Most candidates fail system design. Here's why.

Why do so many candidates fail system design interviews?

It’s not because they don’t know microservices or database scaling.

The biggest mistake? Jumping straight into solutions.

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The Right System Design Approach

Here’s the framework top candidates use:

Gather clarifying requirements

Before you say a word about architecture, ask:

• What are the key features?
• Expected user scale? 100K users or 100M?
• Read vs Write Ratio? High read-heavy like Instagram, or write-heavy like a messaging app?

Without these details, your design will miss the mark.

Design high-level architecture

Only now should you sketch the overall system (Load Balancer, API Gateway, Microservices, DBs).

Deep dive into bottlenecks

For FAANG-level interviews, be ready to discuss:

• Caching strategies (Redis, CDN)
• Database partitioning (Sharding vs Replication)
• Rate limiting & API scaling