Best System Design Resources

Best system design resources - my own opinion.

Overview

While, I personally have not done system design myself, I have studied for it, and came across exceptional resources that I think you can cross-validate with your own findings.

I don’t want to be the “advisor” here, as I don’t have again, the requisite experience of actually having to go through the system design interview but here is what I’ve come across when I was studying for it.

Note, system design is usually only needed for SDE II (Amazon equivalent) roles or above. Meaning usually 2+ years of experience, and depending on what level and company the degree of expectation can be different.

Designing Data Intensive Application

This is an extremely famous book in scalable system design, and while I personally only got half way through, I can see why it is popular. I don’t recommend this to study system design, as it is way too comprehensive and grounds up, walking you through the fundamental thought process of how a lot of these services came to be.

But I do think is still a great book overall.

ByteByte

ByteByteGo is a great resource by Alex Xu which is basically an online version of his physically printed book - both edition 1 and 2 is basically in the online version website. Personally, I prefer the online version owning both the physical + having tried ByteByteGo before.

HelloInterview youtube Channel

HelloInterview really does create great quality resources, and I think their resource on how to approach the system design interview matches exactly my own methodology to always have a consistent structure.

I think this video in particular exemplifies a great job, and they have other such videos too.