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  • The cover of the System Design Interview Handbook by MySmartCoPilot: the title on a dark page, the line 'A method for the 45 minutes, the numbers to compute, the building blocks and fifteen worked designs, with 40 drills, 10 mock prompts and their answers', and a request route from a client through a load balancer, a service and a cache to a store.
  • Two pages of Design 11, ticket booking with seat holds. Left: the prompt (a million people arriving for fifty thousand seats), the questions to ask and the numbers, such as 1,700 arrivals and 17,000 seat-map reads a second. Right: the high-level design from the waiting room to the seat store and the expiry worker, the request route in four numbered stops and the first deep dive.
  • Two pages of Part 2, the numbers. Left: planning capacities for servers, caches, databases and network links, and the latency ladder as a bar chart on a logarithmic scale, from a 1 ns cache hit to a 150 ms round trip between continents. Right: the worked estimate for a photo-sharing app, each sum beside the decision it drives, with sanity checks and common mistakes.

System Design Interview Handbook

A method for the 45-minute round, the numbers, the building blocks and 15 worked designs, with 40 drills, 10 mock prompts and answers

  • From MySmartCoPilot
  • PDF
  • EPUB
  • Text
  • 154 pages

Prepare for a system design interview: run the 45 minutes with a method, compute the numbers that drive a design, pick building blocks for stated reasons and practise with worked designs.

Price ₹199 / $4.99 One-time payment, any tax included

Download straight after paying. Yours to keep.

What’s inside

  • Part 1, the methodwhat the round tests and how each level is judged; the 45-minute route with a time box for every step; requirements, an API sketch and a first data model
  • Part 2, the numbersthe estimation toolkit, the five numbers that drive a design, the latency ladder with measured and computed values, and the arithmetic of availability, tail latency, Little's law and queues
  • Part 3, 9 chapters of building blocksthe front door, services and asynchronous work, caching, storing data, replication and consistency, partitioning, messaging and events, special-purpose tools, reliability and operations: what each does, what it costs and how it fails
  • Part 4, 15 worked designsURL shortener, rate limiter, news feed, chat, notifications, typeahead, web crawler, file sync, video streaming, ride matching, ticket booking, payments ledger, key-value store, metrics and alerting, job scheduler; each with the scope, the numbers, the API, the data, a diagram of the request route, deep dives, pressure points, decisions and follow-up questions
  • Part 5, practice with answers40 drills in five sets, 10 mock prompts with outline answers and a scorecard of the eight signals interviewers record
  • Referencethe route, the numbers and 20 trade-offs on one page each, a glossary of 93 terms and the sources, dated
  • 35 diagrams and charts27 diagrams drawn for this handbook in one visual language (the request route in numbered stops, pressure points as lettered pegs) and 8 charts computed from the formulas beside them
  • Practice sheets (11 pages, A4 and US Letter)the round board, the five numbers, design notes, a decision record, the scorecard, a practice log, the drill tracker, the study plans and a quick reference
  • Checked, not guessedevery sum computed on the page from stated assumptions; the formulas checked against simulations; facts from standards and papers listed with their sources and dated inside the file
  • The handbook as PDF and EPUB154 pages on A4 with bookmarks and links; the EPUB reflows for phones and e-readers
FileFormatSize
MySmartCoPilot-System-Design-Interview-Handbook-v1.0.pdfPDF2.4 MB
MySmartCoPilot-System-Design-Interview-Handbook-v1.0.epubEPUB1.0 MB
MySmartCoPilot-System-Design-Practice-Sheets-A4-v1.0.pdfPDF286 KB
MySmartCoPilot-System-Design-Practice-Sheets-Letter-v1.0.pdfPDF285 KB
MySmartCoPilot-System-Design-Handbook-Licence-v1.0.txtText6 KB
MySmartCoPilot-System-Design-Handbook-Changelog-v1.0.txtText599 bytes
MySmartCoPilot-System-Design-Handbook-Start-Here-v1.0.txtText2 KB

Works with

AppVersionsChecked
PDF readers any PDF reader on a computer, tablet or phone
Tagged PDF/UA-1 with bookmarks and internal links; every page rendered without an error in two PDF engines (PDFium and MuPDF) during our checks		 Made for
EPUB 3 reading apps any app that reads EPUB 3
Reflows to small screens; every diagram and chart has a text description; EPUBCheck reports no errors or warnings		 Made for
Printing A4 and US Letter paper
The practice sheets come in both sizes; the handbook is set on A4 and prints on US Letter with 'fit to page'		 Made for

“Tested” means we opened and checked the file in that app and kept the record. “Made for” means it follows that app’s documented format. No DRM: the file is yours to keep.

