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Distributed Systems System Design Case Studies

10 Distributed Systems case studies from TikTok with full breakdowns.

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Companies

Meta20OpenAI17Microsoft16Amazon14Google14Anthropic10Salesforce10TikTok10JPMorgan7LinkedIn7Uber7Oracle6Airbnb5Apple5Atlassian5Bloomberg5Databricks5Flipkart5Goldman Sachs5Netflix5Rippling5Snowflake5NVIDIA4Roblox4Walmart4Capital One3Visa3Pinterest2Anduril1

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
TikTok✕Distributed Systems✕Clear all
MakeMyTrip – Hotel Booking System
20 min readDistributed SystemsPaymentsBooking System
Beginner+3▶ Mock
Tracing and Debugging AI Agent Tool Calls
5 min readAI / MLObservabilityDistributed Systems
Intermediate▶ Mock
Distributed Cache and the Hot Key / Cache Stampede Problem
6 min readCachingDistributed SystemsDatabases
Intermediate▶ Mock
Distributed Job Scheduler (Cron at Scale)
7 min readSchedulingDistributed SystemsEvent Driven
Advanced+7▶ Mock
Distributed Key-Value Store (DynamoDB / Cassandra)
7 min readDatabasesDistributed SystemsStorage
Advanced+2▶ Mock
Distributed Rate Limiter
8 min readRate LimitingDistributed SystemsAPI Design
Intermediate+9▶ Mock
Live Comments for Live Video (Facebook Live / TikTok Live)
6 min readReal-timeMessagingDistributed Systems
Intermediate▶ Mock
Evaluating and Executing a MySQL to MongoDB Migration
4 min readDatabasesDistributed Systems
Intermediate▶ Mock
Real-Time Online Auction (eBay / Live Auctions)
7 min readReal-timeDistributed SystemsPayments
Advanced▶ Mock
URL Shortener (TinyURL / bit.ly)
7 min readDistributed SystemsCachingStorage
Beginner+4▶ Mock

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Distributed Systems in system design?

Distributed Systems is a core system design topic covered in 90 case studies on InterviewSkool. It appears frequently in FAANG interviews, especially at Google, Amazon, and Meta.

How should I prepare Distributed Systems 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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