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Grokking Modern System Design Interview

Name: Grokking Modern System Design Interview
Price: 59 USD
Rating: 4.67 (2894 reviews)
Author: Fahim ul Haq

Everything you need for Grokking Modern System Design Interview, developed by FAANG engineers. Master distributed system fundamentals and practice real-world interview questions.

4.7

220 lessons

77 free lessons

20 case studies

26h

Created by Fahim ul Haq

What's included

220 lessons across 52 modules
147 quizzes with instant feedback
20 case studies
AI Tutor on every lesson

Join 3.1 million developers at

What You'll Learn

A 45-minute answer structure with RESHADED for any System Design Interview
An understanding of how to frame open-ended interview problems as specific requirements, constraints, and success criteria
The ability to design scalable, reliable systems with databases, caches, load balancers, queues, and microservices
Pattern toolkit: sharding, replication, consistency models, CQRS, and event-driven design
Capacity and reliability skills: throughput and latency math, bottlenecks, SLIs and SLOs, failure handling
Communication under pressure: fast diagramming, clear trade-off narratives, effective checkpoints
Mock Interview practice with timed scenarios, model answers, and rubrics to build confidence and speed

Learning Roadmap

220 Lessons147 Quizzes

Introduction

Get familiar with System Design and the course structure, including prerequisites that set the foundation for mastering System Design Interviews.

Introduction to Modern System Design

Why Every Developer Should Learn System Design

Course Structure for Modern System Design

System Design Interviews

Explore what System Design Interviews involve, including essential preparation strategies, fundamental concepts, key resources, and tips to perform well.

Getting Ready for the System Design Interview

The Do’s and Don’ts of the System Design Interview

System Design Interview Trap: Why Engineers Fail and Succeed

How Long Does It Take to Prepare for a System Design Interview?

How AI Reshaped System Design and Interviews

How Roles and Tools Reshaped the System Design Interview

System Design Mock Interviews

Let AI Evaluate Your System Design Interview Preparation

Preliminary System Design Concepts

4 Lessons

Grasp the fundamentals of abstractions in distributed systems, focusing on network abstraction, consistency, and failure models crucial for System Design.

Non-Functional System Characteristics

7 Lessons

Review key non-functional characteristics like availability, reliability, scalability, and fault tolerance in System Design.

Back-of-the-Envelope Calculations

2 Lessons

Learn how to estimate resource needs like servers, storage, and bandwidth using back-of-the-envelope calculations for System Design.

Building Blocks

Explore the essential building blocks required for modern System Design, which will form the foundation for scalable systems later in the course.

Introduction to Building Blocks for Modern System Design

Domain Name System

2 Lessons

Discover how DNS works and its role in System Design, including detailed insights into its design and functionality.

Load Balancers

3 Lessons

Take a closer look at load balancers, their placement, and algorithms, including local and global load balancers and different tiers of load balancers.

Databases

5 Lessons

Explore databases and their types, data replication, partitioning, and trade-offs essential for designing distributed systems.

10.

Key-Value Store

5 Lessons

Learn how to design a scalable key-value store, focusing on replication, versioning, and fault tolerance.

11.

Content Delivery Network (CDN)

7 Lessons

Discover CDN design, content caching strategies, consistency, and techniques for efficient content delivery.

12.

Sequencer

3 Lessons

Learn how to design a sequencer for generating unique IDs, focusing on causality and consistency in distributed systems.

13.

Distributed Monitoring

3 Lessons

Explore a distributed monitoring system’s basics, types, and metrics for effective monitoring.

14.

Monitor Server-Side Errors

3 Lessons

Learn how to design a monitoring system and visualize it for tracking server-side errors in real-time.

15.

Monitor Client-Side Errors

2 Lessons

Discover how to design a system to monitor client-side errors, ensuring robust and reliable applications.

16.

Distributed Cache

6 Lessons

Unpack the design of a distributed cache, focusing on high-level and detailed designs and evaluating its performance.

17.

Distributed Messaging Queue

7 Lessons

Examine the design of a distributed messaging queue, addressing requirements, design considerations, and performance evaluations.

18.

Pub-Sub

3 Lessons

Learn the design of a pub-sub system, focusing on how to implement and optimize this communication pattern in distributed systems.

19.

Rate Limiter

5 Lessons

Explore the design of a rate limiter, covering essential algorithms and considerations for managing traffic and ensuring system stability.

