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Crack the System Design interview: tips from a Twitter software engineer
I recently wrote about how I landed offers from multiple top-tier tech companies. During my interview preparation process, I read up on a lot of material and prepared a set of notes on how to tackle system design problems. In this article, I’d like to share those tips with you all.
If you’re a fresh graduate with no experience in large-scale distributed systems, or even a seasoned engineer with years of experience under your belt, this article will be useful for you.
Update (3/24/2019): If you’d like to join a group of students to learn more about system design, I’m organizing a small class together! You can go to this link to learn more, or visit my website: zhiachong.com for more info.
This article is broken down into the following four sections:
- Ask clarification questions
- Use your background
- Tackle a problem systematically
- Keep your own notes
Ask clarification questions
A core aim of a systems design interview is to give the candidate an opportunity to demonstrate their knowledge.
There are no strictly right or wrong answers. A good system design question usually sounds…
