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System Design Case Studies Tracker

42 case studies tagged Data Pipelines 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
Data Pipelines✕Clear all
A/B Testing (Experimentation) Platform
5 min readAnalyticsData PipelinesDistributed Systems
Intermediate▶ Mock
Ad Click and Impression Aggregator
6 min readAdsAnalyticsData Pipelines
Advanced+2▶ Mock
Ad Creative Relationship Processing with an External Model API
5 min readAdsData PipelinesAI / ML
Intermediate▶ Mock
Ads Audience Targeting System
5 min readAdsData PipelinesCaching
Advanced▶ Mock
Ads Platform Data Model (OLTP and Reporting)
5 min readAdsDatabasesAnalytics
Intermediate▶ Mock
Analytics Dashboard for an AI Chat Product
5 min readAnalyticsAI / MLData Pipelines
Intermediate▶ Mock
ML Pipeline to Predict Document Aspect Ratio (Adobe)
5 min readAI / MLData Pipelines
Intermediate▶ Mock
Multi-Tenant Audit Logs Service
4 min readSecurityStorageData Pipelines
Intermediate▶ Mock
User Behavior Tracking (Clickstream Analytics)
6 min readAnalyticsData PipelinesReal-time
Intermediate▶ Mock
Content Moderation System (Harmful Post Detection)
6 min readAI / MLSecurityData Pipelines
Advanced▶ Mock
Core Dump Collection and Crash Analysis System
5 min readObservabilityStorageData Pipelines
Intermediate▶ Mock
Real-Time Data Stream Processor
4 min readData PipelinesReal-timeDistributed Systems
Intermediate▶ Mock
Centralized Logging System (ELK / Splunk)
6 min readObservabilityData PipelinesSearch
Intermediate+1▶ Mock
Finding the Mode of Data Spread Across Many Machines
4 min readAlgorithmsDistributed SystemsData Pipelines
Intermediate▶ Mock
Sorting a 500 GB CSV with 16 GB of RAM (External Merge Sort)
4 min readAlgorithmsStorageData Pipelines
Intermediate▶ Mock
Flight Search Platform (Google Flights / Kayak)
4 min readSearchCachingData Pipelines
Advanced▶ Mock
Governed Data Service for Downstream Consumers
3 min readAPI DesignData PipelinesSecurity
Intermediate▶ Mock
High-Volume Healthcare Data Ingestion Pipeline
4 min readData PipelinesSecurityStorage
Advanced▶ Mock
Scalable Image Processing Service
5 min readData PipelinesSchedulingStorage
Intermediate▶ Mock
Incident Ticket Correlation Platform
3 min readObservabilityData PipelinesDistributed Systems
Advanced▶ Mock
IoT / Sensor Telemetry Pipeline
7 min readIoTData PipelinesStorage
Intermediate+1▶ Mock
Large File Upload and Processing Pipeline
7 min readStorageData PipelinesSecurity
Intermediate▶ Mock
Interactive Map with 100 Million+ Points
4 min readGeospatialFrontendData Pipelines
Advanced▶ Mock
Streaming Mention Analytics with Search and Alerts (Bloomberg)
3 min readReal-timeSearchAnalytics
Advanced▶ Mock
Metrics Monitoring and Alerting System
7 min readObservabilityData PipelinesStorage
Advanced+3▶ Mock
Personal Finance Dashboard from Multiple Providers
3 min readFintechAPI DesignCaching
Intermediate▶ Mock
Multi-Tenant Data Ingestion and Processing Platform
4 min readData PipelinesDistributed SystemsSecurity
Advanced▶ Mock
Multimodal RAG Assistant over an Internal Knowledge Base
4 min readAI / MLSearchData Pipelines
Advanced▶ Mock
Large-Scale Near-Duplicate Video Detection
4 min readAI / MLMediaSearch
Advanced▶ Mock
News Aggregator (Google News)
6 min readSearchData PipelinesCaching
Intermediate▶ Mock
Price Drop Tracker (CamelCamelCamel)
5 min readE-commerceSchedulingData Pipelines
Intermediate▶ Mock
E-commerce Product Catalog and Price Updates
6 min readE-commerceCachingDatabases
Intermediate▶ Mock
Recommendation System (Candidate Generation + Ranking)
6 min readAI / MLData PipelinesDistributed Systems
Advanced▶ Mock
Security Monitoring Framework for Cloud Infrastructure
4 min readSecurityObservabilityData Pipelines
Advanced▶ Mock
Data Engineering for a Short-Video App (TikTok-scale)
4 min readData PipelinesAnalyticsStorage
Advanced▶ Mock
Smartwatch Sensor Subsystem Design
4 min readIoTReal-timeData Pipelines
Intermediate▶ Mock
Detecting and Reducing Stale Job Listings (LinkedIn)
4 min readData PipelinesAI / MLSearch
Intermediate▶ Mock
Street View Image Ingestion and Storage
4 min readMediaStorageData Pipelines
Advanced▶ Mock
Surge (Dynamic) Pricing for Ride-Hailing
4 min readReal-timeGeospatialAlgorithms
Advanced▶ Mock
Top-K Trending Items (Heavy Hitters)
7 min readAnalyticsReal-timeAlgorithms
Advanced+4▶ Mock
Typeahead / Search Autocomplete
6 min readSearchCachingData Pipelines
Intermediate▶ Mock
User Activity Collection and Recent-Window Queries
5 min readAnalyticsData PipelinesStorage
Intermediate▶ 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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