20.

Blob Store

6 Lessons

Learn how to design a blob store, focusing on scalability, storage, and performance evaluation.

21.

Distributed Search

6 Lessons

Step through distributed search design in stages, with a special focus on indexing, scaling, and replication.

22.

Distributed Logging

3 Lessons

Understand the importance and design of a distributed logging service, emphasizing capturing and analyzing logs across distributed systems.

23.

Distributed Task Scheduler

5 Lessons

Examine the design of a task scheduler addressing issues like prioritizing, task idempotency, queuing, and resource capacity optimization.

24.

Sharded Counters

4 Lessons

Get familiar with sharded counters and their importance, starting from high-level design and then pivoting to detailed System Design.

25.

AI Building Blocks for System Design

7 Lessons

Explore System Design principles or building blocks for effective model serving, retrieval, and evaluation.

26.

Concluding the Building Blocks Discussion

4 Lessons

Wrap up the discussion on building blocks, evaluate your understanding using AI, and learn the RESHADED approach to tackle unseen System Design problems.

27.

Design YouTube

7 Lessons

Learn YouTube System Design, starting with requirements, high-level and detailed design, evaluation of the design, and handling real-world complexities.

28.

Design Quora

5 Lessons

Explore the System Design of Quora incrementally by starting with key requirements and challenges in building a scalable Q&A platform.

29.

Design Google Maps

6 Lessons

Walk through the System Design of Google Maps, focusing on API design, scalability, finding optimal routes, and ETA computation.

30.

Design a Proximity Service/Yelp

5 Lessons

Take a closer look at the System Design of a proximity service like Yelp, addressing requirements like searching, scaling, and dynamic segments.

31.

Design Uber

7 Lessons

Understand how to design Uber, address requirements for ride-sharing platforms, detailed design, and fraud detection.

32.

Design Twitter

6 Lessons

Learn Twitter System Design, covering aspects like user interaction, API design, caching, storage, and client-side load balancing.

33.

Design Newsfeed System

Master newsfeed System Design, covering aspects like functional and non-functional requirements, storage schemas, newsfeed generation, and publishing.

System Design: Newsfeed System

34.

Design Instagram

5 Lessons

Explore Instagram’s System Design, covering API design, storage schema, and timeline generation using pull, push, and hybrid approaches.

35.

Design a URL Shortening Service/TinyURL

Decode the System Design of a URL shortening service like TinyURL, emphasizing requirements like encoding, scalability, and high readability.

System Design: TinyURL

36.

Design a Web Crawler

Explore the System Design of a web crawler, including its key components, such as a crawler, scheduler, HTML fetcher, storage, and crawling traps handler.

System Design: Web Crawler

37.

Design WhatsApp

6 Lessons

Take a look at WhatsApp System Design with an emphasis on its API design, high security, and low latency of client-server messages.

38.

Design Typeahead Suggestion

7 Lessons

Discover the typeahead suggestion System Design, covering aspects like efficient data structures and assemblers for updating suggestions.

39.

Design a Collaborative Document Editing Service/Google Docs

5 Lessons

Understand the System Design of Google Docs, using different techniques to address storage, collaborative editing, and concurrency issues.

40.

Design a Deployment System

2 Lessons

Explore the essentials of automating deployment and understand the strategies to design a code deployment system.

41.

Design a Payment System

2 Lessons

Explore the functionality and design of secure, efficient payment systems in fintech.

42.

Design a LeetCode System

2 Lessons

Explore the LeetCode system, its features, and the essential requirements for its design.

43.

Design Google Calendar

2 Lessons

Explore the complexities of designing a scalable and efficient calendar system.

44.

Design Metrics Monitoring and Alerting Systems

2 Lessons

Master the design and implementation of effective metrics monitoring and alerting systems.

45.

Design a ChatGPT System

2 Lessons

Explore the design and architecture of a scalable ChatGPT-like conversational system.

46.

Design a Data Infrastructure System

3 Lessons

Learn how scalable data infrastructure for AI/ML systems are designed, ensuring efficiency and reliability.

47.

LLM-Powered Customer Support Bot System Design

2 Lessons

Explore the design and functionality of an LLM-powered customer support bot.

48.

AI-Powered Code Assistant System Design

2 Lessons

Explore the design and functionality of AI-powered code assistants for developers.

