My Favorite Resources for System Design Interviews
Here are the best resources for system design interviews, including system design interview questions, courses, and cheat sheets.
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Join For FreeHello devs, if you are preparing for a system design interview and looking for the best resources to master software design and system design, then you have come to the right place.
Earlier, I shared the best System Courses, Books, and System Interview Questions, and in this article, I will share the best places to learn system design.
But before we get to the best websites that will teach you everything you need to know about system design, let me tell you a little bit about what it is. Systems design is the process of defining elements of a system, including modules, architecture, components, interface, and data for a system based on a specific set of requirements.
It can also refer to the process of defining, developing, and designing systems. These designs have to satisfy the specific needs of a company or an organization.
8 Best Resources for System Design Interviews
As a system designer, you have to make use of all the different modeling languages for expressing the information and knowledge in the structure of a system. This system must be defined by a consistent set of rules and definitions. It can also be defined in textual or graphical modeling languages.
There are different graphical modeling languages like the Unified Modeling Language, UML, Flowchart, Business Process Modeling Notation, and Systems Modeling Language.
There are also different types of design methods that you can make use of. They include Architectural Design, Logical Design, and Physical Design.
Here we have compiled a list of the best websites for learning system design. Keep reading to find out more.
1. ByteByteGo by Alex Yu
This is one of the most amazing platforms to learn about System design concepts and prepare for system design interviews. This website was created by Alex Yu, author of the popular System Design Interview — An insider's guidebook, one of the most recommended books for system design interviews. This website also serves as the digital version of his book, but it offers much more. '
Alex has shared a detailed, step-by-step framework to solve system design questions from interviews like How to design YouTube and design a chat system. He also regularly shares interesting content on System Design, which is helpful for learning about essential System design concepts like scaling, caching, and distributed messages.
If you are preparing for a system design, I highly recommend you to check out this website and join his course. You can also use code JALJAD to get a 10% discount.
2. Udemy (Best Place for System Design Course)
This wonderful website will teach you everything you need to know about system designing, along with grokking from absolute scratch. In this way, it is perfect for complete beginners. Udemy is a perfect starting guide for beginners looking to enter the amazing world of system design.
Using this fantastic website, you will learn about all the core features of advanced system design. You will also become a very advanced system designer. You will be able to master both system design and grokking.
Here are the best system design courses from Udemy which are worth looking at:
- Mastering the System Design Interview
- Pragmatic System Design
- System Design Interview Guide by Sandeep Kaul (Tech Lead @ Facebook)
By the time you finish all the courses on Udemy, you will become an expert system designer and be ready to solve those complex system design problems like how to design YouTube, Instagram, WhatsApp, or a messaging queue.
3. Educative (Best Interactive System Design Courses)
Educative is one of my favorite learning system designs on the internet. It is a website created to prepare you for a system design interview. This website will also give you an idea of how to approach system design in general.
It is also one of the only websites to teach large-scale distributed system design problems in painstaking detail. It does not matter, even if you are an expert in the field. I am sure you will find this website a valuable learning experience.
The smart people who have created this website have also gone the extra mile to give you a list of design choices. This list will make you understand the requirement, compare different approaches, and finally come up with a suitable solution for the complex problem that you are facing.
Here are the best system design courses from Educative.io:
- Grokking the System Design Interview
- Grokking the Advanced System Design Interview
- Grokking Modern System Design for Software Engineers & Managers
What makes Educative interesting is also the fact that the instructors do not spoon-feed you anything. You are required to work on the problem and come up with innovative solutions yourself. If you are looking for just one website that will thoroughly prepare you for a system design interview, you do not need to look any further.
Here is a nice system design cheat sheet from Educative for quick revision:
The Educative instructors will also share their first-hand experiences in solving a complex system design problem. You will learn about all the different tips, tricks, concepts, and approaches for solving system design questions in general.
You will also have the opportunity to practice a lot of classic system design problems like the web crawler and URL shortener like TinyURL, Design a Parking Lot, and design a restaurant reservation system.
These system design courses on Educative will teach you different useful techniques for scaling distributed systems. You will get an overview of database technologies and NoSQL solutions. In addition, you will also learn how to use caching to improve scalability and performance.
By the way, you can either join this course individually, or you can take an Educative Unlimited subscription for just $14.9 per month on an annual plan (recommended) to get access to their 350+ high-quality, text-based, interactive courses to learn key skills for coding interviews, software development, and technology.
4. Exponent
This is another great website to learn about system design and prepare for system design interviews, especially for FAANG companies. The System Design Interview Course has 36 lessons. It provides solutions to system design questions like Design Twitter, Instagram, Parking lots, designing a Web Crawler, and many other popular software design questions.
