System design interviews are the most challenging round at FAANG and senior engineering roles. Get a structured study plan personalized to your experience level and target companies.
Last updated: March 2026 · 6-8 Weeks plan
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System design interviews evaluate your ability to design large-scale distributed systems. You'll be asked to design systems like a URL shortener, chat application, news feed, or video streaming platform. Interviewers assess your understanding of scalability, database choices, caching strategies, load balancing, and trade-offs. Unlike coding interviews which have right/wrong answers, system design is about demonstrating structured thinking, asking clarifying questions, and making informed trade-offs. This round typically determines senior-level hires.
Week 1-2: Fundamentals — networking basics, DNS, CDNs, load balancers, horizontal vs vertical scaling. Week 3: Databases — SQL vs NoSQL, sharding, replication, CAP theorem. Week 4: Caching and message queues — Redis, Kafka, pub/sub patterns. Week 5: Practice designs — URL shortener, chat app, news feed (follow a structured approach: requirements, estimation, design, deep-dive). Week 6: Advanced topics — rate limiting, search systems, notification systems, real-time data pipelines. Throughout: study real architectures of systems you use daily.
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