System Design Interview Boot Camp
Published by O'Reilly Media, Inc.
Solve complex problems using a proven framework
Course description:
Join expert Rohit Bhardwaj to examine a step-by-step approach to system design interview problems using real-world examples that will help you solve common and challenging system design interview questions. You’ll look at the system design for Uber, Netflix, Amazon, eBay, Instagram, Yelp, and Twitter, as well as search engines and fraud detection system design. You’ll explore the secrets of design methodology to solve complex problems and test that knowledge with in-depth mock interview scenarios. Keeping constraints in mind, you’ll explore different approaches to choosing the right design. Use this course to bootstrap your success rate at the interview, and go into your next interview with confidence.
Day 1: System Design Interview Fundamentals
Day 2: System Design Interview Deep Dive
NOTE: With today’s registration, you’ll be signed up for both sessions. Although you can attend either of the sessions individually, we recommend participating in both.
What you’ll learn and how you can apply it
- Provide concise interview responses that’ll increase your chances of getting hired
- Apply system design interview methodology to your current projects
- Ask the right questions to complex problems to understand the need state
This live event is for you because...
- You want to prepare for system design interviews.
- You want to understand the system design challenges faced by large FAANG/Fortune 500 companies.
Prerequisites
- General understanding of design principles
Recommended preparation:
- Download the exercises for the class (GitHub repository)
Recommended follow-up:
- Take Designing Well-Architected Frameworks in 2 Weeks (live online course with Rohit Bhardwaj)
- Read Designing Distributed Systems (book)
- Take Software Architecture Characteristics: Defining, Discovering, and Protecting Architecture (live online course with Neal Ford)
Schedule
The time frames are only estimates and may vary according to how the class is progressing.
Day 1: System Design Interview Fundamentals
System design basics (60 minutes)
- Presentation: System design interview preparation tips; empathy map, scalability, and performance KPIs; failover strategies and load balancing; content delivery network (CDN); queues; protocols choices; caching strategies
- Hands-on exercises: Understand requirements; load balancing, sticky sessions, and path-based routing design questions; caching strategies and invalidation; Amazon SQS and Kafka design questions; TCP, UDP, HTTP, REST, WebSocket, gRPC, and GraphQL design questions; caching strategies; caching design questions
- Break
Architecture basics (60 minutes)
- Presentation: Big data and data analytics; back of envelope calculations; context diagrams; choosing the right database; architectural patterns
- Hands-on exercises: Calculation; design
- Group discussion: CQRS, session management, and event sourcing design questions
- Break
Mock interview practice (60 minutes)
- Presentation: Design problems and solutions for taxi hailing app, streaming service, real-time analytics,
- Hands-on exercises: Taxi hailing app, streaming service, and real-time analytics
- Q&A
- Break
Mock interview practice (60 minutes)
- Presentation: Design problems and solutions for news feed, URL shortener, and auction site
- Hands-on exercises: News feed, URL shortener, and auction site
- Break
Day 2: System Design Interview Deep Dive
Mock interview practice (60 minutes)
- Presentation: Design problems and solutions for online shopping, booking service, and coupon system
- Hands-on exercises: Online shopping, booking service, and coupon system
- Break
Mock interview practice (60 minutes)
- Presentation: Mock interview for designing chat app, taxi hailing app, product recommendations service
- Hands-on exercises: Product information system design
- Break
Mock interview practice (60 minutes)
- Presentation: Mock interview for designing mobile couponing service; fraud detection service; social media sentiment analysis service, product search service
- Hands-on exercises: Text analysis and search relevance
- Break
Challenges, questions, and tips (60 minutes)
- Presentation: System design challenges; general tips for technical interview (methodology for approaching problems, whiteboarding techniques, asking questions)
- Hands-on exercises: Practice system design questions; case studies; scenario-based questions
- Q&A
Your Instructor
Rohit Bhardwaj
Rohit Bhardwaj is the CTO and director of AI architecture at Salesforce, where he leads strategy and design for enterprise-scale AI systems, multi-agent platforms, and data cloud integrations. He has extensive experience architecting multitenant, cloud native solutions using resilient microservices, service-oriented architectures, and the AWS stack.
As an Agentforce expert, Rohit specializes in generative AI, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), and AI-powered business transformation, with a strong focus on trust, governance, and resilience in AI system design. He conceptualizes and delivers high-value cloud solutions that reduce costs, increase efficiencies, and scale across global enterprises.
A regular speaker at No Fluff Just Stuff, UberConf, Richweb, GIDS, and international conferences, Rohit is widely recognized for his real-time analytics, system design mastery, and transformative AI insights. He’s also an accomplished author and educator.
Rohit holds an MBA in corporate entrepreneurship from Babson College and master’s degrees in computer science from both Boston University and Harvard University. As a visionary leader, he builds strategic roadmaps, mentors global architecture teams, and drives research initiatives—making him a trusted advisor at the intersection of AI, cloud platforms, and business strategy.