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Bestseller Recently updated System Design

System Design Interview Mastery

Engineers and tech leads: walk into your next system design interview ready to whiteboard with confidence.

3.9 (88 ratings) Created by Thomas Berger
Intermediate 398 lessons 24h 48m Updated Jul 2026 English
Preview this course
₹199 ₹499 60% off
incl. GST
left at this price!
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7-day money-back guarantee

What you'll learn

Master a repeatable framework for any system design interview
Drive the conversation from requirements to a complete design
Tackle classic problems: URL shortener, news feed, chat, rate limiter
Make and defend trade-offs under time pressure
Estimate scale, storage, and bandwidth on the spot
Avoid the common mistakes that fail candidates

This course includes

24h 48m of on-demand content
398 lessons across 32 sections
Access on mobile and desktop
Certificate of completion
Certificate of Achievement
Lifetime access
Curriculum

Course content

32 sections · 398 lessons · 24h 48m

Welcome Preview 3 min
What is System Design? Preview 4 min
Why is System Design Important? Preview 4 min
The Evolution of System Design Over the Last 25 Years 4 min
How This Course Is Structured 3 min
How to Navigate This Course Effectively 5 min
How System Design Interviews Actually Work 4 min
What Companies Expect from Beginners vs. Mid-Level Engineers 4 min
Common Mistakes Beginners Make in System Design Interviews 5 min
Course Introduction — Cheat Sheet 3 min

Introduction to Networking in System Design 4 min
Understanding IP Addresses 4 min
How DNS Works 5 min
Client-Server Model Explained 4 min
Forward Proxy vs. Reverse Proxy 4 min
Introduction to Load Balancing 4 min
Load Balancing Algorithms 5 min
What is an API Gateway? 4 min
Content Delivery Networks (CDN) 5 min
Rate Limiting Fundamentals 5 min
Service Discovery Basics 5 min
Networking Fundamentals Summary 4 min
Networking Fundamentals — Cheat Sheet 3 min

Let's Start: Protocols 4 min
TCP vs. UDP 4 min
HTTP — The Backbone of the Web 4 min
HTTPS & TLS Basics 4 min
REST & RESTfulness 4 min
GraphQL Basics 4 min
gRPC Fundamentals 4 min
WebSockets & Real-Time Communication 4 min
Server-Sent Events (SSE) 3 min
WebRTC Basics 4 min
Modern API Protocols Beyond REST 4 min
Sync vs. Async Communication 5 min
Retry Mechanisms & Timeouts 4 min
Idempotency in Distributed Systems 4 min
Summary & Practical Applications 4 min
Protocols & Communication — Cheat Sheet 3 min

Introduction to Web Concepts 4 min
Web Sessions 4 min
Cookies & Session Storage 3 min
JWT vs Session-Based Authentication 4 min
Serialization & Data Formats 4 min
CORS & Browser Security 3 min
Authentication vs Authorization 4 min
OAuth 2.0 Basics 4 min
API Security Fundamentals 4 min
CSRF & XSS Basics 4 min
Summary & Practical Applications 4 min
Web Concepts — Cheat Sheet 3 min

Introduction to Architectural Patterns 4 min
Monolith vs Microservices 4 min
Layered Architecture 4 min
Multi-Tier Architecture 4 min
Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) 4 min
Microservices Architecture 4 min
Event-Driven Architecture 4 min
Hexagonal Architecture 4 min
CQRS Basics 4 min
Saga Pattern Basics 4 min
API Gateway Pattern 4 min
Backend for Frontend (BFF) 4 min
Summary & Practical Applications 4 min
Architectural Patterns — Cheat Sheet 3 min

What is a Distributed System? 4 min
Challenges in Distributed Systems 4 min
CAP Theorem 4 min
Strong Consistency vs Eventual Consistency 3 min
Consensus Basics 4 min
Leader Election 4 min
Quorums Explained 3 min
Distributed Coordination 4 min
Split Brain Problem 4 min
Distributed Locks 4 min
Time & Ordering in Distributed Systems 4 min
Backpressure 3 min
Circuit Breakers 4 min
Service Mesh Basics 4 min
Summary & Practical Applications 4 min
Distributed Systems Fundamentals — Cheat Sheet 3 min

Introduction to Scalability 3 min
Vertical vs Horizontal Scaling 3 min
Diagonal Scaling 3 min
Stateless vs Stateful Services 4 min
Designing for High Throughput 4 min
Understanding Bottlenecks 4 min
Scaling Databases 4 min
Autoscaling in Cloud Environments 4 min
Geo-Distributed Systems 4 min
Multi-Region Architecture Basics 4 min
Scalability Tradeoffs 4 min
Summary & Final Thoughts 4 min
Scalability Fundamentals — Cheat Sheet 3 min

