Design Netflix-like MVP: browse, play, resume

Q: Design Netflix-like MVP: browse, play, resume

This question evaluates a candidate's competency in designing a scalable video streaming MVP, covering service decomposition, adaptive bitrate playback, resume/session state, metadata and catalog modeling, API contract design, and operational concerns such as encoding pipelines, CDN selection, DRM, and observability.

Q: How do I approach System Design interview questions?

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

Q: What difficulty level is this interview question?

This is a hard difficulty System Design question, commonly asked during Onsite rounds at HubSpot.

Q: What role is this question designed for?

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

Question

Design a Netflix-like MVP (System Design)

Context

You are designing an MVP video streaming platform that supports browsing content, playing videos on multiple device types via adaptive bitrate streaming, and resuming playback across sessions and devices.

Make reasonable assumptions where details are missing and call them out. Focus on practical, buildable designs that scale from a small launch to moderate growth.

Functional Requirements

Browse the catalog by genre and curated lists such as "Recently Added" and "Top Ten".
Play videos at different resolutions across device types using adaptive bitrate (ABR) streaming.
Resume playback so users can continue where they left off across sessions and devices.

Deliverables

Service decomposition (include: metadata, catalog, user/profile, playback/session, encoding/transcode pipeline, CDN).
Key data models.
API contracts for: browse/search, playback (start/heartbeat/stop), and resume state.
Explanations for: session state tracking, DRM/licensing, device compatibility, storage and CDN choices, scaling strategies, SLOs/SLAs, monitoring/observability.
How you handle: content ingestion, indexing, cold starts, and basic ranking placeholders.

Constraints and Scope Notes

Design for an MVP first; note clear extensions for scale.
Assume licensed content (no UGC moderation) and a simple subscription/entitlement model.
Target web and mobile apps initially; smart TVs may follow.

Design Netflix-like MVP: browse, play, resume

Quick Overview

Design a Netflix-like MVP (System Design)

Context

Functional Requirements

Deliverables

Constraints and Scope Notes

Solution

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