query the database when we have zero information on location. Other questions: does embedding always guarantee information on location? Do we discharge the user images after we return a prediction? I heard the feedback that we should keep it for future learning. What would"See full answer

    Software Engineer
    System Design
    +1 more
  • Anduril logoAsked at Anduril 
    Technical Program Manager
    System Design
  • Amazon logoAsked at Amazon 

    "Modernizing banking legacy systems and applications The modernization process typically involves moving from mainframe-based legacy platforms to solutions based on cloud and other modern digital technologies"

    Teja G. - "Modernizing banking legacy systems and applications The modernization process typically involves moving from mainframe-based legacy platforms to solutions based on cloud and other modern digital technologies"See full answer

    Solutions Architect
    System Design
  • Capital One logoAsked at Capital One 
    Machine Learning Engineer
    System Design
  • Goldman Sachs logoAsked at Goldman Sachs 

    "Microservices for resolving diffs, storage S3 for keeping files"

    Anonymous Jellyfish - "Microservices for resolving diffs, storage S3 for keeping files"See full answer

    Software Engineer
    System Design
  • Meta logoAsked at Meta 
    +1

    " import lombok.*; import lombok.extern.slf4j.Slf4j; import org.springframework.boot.CommandLineRunner; import org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication; import org.springframework.boot.autoconfigure.SpringBootApplication; import org.springframework.stereotype.Component; import org.springframework.stereotype.Repository; import org.springframework.stereotype.Service; import java.util.*; import java.util.concurrent.ConcurrentHashMap; import java.util.concurrent.ConcurrentMap; import java."

    Yash G. - " import lombok.*; import lombok.extern.slf4j.Slf4j; import org.springframework.boot.CommandLineRunner; import org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication; import org.springframework.boot.autoconfigure.SpringBootApplication; import org.springframework.stereotype.Component; import org.springframework.stereotype.Repository; import org.springframework.stereotype.Service; import java.util.*; import java.util.concurrent.ConcurrentHashMap; import java.util.concurrent.ConcurrentMap; import java."See full answer

    Engineering Manager
    System Design
    +2 more
  • +1

    "It depends on how computers are distributed. Are they located within same network (behind same switch or router) or distributed across globally? Also, it depends upon if there are any security related encryption or decryption algorithms being executed. Similarly, there are so many factors involved in it. However, if a system is highly responsive then this time might be less than 1 second. For example, any google search responds in less than 1 sec. It is an interesting question and I am eager t"

    Rashmi T. - "It depends on how computers are distributed. Are they located within same network (behind same switch or router) or distributed across globally? Also, it depends upon if there are any security related encryption or decryption algorithms being executed. Similarly, there are so many factors involved in it. However, if a system is highly responsive then this time might be less than 1 second. For example, any google search responds in less than 1 sec. It is an interesting question and I am eager t"See full answer

    System Design
    Technical
  • "I've watched all the ML Systems designs interviews and this solution provides a clean baseline for predicting ETA using historical averages, but it falls short of addressing the broader problem of route planning. The system predicts ETA for a given segment and time interval, but it doesn’t explain how to compute the ETA for an entire route or how to integrate this into dynamic path selection. It also lacks depth on handling real-time data, adapting to distribution shift, or reacting to sudden"

    Clayton P. - "I've watched all the ML Systems designs interviews and this solution provides a clean baseline for predicting ETA using historical averages, but it falls short of addressing the broader problem of route planning. The system predicts ETA for a given segment and time interval, but it doesn’t explain how to compute the ETA for an entire route or how to integrate this into dynamic path selection. It also lacks depth on handling real-time data, adapting to distribution shift, or reacting to sudden"See full answer

    System Design
    Machine Learning
  • Stripe logoAsked at Stripe 

    "TCP server/client to facilitate high throughput of incoming metrics.(This is the standard used in the industry by Datadog etc). NoSQL or timeseries database for storing metrics. Timeseries databases are better for aggregating metrics in a given time period. REST API for serving metrics data to visualization frontend."

    Abhi R. - "TCP server/client to facilitate high throughput of incoming metrics.(This is the standard used in the industry by Datadog etc). NoSQL or timeseries database for storing metrics. Timeseries databases are better for aggregating metrics in a given time period. REST API for serving metrics data to visualization frontend."See full answer

    Software Engineer
    System Design
  • System Design
    Machine Learning
Showing 141-160 of 374