Arslan Ahmad

February 2nd, 2025

System Design Interview Book Review for Candidates

Should You Read System Design Interview – An insider's guide?

Learning to design large systems sounds exciting but it is not that simple. You learn to design big systems after you’ve done it, but what if you haven’t?

If you are a beginner who doesn’t even know the basic concepts, it is going to be hard.

You can find many useful resources like the System Design Primer on GitHub and articles on System Design fundamentals available online. But since you need something more structured than just a collection of concepts, that's when Alex Xu’s System Design interview book comes to the rescue.

Let's discover if it's a fit for fresh candidates preparing for system design interviews.

System Design Interview – An insider's guide

System Design Interview–an insider’s guide by Alex Xu is ranked #4 in Job Hunting books and #1 in Job Interviewing books. It is easy to read with different design exercises and relevant links.

Being an entrepreneur and an experienced software engineer, he released two volumes of the book with a gap of a year focusing more on real-world examples and diagrams in the second version.

The first volume includes over ten case studies and a consistent framework used throughout. It also comes with an online course that replicates the book’s content and some colored diagrams for better understanding additionally.

The feedback from the readers has been carefully handled in the latest edition.

It teaches concepts step-by-step, making it perfect for people who haven’t worked on systems at scale. It’s also a good refresher for those familiar with some of these systems but want to explore different types of large systems.

What Does the Book Offer

The System Design interview book covers the following aspects:

A complete picture of what the interviewers really look for and the reasons behind it.
A detailed 4-step framework for solving any system design interview question.
16 real system design interview questions in volume 1 and 13 in volume 2 with detailed solutions.
188 diagrams in volume 1 and 300+ in volume 2 to understand the workings of various systems.

The 4-Step Process for System Design Interviews

System design interviews can be challenging, but this 4-step process defined in the book can help you manage them effectively:

Understand the Problem and Set Boundaries: Make sure you understand the problem by asking questions. Clarify any constraints or limitations. Don't rush to give an answer; it's important to gather all the necessary information first. Discuss the design with them and get their approval.
Outline a Basic Plan and Get Feedback: Before diving into the details, outline a high-level plan. You need to create a blueprint at this step. Make sure your plan meets the constraints and get feedback from your interviewer. Take it as a conversation where you're working together to find the best approach.
Go Deep into the Details: Once you have a basic plan, go into the details. This is where your knowledge of specific systems and concepts comes into play. Think about load handling and selecting the most appropriate data store. Explain your choices clearly and show your understanding of the technical aspects.
Wrap Up: Summarize your design and discuss any potential flaws or areas for improvement. This shows that you can think critically about your design and are aware of its limitations.

Time Management for the 4-Step Process

The book suggests dividing your time wisely for this 4-step process during the interview.

It stresses listening carefully to the interviewer before answering and asking questions if you have any doubts.

It recommends the following division:

Understanding the problem: 3-10 minutes.
High-level plan: 10-15 minutes
Detailed design: 10-25 minutes
Wrapping Up: a few minutes

In this way, you will be done with the design in about 50 minutes and you can head on to answering the other questions.

Most importantly, it helps ensure you cover all the important parts without rushing.

Real World Case Studies

The system design interview book covers diverse case studies based on real-world systems.

By understanding these applications, you can grasp relevant concepts at each step.

Some of the case studies discussed in these two software design interview books include:

Volume 1

Design A Rate Limiter: Techniques to control the rate of requests.
Design Consistent Hashing: Methods for distributing data evenly.
Design A Key-value Store: Building a system to store and retrieve key-value pairs.
Design A Unique ID Generator In Distributed Systems: Creating unique IDs in large systems.
Design A Url Shortener: How to build something like Bit.ly.
Design A Web Crawler: Gathering data from the web efficiently.
Design A Notification System: Keeping users informed with real-time updates.
Design A News Feed System: Building a personalized news feed.
Design A Chat System: Creating a reliable messaging app.
Design A Search Autocomplete System: Predicting user search queries.
Design Youtube: Handling video storage and streaming.
Design Google Drive: Building a robust file storage system.

Volume 2

This can be seen as a follow-up to the first volume, offering a new set of system-design interview questions and solutions.

You can find the following key applications:

Google Maps: Designing a mapping and location service.
Digital Wallet: Creating a system for managing digital transactions and balances.
Hotel Reservation: Designing a hotel booking system.
Stock Exchange: Designing a system for handling stock trades.
Payment System: Building a secure and efficient payment processing system.

What Will You Learn

In terms of systems, you can practically learn about the following components in this book:

Core System Design Concepts: Consistent hashing, Rate Limiter, Key-value store, Unique ID generator in distributed systems
File Storage System: Google Drive
Media Applications: YouTube
Location-based systems: Google Maps, Proximity service, Nearby friends
E-commerce and Finance Management Systems: Digital Wallet, Stock Exchange, Payment System, Hotel reservation
Social Media: Notification system, News feed, Chat systems
Gaming and Real-time Applications: Gaming Leaderboard
Web applications: Web crawler, URL shortener

Find the complete structure for designing a URL shortening service.