Introduction to System Performance 4 min
Latency vs Throughput 4 min
Caching Fundamentals 5 min
Redis Fundamentals 4 min
CDN Caching Strategies 4 min
Cache Invalidation Strategies 4 min
Messaging Queues for Decoupling 4 min
Event Streaming Basics 4 min
Kafka Fundamentals 5 min
Concurrency vs Parallelism 4 min
Batch Processing vs Stream Processing 4 min
Database Performance Optimization 4 min
Read Replicas 4 min
Query Optimization 5 min
Indexing Fundamentals 4 min
Bloom Filters Basics 5 min
Summary & Recap — Performance Optimization 4 min
Performance Optimization — Cheat Sheet 3 min

Introduction to Storage in System Design 4 min
SQL vs NoSQL 4 min
ACID vs BASE 4 min
Relational Database Fundamentals 4 min
Key-Value Databases 4 min
Document Databases 4 min
Columnar Databases 4 min
Graph Databases 4 min
Database Indexing 4 min
Sharding Fundamentals 5 min
Replication Strategies 4 min
Leader-Follower Replication 4 min
Multi-Leader Replication 4 min
Polyglot Persistence 4 min
Object Storage Systems 4 min
File Systems & Distributed Storage 4 min
Big Data Fundamentals 4 min
Data Partitioning Strategies 4 min
Choosing the Right Database 3 min
Summary & Key Takeaways 3 min
Storage & Databases — Cheat Sheet 3 min

Introduction to Reliability 4 min
High Availability Fundamentals 3 min
Fault Tolerance 3 min
Failover Strategies 3 min
Redundancy & Replication 3 min
Disaster Recovery 3 min
Backup & Restore Strategies 3 min
Retry Mechanisms 3 min
Dead Letter Queues 3 min
Graceful Degradation 3 min
Eventual Consistency in Practice 3 min
Distributed Transactions Basics 3 min
Exactly Once vs At Least Once Delivery 3 min
Reliability Patterns 3 min
Summary & Recap 3 min
Reliability Engineering — Cheat Sheet 3 min

Introduction to Observability 3 min
Logging Fundamentals 3 min
Metrics & Monitoring 3 min
Distributed Tracing 3 min
Alerting Systems 3 min
Health Checks 3 min
SLOs, SLIs & SLAs 3 min
Debugging Distributed Systems 3 min
Incident Response Basics 3 min
Summary & Practical Applications 3 min
Observability & Monitoring — Cheat Sheet 3 min

Introduction to Security in System Design 5 min
Authentication & Authorization 4 min
HTTPS & Secure Communication 4 min
Encryption at Rest vs In Transit 5 min
Network Security Fundamentals 4 min
Infrastructure Security 4 min
API Security 4 min
DDoS Protection Basics 4 min
Secrets Management 4 min
Secure Password Storage 4 min
Zero Trust Basics 4 min
Security Best Practices 4 min
Summary & Recap 3 min
Security Fundamentals — Cheat Sheet 3 min

The 4-Step System Design Approach 4 min
Understanding the Problem & Defining Scope 4 min
Functional vs Non-Functional Requirements 3 min
Estimating Scale 3 min
Capacity Planning 3 min
Identifying Bottlenecks 3 min
Designing APIs 3 min
High-Level Architecture 3 min
Database Selection Strategy 3 min
Communication Between Services 3 min
Choosing Infrastructure 3 min
Discussing Tradeoffs 3 min
Cost vs Performance 3 min
Simplicity vs Scalability 3 min
Reliability vs Complexity 3 min
How to Communicate During Interviews 4 min
Whiteboarding & Diagramming Tips 3 min
Summary & Interview Checklist 3 min
System Design Interview Framework — Cheat Sheet 3 min

Estimation Fundamentals 3 min
Traffic Estimation 3 min
Storage Estimation 3 min
Bandwidth Estimation 3 min
Memory Calculations 3 min
QPS & Throughput Calculations 3 min
Capacity Planning Basics 3 min
Back-of-the-Envelope Calculations 3 min
Real Interview Estimation Examples 4 min
Estimation & Capacity Planning — Cheat Sheet 3 min

SQL vs NoSQL 3 min
Monolith vs Microservices 3 min
REST vs gRPC 3 min
Sync vs Async 4 min
Push vs Pull 4 min
Availability vs Consistency 4 min
Cost vs Scalability 4 min
Caching vs Freshness 4 min
Simplicity vs Flexibility 4 min
Centralized vs Distributed Systems 4 min
Event-Driven vs Request-Driven Systems 4 min
Common Tradeoff Discussions in Interviews 4 min
System Design Tradeoffs — Cheat Sheet 5 min

