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image_credit - Exponent
Hello friends, if you are preparing for Tech interviews, then you must prepare for System design questions because this is where most of the people struggle.
Even experienced programmers struggle to solve common questions like how to design WhatsApp or YouTube, or answer the difference between API Gateway vs Load Balancer and Horizontal vs Vertical Scaling, Forward proxy vs reverse proxy.
In today's increasingly distributed world, the ability to architect robust and scalable systems is a fundamental skill sought after by top-tier tech companies.
System design interviews have become a crucial component in evaluating a candidate's capacity to solve real-world challenges, assess trade-offs, and design systems that can handle complex requirements.
In the past, I have also shared about Database Sharding, System design topics, Microservice Architecture, and System design algorithms, and today, I am going to share system design questions for interviews.
In this article, I have 50+ system design interview questions carefully crafted to guide candidates from the foundational concepts to intricate design scenarios.
Whether you're a beginner aiming to grasp the essentials or an experienced engineer seeking to refine your skills, these questions will not only prepare you for interviews but also improve your knowledge about system design and software architecture.
By the way, if you are preparing for System design interviews and want to learn System Design in depth then you can also checkout sites like ByteByteGo, Design Guru, Exponent, Educative, Codemia.io, Bugfree.ai and Udemy which have many great System design courses
P.S. Keep reading until the end. I have a free bonus for you.
50 System Design Interview Questions for 2026
Here is a list of 50 popular System design interview questions for beginners and experienced developers, which you can solve to start your preparation.
In this list, I have not only shared easy, medium, and hard system design problems but also concept-based questions like API Gateway vs Load Balancer or Microservice vs Monolithic. You can practice these system design problems and questions for interviews.
System Design Concept-based Questions
1. What is the difference between API Gateway and Load Balancer? [solution]
2. What is the difference between Reverse Proxy and Forward Proxy? (answer)
3. What is the difference between Horizontal scaling and vertical scaling? (answer)
4. What is difference between Microservices and Monolithic architecture? (Answer)
5. What is difference between vertical and horizontal partitioning ?
6. What is Rate Limiter? How does it work? (answer)
7. How does Single Sign On (SSO) works? (answer)
8. How does Apache Kafka works? why it so fast? (answer)
9. Difference between Kafka, ActiveMQ, and RabbitMQ? (answer)
10. Difference between JWT, OAuth, and SAML? (answer)
Here is a nice diagram from DesignGuru.io which explains difference between vertical and horizontal database partition
𝐄𝐚𝐬𝐲 System Design Problems
Now, let's jump into easy system design problems. These are common question where you need to design small utility which is used everywhere like URL shortner:
1. How to Design URL Shortener like TinyURL [solution]
2. How to Design Text Storage Service like Pastebin? [solution]
3. Design Content Delivery Network (CDN) ? [solution]
4. Design Parking Garage [solution]
5. Design Vending Machine [solution]
6. How to Design Distributed Key-Value Store
7. Design Distributed Cache
8. Design Distributed Job Scheduler
9. How to Design Authentication System
10. How to Design Unified Payments Interface (UPI)
And, here is a high level design of YouTube from Educative.io for your reference:
𝐌𝐞𝐝𝐢𝐮𝐦 System Design Problems
Now, is the time to see medium difficulty of System design problems. These questions are neither easy nor very tough but you need good knowledge of various software architecture component and system design concepts to answer them.
11. Design Instagram [solution]
12. How to Design Tinder
13. Design WhatsApp (solution)
14. How to Design Facebook
15. Design Twitter
16. Design Reddit
17. Design Netflix [solution]
18. Design Youtube [solution]
19. Design Google Search
20. Design E-commerce Store like Amazon
21. Design Spotify
22. Design TikTok
23. Design Shopify
24. Design Airbnb
25. Design Autocomplete for Search Engines
26. Design Rate Limiter
27. Design Distributed Message Queue like Kafka
28. Design Flight Booking System
29. Design Online Code Editor
30. Design Stock Exchange System
31. Design an Analytics Platform (Metrics & Logging)
32. Design Notification Service
33. Design Payment System
And, here is a high level system design of Netflix from DesignGurus, one of my favorite place for learning system design
𝐇𝐚𝐫𝐝 System Design Problems
Now, let's see some hard questions which demand more effort from you. You may feel uncomfortable solving these questions but by doing this you become better.
