20 Most Asked System Design Questions
System design interviews are a crucial part of tech hiring, especially for software engineers aiming to land roles at top-tier companies. Whether you're a fresher trying to crack your first big interview or an experienced professional preparing for FAANG-level discussions, mastering system design is key.
In this blog, we’ve compiled the 20 most frequently asked system design questions, split by experience level, to help you navigate interviews with confidence.
Fresher Level Questions
These questions focus on foundational design principles, understanding components, and basic scalability.
Design a simple URL shortening service.
Design a basic chat application.
Design a file storage system.
Design a simple social media platform.
Design a simple search engine.
Design a simple e-commerce website.
Design a basic ride-sharing system.
Design a basic video streaming service.
Design a simple recommendation system.
Design a basic food delivery app.
Design a parking lot management system.
Design a simple music streaming service.
Design a basic online ticket booking system.
Design a simple note-taking application.
Design a weather forecasting system.
Design a basic email service.
Design a file synchronization system.
Design a simple calendar application.
Design a basic online quiz platform.
Design a user authentication system.
These questions test your ability to break down real-world problems into core components such as database design, API structure, data flow, and simple scaling.
Experienced Level System Design Questions
Experienced interviews dive deeper into distributed systems, scalability, fault tolerance, and real-world constraints.
Design a URL shortening service like Bitly.
Design a distributed key-value store like Redis.
Design a scalable social network like Facebook.
Design a scalable recommendation system like Netflix.
Design a distributed file system like Hadoop HDFS.
Design a real-time messaging system like WhatsApp.
Design a web crawler like Google.
Design a distributed cache like Memcached.
Design a content delivery network (CDN) like Cloudflare.
Design a scalable search engine like Google.
Design a ride-sharing system like Uber.
Design a video streaming service like YouTube.
Design an online food delivery system like Zomato.
Design a collaborative document editing system like Google Docs.
Design an e-commerce platform like Amazon.
Design a recommendation system for an online marketplace.
Design a fault-tolerant distributed database system.
Design a scalable event-driven system like Twitter.
Design a scalable photo-sharing platform like Instagram.
Design a distributed task scheduling system.
These problems require a solid understanding of microservices, distributed databases, load balancing, replication, consistency models, and real-world trade-offs.
How to Prepare for System Design Interviews
Start simple: Begin with the fresher-level problems, understand the basics.
Study scalability concepts: Learn about sharding, replication, load balancing, and caching.
Use real-world systems: Study how companies like Google, Amazon, and Netflix build their infrastructure.
Draw diagrams: Practice explaining designs with architecture diagrams and clear component breakdowns.
Mock interviews: Practice with peers or platforms like Pramp, Interviewing.io, or Exponent.
Final Thoughts
System design interviews are less about right or wrong answers and more about structured thinking, problem-solving, and your ability to scale systems. Use this list as a checklist to guide your preparation and dive deep into the ones most relevant to your job role.
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