Free PDF · 18 pages · October 2026
System Design Interview Cheat Sheet
The interview in seven stages, the numbers worth knowing by heart, and twelve classic systems on one page each, every line linked to the lesson it comes from.
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Every number in this sheet is copied from a lesson on systemdesign.academy, and every lesson is linked, so you can check any line.
real pages from the PDF
What is inside
- 01The seven stages of a system design interview, and the ten points a scorecard grades
- 02Numbers every engineer should know: latency, throughput, uptime, estimates, cache TTLs
- 03Twelve classic systems on one page each: URL shortener, rate limiter, WhatsApp, Twitter, notifications, YouTube, Uber, Dropbox, typeahead, payments, web crawler, Ticketmaster
- 04Where to go next: the 30-day plan and the mock interview
Every line comes from a lesson. These are the courses.
course 1
System Design Masterclass
770 lessons
$25
once · yours for life
UPI, card or netbanking in India · card or PayPal everywhere else
Every lesson in both courses has an AI tutor beside it. It reads the same lesson you are reading and answers your questions from it. Try the tutor