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Algorithms System Design Case Studies

3 Algorithms case studies from Microsoft with full breakdowns.

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Companies

OpenAI5Google3Meta3Microsoft3Anthropic2Atlassian2Rippling2Salesforce2Adobe1Apple1LinkedIn1Netflix1Oracle1Pinterest1TikTok1Uber1

Topics

Distributed Systems 90Real-time 51Storage 43Data Pipelines 42API Design 41Databases 38Caching 37Security 32AI / ML 23Algorithms 20Scheduling 20Search 19Event Driven 14Fintech 14Payments 11Geospatial 11Analytics 11Observability 11E-commerce 11Messaging 10CDN 9Concurrency 8Ads 8Frontend 8Booking System 6Networking 5IoT 4Media 3Media Streaming 3Collaboration 3Rate Limiting 2
Microsoft✕Algorithms✕Clear all
Sorting a 500 GB CSV with 16 GB of RAM (External Merge Sort)
4 min readAlgorithmsStorageData Pipelines
Intermediate▶ Mock
Top-K Trending Items (Heavy Hitters)
7 min readAnalyticsReal-timeAlgorithms
Advanced+4▶ Mock
Typeahead / Search Autocomplete
6 min readSearchCachingData Pipelines
Intermediate▶ Mock

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Algorithms in system design?

Algorithms is a core system design topic covered in 20 case studies on InterviewSkool. It appears frequently in FAANG interviews, especially at Google, Amazon, and Meta.

How should I prepare Algorithms for system design interviews?

Study the case studies above, focusing on architecture trade-offs, scale estimates, and API designs. Practice explaining your decisions aloud — this is exactly what interviewers evaluate.

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