Understanding the Problem & Scope 4 min
Estimating Scale & Bottlenecks 4 min
API & Service Design 4 min
Database Design 4 min
Cache Strategy 4 min
High-Level Architecture 4 min
Scaling Considerations 4 min
Failure Handling 4 min
Tradeoffs & Alternatives 4 min
How Bitly Might Design It 4 min
Final Design Review 4 min
URL Shortener — Cheat Sheet 3 min

Understanding Requirements 3 min
Scale Estimation 3 min
High-Level Design 4 min
Core Components 4 min
Data Flow 4 min
Bottlenecks 4 min
Scaling Strategy 3 min
Failure Handling 4 min
Tradeoffs 4 min
Final Design Review 3 min
Ticket Booking System — Cheat Sheet 3 min

Understanding Requirements 4 min
Scale Estimation 3 min
High-Level Design 3 min
Core Components 3 min
Data Flow 3 min
Bottlenecks 4 min
Scaling Strategy 3 min
Failure Handling 3 min
Tradeoffs 3 min
Final Design Review 3 min
News Feed System — Cheat Sheet 3 min

Understanding Requirements 3 min
Scale Estimation 3 min
High-Level Design 4 min
Core Components 4 min
Data Flow 4 min
Bottlenecks 4 min
Scaling Strategy 4 min
Failure Handling 4 min
Tradeoffs 4 min
Final Design Review 5 min
Notification System — Cheat Sheet 3 min

Understanding Requirements 4 min
Scale Estimation 3 min
High-Level Design 4 min
Core Components 4 min
Data Flow 4 min
Bottlenecks 4 min
Scaling Strategy 3 min
Failure Handling 4 min
Tradeoffs 3 min
Final Design Review 3 min
Chat Application — Cheat Sheet 3 min

Understanding Requirements 4 min
Scale Estimation 3 min
High-Level Design 4 min
Core Components 3 min
Data Flow 3 min
Bottlenecks 4 min
Scaling Strategy 4 min
Failure Handling 4 min
Tradeoffs 3 min
Final Design Review 3 min
Auction Platform — Cheat Sheet 3 min

Understanding Requirements 4 min
Scale Estimation 3 min
High-Level Design 4 min
Core Components 4 min
Data Flow 4 min
Bottlenecks 4 min
Scaling Strategy 4 min
Failure Handling 3 min
Tradeoffs 3 min
Final Design Review 3 min
Online Rental Platform — Cheat Sheet 3 min

Understanding Requirements 4 min
Scale Estimation 4 min
High-Level Design 5 min
Core Components 5 min
Data Flow 4 min
Bottlenecks 5 min
Scaling Strategy 4 min
Failure Handling 5 min
Tradeoffs 4 min
Final Design Review 5 min
Cloud Storage System — Cheat Sheet 4 min

Understanding Requirements 3 min
Scale Estimation 3 min
High-Level Design 3 min
Core Components 4 min
Data Flow 4 min
Bottlenecks 4 min
Scaling Strategy 3 min
Failure Handling 4 min
Tradeoffs 3 min
Final Design Review 4 min
Video Sharing Platform — Cheat Sheet 3 min

Understanding Requirements 3 min
Scale Estimation 3 min
High-Level Design 3 min
Core Components 4 min
Data Flow 4 min
Bottlenecks 3 min
Scaling Strategy 3 min
Failure Handling 3 min
Tradeoffs 3 min
Final Design Review 4 min
Search Engine — Cheat Sheet 3 min

Understanding Requirements 3 min
Scale Estimation 3 min
High-Level Design 3 min
Core Components 3 min
Data Flow 3 min
Bottlenecks 3 min
Scaling Strategy 3 min
Failure Handling 3 min
Tradeoffs 3 min
Final Design Review 3 min
E-Commerce Platform — Cheat Sheet 4 min

Understanding Requirements 4 min
Scale Estimation 3 min
High-Level Design 3 min
Core Components 4 min
Data Flow 4 min
Bottlenecks 4 min
Scaling Strategy 4 min
Failure Handling 5 min
Tradeoffs 4 min
Final Design Review 4 min
Taxi Hailing Application — Cheat Sheet 4 min

Understanding Requirements 4 min
Scale Estimation 3 min
High-Level Design 4 min
Core Components 5 min
Data Flow 4 min
Bottlenecks 4 min
Scaling Strategy 4 min
Failure Handling 4 min
Tradeoffs 4 min
Final Design Review 4 min
Collaborative Document Editor — Cheat Sheet 3 min