They also have dedicated courses for different FAANG companies; For example, they have a dedicated course for Amazon SDE interviews which not only prepare you for the tech round but also conduct mock interviews to check your actual preparation level. They also have a similar course for Google interviews as well.
The best thing I liked about Exponent is their mock interviews which are like real interviews, as well as one-on-one coaching and interactive discussion on popular interview questions from Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and Amazon.
If you are preparing for system design interviews with FAANG companies, then I highly recommend this course and website, and you can join them for just $12 a month now (70% discount).
5. Coursera
Coursera is another awesome place to learn in-demand tech skills online. The best thing about Coursera is its course materials are designed and delivered by world-class universities and top tech companies like Google, AWS, and IBM.
When it comes to software design, I liked the Software Design and Architecture Specialization at the University of Alberta, which contains a couple of nice courses related to software design.
The fantastic courses on Coursera will provide a brief introduction to the amazing world of modern system design. It is perfect for beginners as you will learn about system design from scratch. You will learn exactly what system design is and why it is used.
Coursera is also a great choice that will help you take your skills in object-oriented design to another level. You can do this using object-oriented system design rather than traditional system design techniques. The courses on this website will also teach you how to pass your system design interview. You will also learn how to get jobs at Google. Facebook, Microsoft, and Amazon.
By the way, If you are planning to join multiple Coursera courses or specializations, consider taking a Coursera Plus subscription which provides you unlimited access to their most popular courses, specialization, professional certificate, and guided projects. It costs around $59/ per month but is worth it because you get access to more than 7000+ courses and projects, and you can also get unlimited certificates.
6. LinkedIn Learning
LinkedIn Learning is an exciting website with many courses that will teach you everything you need to know about the basics of machine learning system design in the shortest time possible. The website will also teach you everything you need about machine learning and system design.
On this fantastic website, you will learn everything you need to know about the different components of system design to get hired by major IT companies. You will start by learning about the basics of system design. Then you will move on to understand what exactly system design is.
Here is the best system design course from LinkedIn Learning:
By the time you finish all the courses on this website, you will be able to get a very good job at a major tech company.
By the way, you would need a LinkedIn Learning membership to watch this course which costs around $19.99 per month, but you can also watch this course for FREE by taking their 1-month-free-trail which is a great way to explore their 17500+ online courses on the latest technology.
7. Pluralsight
Pluralsight is a fantastic website that will help you polish your machine learning and system design skills. You will be able to do this by grokking your way to getting a very good machine learning job.
Using the exciting courses on this website, you will also be able to learn the fundamentals of designing in Java.
You will also be able to start your amazing journey by making use of these amazing courses. Regarding system design, I liked their Patterns for Building Distributed Systems for The Enterprise course; it's one of the best software design courses on Pluralsight.
It is perfect for experienced developers. In the fantastic courses on Pluralsight, you will learn about all the core features of domain-driven system design, CAP theorem, CQRS, etc. You will also become a very advanced system designer. You will be able to master domain-driven system design.
By the way, you would need a Pluralsight membership to join this course which costs around $29 per month or $299 per year (14% discount). I highly recommend this subscription to all programmers as it provides instant access to more than 7000+ online courses to learn any tech skill. Alternatively, you can also use their 10-day-free-pass to watch this course for FREE.
8. System Design Primer in Github
This is another awesome resource for folks preparing for system design interviews. The System Design Primer is a great collection of various system design tutorials and questions you can access for free to prepare for system design interviews.
If you are looking for free resources to prepare for system design interviews, then I highly recommend this website on GitHub; it's actually a GitHub repo of free system design resources.
Now, if you are wondering, What are common system design interview questions? Then let me tell you that many questions like how to design YouTube, Instagram, WhatsApp, and distributed messaging queues are popular system questions that you can practice before interviews.
That's all the best places to learn system design and software design. These sites are not just great resources to learn system design concepts but also to prepare for system design interviews but also to improve the design of the software and applications you are designing. If you liked this list of the best websites and online platforms for learning system design, feel free to share it with your friends and family.
You can also drop a comment if you have any doubts about the system design, and we will get back to you in an instant. I do not doubt that the websites in this list will transform you from a complete beginner to a system design expert within weeks or months.
Thanks for reading this article so far. If you know any excellent online resources like websites or programming platforms to learn system design and software designing, especially for beginners, which you think complement these two websites, then feel free to share. Everybody loves great resources and happy learning system design.
P. S. - If you are looking for a free online course to learn system design and software design, I suggest you check out this Case Studies for System Design Interviews free course on Udemy by Erdem. This 2-hour free course is a great resource for preparing for system design interviews.
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