34. How to Design Location Based Service like Yelp
35. Design Uber
36. Design Food Delivery App like Doordash
37. Design Google Docs
38. How to Design Google Maps
39. Design Zoom
40. How to Design File Sharing System like Dropbox
41. How to Design Ticket Booking System like BookMyShow
42. Design Distributed Web Crawler
43. How to Design Code Deployment System
44. Design Distributed Cloud Storage like S3
45. How to Design Distributed Locking Service
Here is high level design of Google Map by Educative.io
And, if you need solutions then they are available in this GitHub repository by @ Ashish Pratap Singh: https://github.com/ashishps1/awesome-system-design-resources/blob/main/README.md#system-design-interview-problems
And, now see a few more resources for System design interview preparation
Best System Design Interview Resources
And, here are curated list of the best system design books, online courses, and practice websites which you can check to better prepare for System design interviews. Most of these courses also answer questions I have shared here.
ByteByteGo: A live book and course by Alex Xu for System design interview preparation. It contains all the content of the System Design Interview book volumes 1 and 2, and will be updated with volume 3, which is coming soon.
Codemia.io: This is another great platform to practice System design problems for interviews. It has more than 120+ System design problems, many of which are free, and also a proper structure to solve them.
Bugfree.ai: This is another popular platform for technical interview preparation. It contains AI-based mock interviews as well as Interview experience and more than 3200+ real questions on System Design, Machine Learning, and other topics for practice =.
DesignGuru's Grokking System Design Course: An interactive learning platform with hands-on exercises and real-world scenarios to strengthen your system design skills.
"System Design Interview" book by Alex Xu: This book provides an in-depth exploration of system design concepts, strategies, and interview preparation tips.
"System Design Primer" on GitHub: A curated list of resources, including articles, books, and videos, to help you prepare for system design interviews.
Educative's System Design Course: An interactive learning platform with hands-on exercises and real-world scenarios to strengthen your system design skills.
High Scalability Blog: A blog that features articles and case studies on the architecture of high-traffic websites and scalable systems.
YouTube Channels: Check out channels like "Gaurav Sen" (ex-Google engineer and founder of InterviewReddy.io and "Tech Dummies" for insightful videos on system design concepts and interview preparation.
"Designing Data-Intensive Applications" by Martin Kleppmann: A comprehensive guide that covers the principles and practices for designing scalable and reliable systems.
Exponent: A specialized site for interview prep, especially for FAANG companies like Amazon and Google. They also have a great system design course and many other materials that can help you crack FAANG interviews.
image_credit - ByteByteGo
Remember to combine theoretical knowledge with practical application by working on real-world projects and participating in mock interviews. Continuous practice and learning will undoubtedly enhance your proficiency in system design interviews.
That's all about 50 System design interview questions for 2026. If you are preparing for technical interviews, then most likely you can solve these questions, but if you struggle, you can see the answer links, which go to free tutorials and YouTube videos, as well as the online courses and books I have shared.
Whether you're a candidate preparing for a technical interview or a seasoned professional looking to refine your skills, mastering system design is a pivotal step in advancing your career in the ever-evolving tech industry, and these questions will help you.
Bonus
As promised, here is the bonus for you, a free book. I just found a new free book to learn Distributed System Design, you can also read it here on Microsoft --- https://info.microsoft.com/rs/157-GQE-382/images/EN-CNTNT-eBook-DesigningDistributedSystems.pdf
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