49.

Lessons from System Failures

4 Lessons

Learn how to avoid failures and outages by discussing case studies of real-world, large-scale distributed systems like Facebook, AWS, etc.

50.

Concluding Remarks

2 Lessons

Reflect on key takeaways, highlight unique aspects of each Design Problem, and get pointers on the next steps to master System Design.

51.

Free System Design Lessons

14 Lessons

Master key System Design principles for scalable, reliable applications and effective interviews for free.

52.

System Design Case Studies

5 Lessons

Explore System Design case studies that reveal how top tech companies build scalable, resilient, and high-performance platforms.

Certificate of Completion

Showcase your accomplishment by sharing your certificate of completion.

Real interview questions

Start with a question asked by top companies

Complete worked designs: requirements, estimation, API, storage schema, high-level and detailed design, evaluation. One is open to read in full.

Case Study

Design YouTube

Design YouTube step by step, define requirements, craft the high-level and detailed architecture, then evaluate trade-offs while handling real-world complexities of video streaming at scale.

45 m

Intermediate

Case Study

Design a ChatGPT System

Explore the design of a scalable ChatGPT-like conversational system, from requirements to serving architecture, covering model inference, request handling, and low-latency responses.

30 m

Advanced

Case Study

Design Uber

Design Uber's ride-sharing platform, gather requirements, build the high-level and detailed design, and handle real-time location matching, payments, and fraud detection at massive scale.

40 m

Intermediate

Case Study

Design X (Twitter)

Design Twitter by covering user interactions, API design, timeline generation, caching, and storage, plus a client-side load balancer to serve millions of requests reliably at large scale.

40 m

Intermediate

Case Study

Design Instagram

Design Instagram's photo-sharing platform, covering API design, storage schema, and timeline generation using pull, push, and hybrid approaches to scale feeds for many millions of users.

35 m

Intermediate

Case Study

Design WhatsApp

Design WhatsApp's messaging system with a focus on API design, end-to-end security, and low-latency client-server communication to deliver reliable, real-time messages at global scale.

30 m

Intermediate

Case Study

Design Google Maps

Design Google Maps by focusing on scalability, and the algorithms behind finding optimal routes and computing accurate ETAs across a massive, constantly changing road network.

40 m

Intermediate

Case StudyFree

Design a URL Shortening Service/TinyURL

Design a URL shortening service like TinyURL by focusing on encoding schemes, scalability, and high read throughput to reliably generate and resolve short links for billions of requests.

40 m

Beginner

Case Study

Design YouTube

Design YouTube step by step, define requirements, craft the high-level and detailed architecture, then evaluate trade-offs while handling real-world complexities of video streaming at scale.

45 m

Intermediate

Case Study

Design a ChatGPT System

Explore the design of a scalable ChatGPT-like conversational system, from requirements to serving architecture, covering model inference, request handling, and low-latency responses.

30 m

Advanced

Case Study

Design Uber

Design Uber's ride-sharing platform, gather requirements, build the high-level and detailed design, and handle real-time location matching, payments, and fraud detection at massive scale.

40 m

Intermediate

Case Study

Design X (Twitter)

Design Twitter by covering user interactions, API design, timeline generation, caching, and storage, plus a client-side load balancer to serve millions of requests reliably at large scale.

40 m

Intermediate

Case Study

Design Instagram

Design Instagram's photo-sharing platform, covering API design, storage schema, and timeline generation using pull, push, and hybrid approaches to scale feeds for many millions of users.

35 m

Intermediate

Case Study

Design WhatsApp

Design WhatsApp's messaging system with a focus on API design, end-to-end security, and low-latency client-server communication to deliver reliable, real-time messages at global scale.

30 m

Intermediate

Case Study

Design Google Maps

Design Google Maps by focusing on scalability, and the algorithms behind finding optimal routes and computing accurate ETAs across a massive, constantly changing road network.

40 m

Intermediate

Case StudyFree

Design a URL Shortening Service/TinyURL

Design a URL shortening service like TinyURL by focusing on encoding schemes, scalability, and high read throughput to reliably generate and resolve short links for billions of requests.

40 m

Beginner

Case Study

Design a Payment System

Design a secure, efficient payment system for fintech, handle transactions, ensure consistency and reliability, prevent fraud, and reconcile payments across many services at large scale.