Event Sourcing Basics 4 min
CQRS Advanced Concepts 4 min
Saga Pattern Deep Dive 4 min
Stream Processing Systems 4 min
Multi-Region Deployments 4 min
Active-Active vs Active-Passive 4 min
Distributed Coordination Systems 4 min
Service Mesh Architecture 3 min
Edge Computing Basics 3 min
Designing Planet-Scale Systems 4 min
Advanced Distributed System Patterns — Cheat Sheet 3 min

Feed Systems Pattern 4 min
Messaging Systems Pattern 3 min
Recommendation Systems Pattern 3 min
Search Systems Pattern 3 min
Streaming Systems Pattern 3 min
Booking Systems Pattern 4 min
Payment Systems Pattern 3 min
Notification Systems Pattern 3 min
Geo-Spatial Systems Pattern 3 min
Real-Time Collaboration Pattern 8 min
Common Interview Patterns — Cheat Sheet 7 min

How to Practice System Design 4 min
Structuring Your Answers 4 min
Managing Time During Interviews 4 min
Handling Unknown Questions 4 min
Thinking Out Loud Effectively 4 min
Senior-Level Thinking vs. Beginner Thinking 4 min
Common Interview Mistakes 6 min
Mock Interview Walkthroughs 10 min
Final Interview Checklist 5 min
Mock Interview Preparation — Cheat Sheet 3 min

Final Prep, Mindset & Moving Forward 4 min
Recommended Resources 6 min
How to Continue Learning System Design 4 min
Building Your Own System Design Portfolio 5 min
Next Steps for Backend Engineering Interviews 5 min
Final Wrap-Up — Cheat Sheet 7 min

Final Assessment & Certificate of Achievement

60 questions · 60 min · pass 70% · proctored

This course includes a Certificate of Achievement. Work through every lesson, then pass the timed, proctored final assessment to earn a verifiable certificate you can share on LinkedIn or add to your résumé.

  1. Enroll and complete all lessons
  2. Pass the final assessment (70% to pass)
  3. Earn your Certificate of Achievement

Requirements

  • Some software engineering or backend experience
  • Basic knowledge of databases, caching, and networking
  • Ideally preparing for technical interviews

Description

What you'll learn

A complete path through system design — starting from the networking and protocol fundamentals every architecture depends on, through distributed systems theory, scalability, performance, storage, reliability, observability, and security, and finishing with 13 real-world case studies and an interview playbook. Every lesson is a focused read with diagrams, worked examples, and interview angles.

How it's organized

  • Fundamentals — networking, protocols & communication, web concepts, and architectural patterns.
  • Distributed systems & scale — distributed systems theory, scalability, performance optimization, storage & databases.
  • Production concerns — reliability engineering, observability, and security.
  • Interview craft — a four-step framework, estimation & capacity planning, and the tradeoffs interviewers probe.
  • Case studies — 13 end-to-end designs (URL shortener, ticketing, news feed, chat, cloud storage, video, search, e-commerce, ride-hailing, collaborative editing, and more).
  • Advanced & wrap-up — advanced distributed patterns, common interview patterns, mock-interview prep, and next steps.

Who this is for

Engineers preparing for system design interviews and anyone who wants to reason about real-world, scalable architectures with confidence — from first principles to staff-level tradeoffs.

Topics covered

system-design distributed-systems architecture scalability interview-prep
Your instructor
T

Thomas Berger

Java, Design Patterns & Low-Level Design · 15 yrs · Principal Engineer, Zentech

3.9 course rating 4 courses

Thomas is a 15-year JVM veteran who has shipped large Java platforms and mentored dozens of engineers through senior promotion. He is obsessed with clean object modelling, design patterns applied with restraint, and the kind of low-level design that holds up under a real interview loop.

3.9 course rating · 88 ratings

M
Ms. Marielle McClure IV
1 year ago

Useful in parts. A few sections were exactly what I needed; others repeated things I already knew.

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R
Ramon Denesik
1 year ago

Mixed feelings — some lessons were excellent, others felt thin. Average overall.

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D
Dr. Melvin Grimes MD
2 months ago

Five stars without hesitation. Everything is explained simply and there is real substance behind it.

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T
Trent Homenick
8 months ago

Very helpful. It got me up to speed quickly, even if a few sections moved faster than I liked.

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  • Report this review

Frequently asked questions

Yes — once you enroll, the course is yours to revisit forever. New revisions and bonus lessons are added at no extra cost.

Yes — this course includes a Certificate of Achievement. Complete every lesson, then pass the timed, proctored final assessment to earn a shareable, verifiable certificate you can post on LinkedIn or include with job applications.

If the course isn't a fit, request a refund within 7 days of purchase — no questions asked.

Code, slides, and worksheets are downloadable on each lesson page. Videos stream from our CDN so you can watch on any device.

Each course states its level in the hero. If you're comfortable with the prerequisites listed, you're ready to start.

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