Hysen Labssystem-design
Learn how to design systems at scale and prepare for system design interviews
System design, learned before the interview
How do you prepare for a system design interview? This course starts from IP addresses and builds up, and it is also available as an ebook on Leanpub.
What the course covers
The repository is described as a way to learn how to design systems at scale and prepare for system design interviews. The README says the course is also available on the author's website and as an ebook on Leanpub, and it asks for a star as motivation if the material was helpful. The scope is wide, starting from the basics of networking and moving toward the kinds of architecture questions that come up in interviews.
Why design decisions come first
The README defines system design as the process of defining the architecture, interfaces, and data for a system that satisfies specific requirements, and it stresses that a good design requires thinking about everything from infrastructure down to the data and how it is stored. It argues that system design is one of the earliest decisions when building a system, and that high level thinking is essential because these decisions are very difficult to correct later. Good design, in this framing, makes architectural changes easier to reason about as the system evolves.
Starting with the network
The course begins at a level most interview guides skip. It explains IP addresses as unique addresses that identify a device on the internet or a local network, with IPv4 using 32 bit dot decimal notation and IPv6 using 128 bit hexadecimal notation. IPv6 is described as providing far more addresses to meet growing demand. Starting with something that basic is a deliberate choice, because a system design conversation eventually depends on the network layer underneath.
Community notes