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System Design Case Studies Tracker

20 case studies from Google with full breakdowns.

176case studies
30companies
31topics
~5 minaverage read

Companies

Meta28Microsoft27Amazon23OpenAI23Google20TikTok16Anthropic15Salesforce15Apple12Uber12Atlassian11JPMorgan11LinkedIn11Goldman Sachs9Netflix9Oracle9Snowflake9Rippling8Airbnb7Bloomberg7Capital One7Databricks7Walmart7Flipkart6NVIDIA6Pinterest6Roblox6Adobe4Visa4Anduril1

Topics

Distributed Systems 90Real-time 51Storage 43Data Pipelines 42API Design 41Databases 38Caching 37Security 32AI / ML 23Algorithms 20Scheduling 20Search 19Event Driven 14Fintech 14Analytics 11E-commerce 11Geospatial 11Observability 11Payments 11Messaging 10CDN 9Ads 8Concurrency 8Frontend 8Booking System 6Networking 5IoT 4Collaboration 3Media 3Media Streaming 3Rate Limiting 2
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Push Notification Service
17 min readReal-timeMessagingDistributed Systems
Advanced+5▶ Mock
Web Crawler
15 min readDistributed SystemsStorageSearch
Advanced+2▶ Mock
Uber Design (Ride-Hailing)
5 min readGeospatialReal-timeDistributed Systems
Advanced+2▶ Mock
Calendar Service (Google Calendar)
6 min readSchedulingDistributed SystemsStorage
Intermediate+2▶ Mock
ChatGPT-Style Conversational AI Service
7 min readAI / MLReal-timeDistributed Systems
Advanced+2▶ Mock
Distributed Rate Limiter
8 min readRate LimitingDistributed SystemsAPI Design
Intermediate+9▶ Mock
Enterprise AI Agent for a Global Company
5 min readAI / MLSecurityDistributed Systems
Advanced▶ Mock
Hosting Many Websites on One Server with One IP Address
4 min readNetworkingSecurityDistributed Systems
Beginner▶ Mock
Word Store with Lexicographic Range Queries
4 min readStorageAlgorithmsDatabases
Intermediate▶ Mock
Interactive Map with 100 Million+ Points
4 min readGeospatialFrontendData Pipelines
Advanced▶ Mock
Matching Tagged Problems to Skilled Programmers at Scale
4 min readAlgorithmsDistributed SystemsScheduling
Advanced▶ Mock
Large-Scale Near-Duplicate Video Detection
4 min readAI / MLMediaSearch
Advanced▶ Mock
Online Judge and Coding Contest Platform (LeetCode)
6 min readDistributed SystemsSecurityScheduling
Intermediate▶ Mock
Pub/Sub System with Replay (Seek Back in Time)
3 min readMessagingDistributed SystemsStorage
Advanced▶ Mock
Recommendation System (Candidate Generation + Ranking)
6 min readAI / MLData PipelinesDistributed Systems
Advanced▶ Mock
Global Restaurant Chain Menu Update System
4 min readDistributed SystemsCDNCaching
Intermediate▶ Mock
Security Monitoring Framework for Cloud Infrastructure
4 min readSecurityObservabilityData Pipelines
Advanced▶ Mock
Street View Image Ingestion and Storage
4 min readMediaStorageData Pipelines
Advanced▶ Mock
Text-to-Video Generation Service (Sora)
6 min readAI / MLSchedulingDistributed Systems
Advanced▶ Mock
Top-K Trending Items (Heavy Hitters)
7 min readAnalyticsReal-timeAlgorithms
Advanced+4▶ Mock

Frequently Asked Questions

What are system design case studies?

System design case studies are real-world architecture problems broken down into structured breakdowns. Each case study covers requirements, high-level design, scale estimates, API designs, and deep dives into key components.

How many system design case studies should I prepare?

For FAANG interviews, preparing 15-20 case studies covering core topics like caching, load balancing, and database sharding is recommended. Focus on understanding trade-offs rather than memorizing solutions.

Which companies ask system design case studies?

All FAANG companies (Google, Amazon, Meta, Apple, Microsoft) plus top tech companies like Netflix, Uber, and Airbnb ask system design case studies. Senior-level interviews almost always include at least one system design round.

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