Coming Soon
PerformanceIntermediate
Content Delivery Network
Learn CDN architecture, edge locations, origin servers, static content caching, cache invalidation and reducing latency for global users.
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Scalability
Design systems that continue working as traffic grows.
Data
Understand storage, replication and database scaling.
Distributed Systems
Learn communication and coordination across services.
Reliability
Handle failures while keeping services available.
System Design Learning
High Level Design Topics
Explore available HLD tutorials or see which system design topics are coming next.
Showing 15 topics
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DatabaseIntermediate
Database Sharding
Understand horizontal partitioning, shard keys, routing, resharding, hot partitions and distributed database trade-offs.
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Distributed SystemsIntermediate
Consistent Hashing
Learn hash rings, virtual nodes, node addition and removal, key redistribution and why consistent hashing is useful in distributed systems.
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Coming Soon
Distributed SystemsAdvanced
Distributed Locking
Understand distributed locks, leases, fencing tokens, Redis locking, race conditions and coordination across multiple service instances.
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Coming Soon
Distributed SystemsIntermediate
CAP Theorem
Understand consistency, availability and partition tolerance and how distributed systems make trade-offs during network failures.
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ReliabilityIntermediate
Idempotency
Learn idempotency keys, duplicate request prevention, safe retries, payment processing and reliable distributed API operations.
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Coming Soon
ArchitectureIntermediate
Service Discovery
Learn how services discover other service instances dynamically using service registries, DNS-based discovery and health checks.
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ArchitectureIntermediate
Microservices Architecture
Understand service boundaries, independent deployments, service communication, data ownership and microservice architecture trade-offs.
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Coming Soon
Distributed SystemsAdvanced
Distributed Transactions
Learn two-phase commit, Saga patterns, compensating transactions and eventual consistency across multiple services.
Coming Soon
Complete HLD Preparation
Learn how to solve a complete system design problem
Mastering System Design – HLD covers the full design process from requirements and estimations to APIs, databases, caching, scaling, concurrency, failures and architectural trade-offs.
HLD Interview Approach
1
Clarify functional requirements
2
Identify non-functional requirements
3
Estimate traffic and storage
4
Define APIs and data models
5
Create the high-level architecture
6
Find bottlenecks and scale components
7
Discuss reliability, failures and trade-offs
Common Questions
HLD & System Design FAQ
Quick answers to common questions about High Level Design and system design interview preparation.
What is High Level Design in software engineering?
High Level Design describes the major components of a software system and how services, APIs, databases, caches, queues, load balancers and other infrastructure components interact.
What should I study for a system design interview?
Important topics include load balancing, caching, databases, message queues, rate limiting, API gateways, sharding, consistent hashing, distributed systems, reliability and scalability.
Is HLD important for backend interviews?
HLD is commonly discussed in backend and system design interviews because backend engineers need to understand scalability, data storage, APIs, reliability and distributed architecture.
How should I approach an HLD interview question?
Start by clarifying requirements, estimate scale, define APIs and data models, build the high-level architecture, explain important request flows and then discuss scalability, failures and trade-offs.