35 m

Intermediate

Case Study

Design a Deployment System

Design a code deployment system by exploring the essentials of automation and the strategies used to build, test, and safely roll out software across large-scale, distributed infrastructure.

35 m

Intermediate

Case Study

Design Google Docs

Design Google Docs by tackling storage, real-time collaborative editing, and concurrency, using techniques like operational transforms to keep documents consistent across many active users.

30 m

Intermediate

Case Study

AI-Powered Code Assistant System Design

Design an AI-powered code assistant for developers, covering requirements, model serving, context handling, and low-latency code suggestions built into the coding workflow at scale.

40 m

Advanced

About this course

WHY I WROTE THIS COURSE

For a decade, when developers talked about how to prepare for System Design Interviews, the answer was always Grokking Modern System Design Interview. This is that course — updated for the current tech landscape. As AI handles more of the routine work, engineers at every level are expected to operate with the architectural fluency that used to belong to Staff engineers. That's why System Design Interviews still determine starting level and compensation, and the bar keeps rising. I built this course from my experience building global-scale distributed systems at Microsoft and Meta — and from interviewing hundreds of candidates at both companies. The failure pattern I kept seeing wasn't a lack of technical knowledge. Even strong coders would hit a wall, because System Design Interviews don't test what you can build; they test whether you can reason through an ambiguous problem, communicate ideas clearly, and defend trade-offs in real time (all skills that matter more than ever now in the AI era). RESHADED is the framework I developed to fix that: a repeatable 45-minute roadmap through any open-ended System Design problem. The course covers the distributed systems fundamentals that appear in every interview – databases, caches, load balancers, CDNs, messaging queues, and more – then applies them across 13+ real-world case studies: YouTube, WhatsApp, Uber, Twitter, Google Maps, and modern systems like ChatGPT and AI/ML infrastructure. Then put your knowledge to the test with AI Mock Interviews designed to simulate the real interview experience. Hundreds of thousands of candidates have already used this course to land SWE, TPM, and EM roles at top companies. If you're serious about acing your next System Design Interview, this is the best place to start.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Fahim ul Haq

Software Engineer, Distributed Storage at Meta and Microsoft, Educative (Co-founder & CEO)

Learn more about Fahim

Trusted by 3.1 million developers working at companies

A clear path through System Design

I found the course incredibly helpful in breaking down complex System Design concepts into digestible steps. The structured format — starting from requirements, moving through high-level architecture, and diving into trade-offs — made it much easier to internalize key design principles.

Yichen Wang

Software Engineer @ Microsoft

The course I actually apply at work

As a backend engineer at Microsoft, I rely on Educative to stay sharp in a fast-moving field. Grokking the System Design Interview strengthened my core in system design and distributed systems — knowledge I apply at work every day.

Nishal Pattan

Software Engineer @ Microsoft

Built for engineers and managers

Distributed systems demand sharp skills and constant learning. Grokking Modern System Design Interview for Engineers & Managers is full of context and insight — it's helped me deliver better experiences for our players at Ubisoft.

Bruno Sampaio Pinho da Silva

Ubisoft

Promoted to mid-level in a year

The writing is sharp and respects your time — no filler, no hand-holding. The system design material changed how I approach these problems in practice, and in under a year I moved to mid-level with a clear path toward senior.

Edward Teixeira Dias Júnior

Volvo Group

Confidence to chase senior roles

Grokking the System Design Interview turned architectural principles that once felt abstract into something practical. The clear explanations and exercises gave me the confidence to apply for senior roles where system design expertise is essential.

Zoddah Wise

Buildria

AI questions that make it stick

You've provided a very good, well-structured overview on modern system design which helped reinforce existing knowledge and add more. The AI-driven questions allowed me to think through various scenarios and made it an interactive experience. I'm looking forward to more Educative content.

Mike Rabatin

Learner

The most comprehensive by far

I was looking for a course on System Design which will cover everything and help me clear interviews at the best companies, and the educative.io course was by far the best and the most comprehensive. Additionally, features like mock-interviews and cloud labs are a great boost for learning.

Kshitij Tiwari

Arachnomesh Technologies

Real trade-offs, real depth

Amazing content, explanation and well maintained tech trade-offs. I think the idea here is to know about all common problems, their approach and trade-offs. Thanks everyone for putting them in place!

Abhishek R

Learner

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