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System Design questions require understanding of core concepts and practice. PracHub provides solutions with explanations to help you master system design interviews.

What difficulty level is this interview question?

This is a medium difficulty System Design question, commonly asked during Onsite rounds at Meta.

What role is this question designed for?

This question is commonly asked for Software Engineer candidates at Meta during technical interviews.

Design a Netflix-like video streaming service | Meta Interview Question

Design a Netflix-like video streaming service

Last updated: Mar 29, 2026

Quick Overview

This question evaluates competency in designing large-scale streaming platforms, focusing on distributed systems, content storage and encoding pipelines, CDN-based content delivery, playback and catalog APIs, DRM, scalability, availability, and monitoring.

System Design Prompt

Design a large-scale video streaming platform similar to Netflix.

Core user journeys

Users browse a catalog (home page rows, search).
Users press play and stream video reliably.
Continue watching across devices.
Recommendations/personalization (high level is fine).

Business/technical goals

Low startup time (time-to-first-frame), minimal buffering.
High availability globally.
Support multiple devices and network conditions.
Handle large catalog and high QPS during peak.

Clarifications you may assume

Both VOD (video on demand) and trailers.
Subscription-based access (no ads required unless you choose).
DRM is required at a basic level.

What to cover

High-level architecture and key components.
Data model / APIs (at least playback + catalog).
Storage/encoding/packaging pipeline.
Content delivery strategy (CDN, caching).
Scalability, reliability, monitoring, and tradeoffs.

Solution

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