🧩 Practice Problems
Practice system design interviews with real problems from top tech companies. Each problem includes detailed solutions, trade-off analysis, and alternative approaches.
9
Practice Problems
8
Categories
Real
Interview Questions
Detailed
Solutions
Filter by Difficulty
Easy (1)Medium (3)Hard (5)
Design a URL Shortener (like bit.ly)
EasyWeb ServicesDesign a service that creates short URLs and redirects to original URLs
Key Topics:
URL encodingDatabase designCachingRate limiting
⏱ 45-60 min🏢 Google, Amazon, Microsoft
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Design a Chat System (like WhatsApp)
MediumReal-time SystemsDesign a real-time messaging system for millions of users
Key Topics:
WebSocketsMessage queuesDatabase shardingPush notifications
⏱ 60-90 min🏢 Meta, Uber, LinkedIn
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Design a News Feed (like Twitter)
MediumSocial MediaDesign a scalable news feed system with timeline generation
Key Topics:
Timeline generationFan-out strategiesCachingContent ranking
⏱ 60-90 min🏢 Twitter, Meta, Pinterest
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Design a Video Streaming Service (like YouTube)
HardMedia SystemsDesign a global video streaming platform with encoding and CDN
Key Topics:
Video encodingCDN designGlobal distributionMetadata storage
⏱ 90-120 min🏢 Google, Netflix, Amazon
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Design a Ride-sharing Service (like Uber)
HardLocation-basedDesign a real-time ride matching and tracking system
Key Topics:
Geospatial indexingReal-time matchingGPS trackingPricing algorithms
⏱ 90-120 min🏢 Uber, Lyft, DoorDash
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Design a Search Engine (like Google)
HardSearch & DiscoveryDesign a web search engine with crawling, indexing, and ranking
Key Topics:
Web crawlingInverted indexPageRankDistributed search
⏱ 90-120 min🏢 Google, Microsoft, Amazon
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Design a Payment System (like PayPal)
HardFinancial ServicesDesign a secure payment processing system with fraud detection
Key Topics:
Payment processingSecurityFraud detectionCompliance
⏱ 90-120 min🏢 PayPal, Stripe, Square
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Design a Notification System
MediumInfrastructureDesign a multi-channel notification system (email, SMS, push)
Key Topics:
Message queuesRate limitingTemplate managementDelivery tracking
⏱ 60-90 min🏢 Amazon, Twilio, SendGrid
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Design a Distributed Cache (like Redis Cluster)
HardInfrastructureDesign a distributed caching system with consistency guarantees
Key Topics:
Consistent hashingReplicationCache evictionFault tolerance
⏱ 90-120 min🏢 Redis, Amazon, Google
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How to Practice System Design
1. Understand Requirements:
- • Clarify functional requirements
- • Estimate scale (users, data, QPS)
- • Define success metrics
2. High-level Design:
- • Start with simple architecture
- • Identify major components
- • Show data flow
3. Deep Dive & Scale:
- • Address bottlenecks
- • Discuss trade-offs
- • Plan for growth