Social Media News Feed

HardScale • 60 minutes

Problem Statement

Design a personalized news feed system with fan-out strategies, content ranking algorithms, and real-time updates. Support billions of posts and users.

Key Expectations

•Fan-out strategies (push vs pull vs hybrid)
•Content ranking and personalization algorithms
•Timeline generation and pagination
•Real-time feed updates
•Handling celebrity users and hot content

Key Components to Consider

Feed ServiceFan-out ServiceRanking ServiceContent StoreCache LayerML Pipeline

Ready to Start?

Once you start, the timer will begin. You can use the whiteboard to design your solution and take notes in the sidebar.

Session Notes

Notes are automatically saved as you type

💡 Interview Tips

1. Clarify Requirements (5 min)

Ask about scale, features, and constraints

2. Capacity Planning (5 min)

Estimate users, data, and throughput

3. High-Level Design (15 min)

Core components and data flow

4. Deep Dive (15 min)

Critical components and APIs

5. Scale & Optimize (5 min)

Bottlenecks and solutions