System Design
Design scalable systems: load balancing, caching, microservices, and distributed architecture.
Open-ended system design questions intentionally lack clarity. They expose whether a candidate defaults to patterns or first establishes constraints, evaluates trade-offs, and narrows the problem space deliberately.
The topics below focus on building a precise mental model of scale, caching strategies, boundaries, and failure modes—so you can turn an underspecified problem into a coherent design, defend your decisions, and articulate the reasoning behind them when stakes are high.
Topics in this category
Caching Strategies
Read →Learn different caching patterns and when to use them to improve application performance and reduce database load.
CAP Theorem
Read →Master the CAP theorem: understand why you can only guarantee two of Consistency, Availability, and Partition tolerance. Learn real-world trade-offs and examples.
API Gateways
Read →Understand API gateways as the single entry point for microservices. Learn routing, authentication, rate limiting, request/response transformation, and circuit breaking.