Try a sample

  • The cover of the System Design Interview Handbook by MySmartCoPilot: the title on a dark page, the line 'A method for the 45 minutes, the numbers to compute, the building blocks and fifteen worked designs, with 40 drills, 10 mock prompts and their answers', and a request route from a client through a load balancer, a service and a cache to a store.
  • Two pages of Design 11, ticket booking with seat holds. Left: the prompt (a million people arriving for fifty thousand seats), the questions to ask and the numbers, such as 1,700 arrivals and 17,000 seat-map reads a second. Right: the high-level design from the waiting room to the seat store and the expiry worker, the request route in four numbered stops and the first deep dive.
  • Two pages of Part 2, the numbers. Left: planning capacities for servers, caches, databases and network links, and the latency ladder as a bar chart on a logarithmic scale, from a 1 ns cache hit to a 150 ms round trip between continents. Right: the worked estimate for a photo-sharing app, each sum beside the decision it drives, with sanity checks and common mistakes.
  • Two real pages of Part 5. Left: the first drills, all of set A on numbers and most of set B on trade-offs, each a short problem to answer in two to five minutes. Right: the first page of the answers: the numbers drills worked step by step, then the first trade-off answers.
  • Two of the printable practice sheets on A4. Left: the round board, with the six steps and their time boxes across the top, boxes for features, quality targets, numbers and the API, a dotted area for the diagram and three deep-dive boxes. Right: the scorecard, eight signals scored from 1 to 4 with what each score means, and space for the weakest row and one thing to change.

5 of the 154 pages shown here.

How it helps

One method, used fifteen times

Part 1 gives you a route through the 45 minutes with a time box for every step. Every worked design follows the same order, so by the fifth one you reach for the next step before you read it.

Numbers you compute, not memorise

Every estimate is done in the open from assumptions you can change: requests per second, storage, bandwidth, the hot set and machines, each written next to the decision it drives.

Diagrams that show the request

Each design has a diagram of the main request, stop by stop, with its pressure points marked and explained under the same letters, so you see where an interviewer will push.

Practice with answers

40 drills, 10 mock prompts and a scorecard of the eight signals interviewers record, with answers at the back and printable sheets for every round.

Licence

Personal licence. Use it for yourself, in your own learning, projects and job, on all your devices.

  • Personal use
  • Lifetime use of this version
  • Free fixes
  • No resale

Lifetime use of the version you download. Fixes of errors in your edition are free from your order page. Read the full licence.

Refunds and your rights

Because the file is ready the moment you pay, we don’t refund a purchase once its download has started, unless the file is faulty or not as described: then we fix it, send you a corrected file or refund you. If you live in the EU, the EEA or the UK, you can withdraw from your purchase until your download starts, and you keep every right the law gives you.

Your legal guarantee: if a file is faulty or not as described, we repair it, replace it or refund you.

Refunds and withdrawal in the Digital Store terms

Delivery and paying

Download straight after paying, on this page and by e-mail. Nothing is shipped. Sold in the countries where a way to pay shows on this page.

You can download your files again from your order page whenever you need them. If we ever stop offering downloads, we’ll e-mail you at least 90 days before so you can save your copy.

  • In rupees: UPI, cards or netbanking on Razorpay’s secure page. MySmartCoPilot sells the file to you.
  • In US dollars: card or wallet with Dodo Payments, which sells the file to you as merchant of record and e-mails your receipt or invoice.
  • In US dollars with PayPal, where it is offered. MySmartCoPilot sells the file to you.

Bought once, separately from passes. How the Digital Store and passes differ.

Questions

Which level is it for?

Engineers preparing for mid-level and senior rounds get the most from it; early-career engineers and final-year students get the vocabulary and a method; interviewers get a shared rubric. A table in Part 1 says what each level adds.

How long does it take?

Part 1 and Part 2 are short. Three study plans in the handbook fit one, two or four weeks before your round.

Does it teach particular products?

No. It names building blocks by what they do (a queue, a cache, a log), because interviewers grade the properties you need, not the brand you pick. When you know a product well from your own work, the handbook tells you how to bring it in.

Will it get me a job?

No book can promise that. It helps you prepare: the method, the numbers and the designs will be ones you have already worked through and practised aloud.

What files do I get?

The handbook as a PDF (154 pages) and an EPUB, the practice sheets in A4 and US Letter (11 pages each), the licence, the changelog and a start-here note.

Can I print it?

Yes, for your own use: the licence lets you print the handbook and as many copies of the practice sheets as you need.

Versions

  • Version 1.0: First edition: the method, the numbers, 9 chapters of building blocks, 15 worked designs, 40 drills and 10 mock prompts with answers, the scorecard, one-page summaries and a glossary; the handbook as PDF and EPUB, and the practice sheets on A4 and US Letter.

More files in Careers and Interviews, Developer Kits.

JetBrains is a trademark of JetBrains s.r.o.; the font JetBrains Mono carries the name its authors gave it and is used under its licence. MySmartCoPilot is not affiliated with JetBrains. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. MySmartCoPilot is not affiliated with or endorsed by them. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

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System Design Interview Handbook, version 1.0, PDF, EPUB and Text

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Download straight after paying, on this page and by e-mail. Nothing is shipped. Sold in the countries where a way to pay shows on this page. Problems? support@mysmartcopilot.com

Inside System Design Interview Handbook

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