Overall Review — Strengths and Weaknesses

The book is a great learning resource for system design concepts and applications. It discusses everything from the basics to the advanced applications thoroughly.

Even if you are not preparing for a system design interview, you can still build or improve your system design skills with this book.

It is good for beginners and mid-level engineers. However, you might find its content to be limited as an expert engineer.

Coverage of Fundamentals

The book does a great job covering fundamental concepts like rate limiting, consistent hashing, and sharding.

On the other hand, topics like caching and replication strategies need more explanation which is missing. These are crucial in many scenarios, and more coverage would have been helpful.

Learn more about the basic concepts of System Design.

Extensive Diagrams

The volume 1 contains 180+ diagrams whereas volume 2 has more than 300 easy-to-understand illustrations to visually understand the concepts and internal workings of the systems. These diagrams are well presented.

Tradeoffs and Alternatives

One of the areas where the book could improve is in presenting alternative solutions with tradeoffs. Often, you can balance the number of machines against latency or resilience against cost, and having more examples of these tradeoffs would be beneficial.

Pattern Inconsistency

The design solutions to all problems follow different directions. You might find inconsistencies in the database schemas and high-level designs since the problems are different.

Backend Focus

It’s worth noting that the book primarily focuses on backend system design. If you’re a mobile or web engineer, the client-side design problems you face might not be covered here.

That said, the book still offers valuable insights and can help non-backend engineers, even if it’s a bit less directly applicable.

Read the Ultimate Guide to System Design.

Tips To Read this System Design Interview Book Smartly

Here are some of the tips you can follow to make the most out of the book:

Keep a slow pace to understand the concepts deeply
Focus on the structure and designs instead of mere reading
Design your own solutions for each problem before checking out the book
Practice the diagrams thoroughly

Additional Learning Resources

To prepare for your System Design interview, you can explore the following resources along with the book/course by Alex:

Books

"System Design Interview – An Insider’s Guide" by Alex Xu: This book provides a step-by-step framework for tackling system design interview questions and includes many real-world examples.
"Designing Data-Intensive Applications" by Martin Kleppmann: A deeper dive into distributed systems concepts and data management, this book is a must-read for anyone serious about system design.
"Site Reliability Engineering" by Google: Offers insights into building and maintaining large-scale systems from Google's own experience.

Online Courses

Grokking the System Design Fundamentals course: This course is perfect for those who are new to system design or looking to solidify their understanding of the core principles. It provides a thorough introduction to the key concepts and practices required to design scalable and efficient systems.
Grokking the System Design Interview course by DesignGurus.io: This popular course by DesignGurus.io is a comprehensive resource that breaks down complex system design problems into simple, understandable steps. It includes a wide range of topics, from designing scalable systems to understanding load balancing and caching.
Grokking the Advanced System Design Interview: For those who have a good grasp of basic system design concepts and are looking to dive deeper, this advanced course covers more complex topics and real-world scenarios. It builds on the foundational knowledge from the initial course and helps you tackle more sophisticated design problems.

Roadmaps

System Design Interview Roadmap: DesignGurus.io provides a structured roadmap that guides you through the fundamental concepts of system design, step-by-step. It includes learning paths tailored for beginners to advanced learners, ensuring you cover all essential topics systematically.

GitHub Repositories

System Design Primer: A comprehensive repository covering a wide range of system design topics and interview questions. It’s a great starting point for beginners.
Awesome Scalability: A curated list of resources covering everything from system design principles to real-world case studies of scaling systems.

Blogs and Articles

DesignGurus Blog: The blog section of DesignGurus.io offers valuable insights and articles on various aspects of system design.
ByteByteGo: Stay up-to-date with the system design concepts through Alex Xu’s blog.

Practice Platforms

LeetCode: While primarily focused on coding problems, LeetCode also has a section for system design interview questions.
HackerRank: Offers a mix of coding challenges and system design problems, along with discussion forums to learn from others.

Community and Discussion Forums

Reddit - r/system_design: A community where you can ask questions, share resources, and learn from others preparing for system design interviews.
Stack Overflow: While not focused solely on system design, it’s a great place to ask specific questions and get answers from experienced engineers. Using these resources, you can build a solid foundation in system design, practice real-world scenarios, and confidently tackle system design interviews.

Final Thoughts

Overall, "System Design Interview" by Alex Xu is a wonderful resource. It’s practical, well-structured, and filled with useful case studies.

This book is a fantastic tool for anyone looking to master system design, both for interviews and everyday work.

But just like any learning material, it’s not a magic bullet. To get the most out of it, engage actively with the material. Draw out your designs, think critically about the solutions, and apply the concepts to real-world scenarios.

What our users say

Nathan Thomas

My newest course recommendation for all of you is to check out Grokking the System Design Interview on designgurus.io. I'm working through it this month, and I'd highly recommend it.

AHMET HANIF

Whoever put this together, you folks are life savers. Thank you :)

Eric

I've completed my first pass of "grokking the System Design Interview" and I can say this was an excellent use of money and time. I've grown as a developer and now know the secrets of how to build these really giant internet systems.