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Design an Instagram-like Feed System

Last updated: Jun 5, 2026

Quick Overview

This question evaluates a candidate's competency in large-scale distributed system design, focusing on feed generation, data modeling, storage choices, scalability, and trade-offs related to high read traffic and write fan-out.

  • medium
  • OpenAI
  • System Design
  • Software Engineer

Design an Instagram-like Feed System

Company: OpenAI

Role: Software Engineer

Category: System Design

Difficulty: medium

Interview Round: Technical Screen

Design an Instagram-like photo-sharing application. Your design should support: - Users creating posts containing photos or short videos. - Users following other users. - A home feed that shows recent and relevant posts from followed accounts. - High read traffic for feeds and high write fan-out for popular accounts. Focus especially on feed generation and delivery. Cover: 1. Core components and APIs. 2. Data flow from post creation to storage to feed generation to feed delivery. 3. Storage choices for posts, media, follow graph, and feeds. 4. Push, pull, and hybrid feed generation strategies. 5. How to handle celebrities or creators with millions of followers. 6. How to scale database reads and avoid feed-read bottlenecks.

Quick Answer: This question evaluates a candidate's competency in large-scale distributed system design, focusing on feed generation, data modeling, storage choices, scalability, and trade-offs related to high read traffic and write fan-out.

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OpenAI logo
OpenAI
May 25, 2026, 12:00 AM
Software Engineer
Technical Screen
System Design
0
0

Design an Instagram-like photo-sharing application.

Your design should support:

  • Users creating posts containing photos or short videos.
  • Users following other users.
  • A home feed that shows recent and relevant posts from followed accounts.
  • High read traffic for feeds and high write fan-out for popular accounts.

Focus especially on feed generation and delivery. Cover:

  1. Core components and APIs.
  2. Data flow from post creation to storage to feed generation to feed delivery.
  3. Storage choices for posts, media, follow graph, and feeds.
  4. Push, pull, and hybrid feed generation strategies.
  5. How to handle celebrities or creators with millions of followers.
  6. How to scale database reads and avoid feed-read bottlenecks.

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