By Sunchit Dudeja
This is a complete, premium, interview-focused course on High-Level Design (System Design). It is built for engineers targeting FAANG, unicorns, startups, and product companies, and is structured the way top companies — Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Meta, Uber, Netflix, Airbnb, Stripe, Apple, and LinkedIn — actually run their system design interviews.
Every lesson explains the WHY, not just the WHAT. Every design highlights trade-offs. Every module ends with interview tips, quizzes, and assignments. Designs are cloud-agnostic with optional AWS / Azure / GCP mappings.
"System design interviews reward structured thinking, clear communication, and defensible trade-offs — not memorized answers. This course trains all three."
| Audience | What you'll get |
|---|---|
| Software Engineers (2–15 yrs) | A repeatable framework + deep fundamentals |
| Senior Engineers | Trade-off mastery and deep dives |
| Staff / Principal Engineers | Ambiguity handling, alternatives, cost & failure modeling |
| Engineering Managers | Evaluation lens, design reviews, communication |
| FAANG / startup candidates | 50+ solved problems, 30 mock interviews, 90-day plan |
| # | Module | Folder | Focus |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Introduction to HLD Interviews | Module-01-Introduction |
Mindset, scoring, communication, requirements |
| 2 | Distributed Systems Fundamentals | Module-02-Distributed-Systems-Fundamentals |
50+ core concepts, deep and interview-ready |
| 3 | The Complete HLD Framework | Module-03-HLD-Framework |
A 15-step repeatable framework + templates |
| 4 | System Design Components | Module-04-System-Design-Components |
When to use / NOT use each technology |
| 5 | Top HLD Interview Questions | Module-05-Top-HLD-Questions |
50 problems, 20-section full solutions |
| 6 | Behavioral Round for HLD | Module-06-Behavioral-Round |
Communication, leadership, design reviews |
| 7 | Mock Interviews | Module-07-Mock-Interviews |
45-min end-to-end interview transcripts |
| 8 | Cheat Sheets | Module-08-Cheat-Sheets |
One-page revision references |
| 9 | 90-Day Preparation Plan | Module-09-90-Day-Plan |
Daily schedule, weekly goals, revision |
Every lesson follows the same premium format so you can navigate quickly:
- Lesson Title & Learning Objectives
- Detailed Explanation (WHY it exists, advantages, disadvantages)
- Architecture Diagram (Mermaid) + ASCII Diagram
- Tables & Comparisons
- Code / Config snippets (where useful)
- Interview Questions + Ideal Answers
- Common Mistakes
- Quiz + Assignment + Homework
- Interview Tips and Key Takeaways
- References for further reading
Week 1-2 → Module 1 (mindset) + Module 3 (framework)
Week 2-5 → Module 2 (fundamentals) + Module 4 (components)
Week 5-10 → Module 5 (solve problems using the framework)
Week 10-12 → Module 7 (mock interviews) + Module 6 (behavioral)
Always → Module 8 (cheat sheets) for daily revision
Overlay → Module 9 (90-day plan) to sequence everything
1. Clarify requirements 6. APIs 11. Scaling
2. Estimate scale 7. Data model 12. Trade-offs
3. Estimate traffic 8. High-level arch. 13. Failure handling
4. Estimate storage 9. Deep dive 14. Monitoring
5. Estimate bandwidth 10. Bottlenecks 15. Security
Full explanation and reusable templates: Module-03-HLD-Framework.
- Start with Module 1 and Module 3 to learn the framework.
- Build fundamentals with Module 2 and Module 4.
- For each problem in Module 5, try solving it yourself first, then compare with the full solution.
- Practice under time pressure with Module 7 mock interviews.
- Revise daily with Module 8 cheat sheets and follow Module 9's plan.
See LICENSE.
This is a living course. Each module folder contains its own README index of lessons.