Course Structure for Modern System Design

The detailed curriculum progresses from foundations and estimates to reusable components, complete system designs, and failure case studies. A separate crash-course sequence revisits the concepts through shorter cases. Use the detailed path to develop a topic and the crash course to rehearse a complete explanation.

Structure of the course

The material follows four broad themes. These themes describe the learning progression; the course navigation divides the lessons into smaller sections.

Introduction: This theme defines system design and its relevance to developers. It introduces the System Design interview and the role of mock interviews. Subsequent chapters cover preliminary concepts, essential non-functional requirements, and back-of-the-envelope calculations for resource estimation.
Building blocks: We explore sixteen essential building blocks, each detailed in a dedicated chapter. The section transitions into design problems.
Design problems: The case studies combine the building blocks into complete designs, with requirements and estimates guiding the component choices.
Epilogue: This final section contains three parts. First, spectacular failures demonstrate how small errors can crash large systems and how to mitigate them. Second, concluding remarks summarize key learnings. Finally, supplementary chapters provide resources to strengthen your System Design concepts.

The detailed lessons build on earlier concepts. Follow their sequence when learning a topic for the first time; use individual cases or the crash course when reviewing material you already know.

What to practice as you study

The course uses several teaching approaches. The table explains the work each one asks you to do.

Approach	What to practice
Building blocks	Explain how smaller components combine into a larger system.
Building blocks as design problems	Work through the requirements and internal design of an individual component.
Incremental improvement	Start with a simple design, identify its bottleneck, and explain the next change.
Evaluating a design	Check the proposed design against its stated requirements and estimates.
Revisiting familiar problems	Compare the presented design with the assumptions under which you have seen the problem before.
Newer design problems	Apply the same reasoning process to a different application.
Varied case studies	Identify the requirement that makes one case different from another.
Practitioner contributions	Evaluate the explanation and its assumptions rather than relying on the contributor’s employer.
Quizzes and written practice	Check your answers and compare design choices with reference explanations.

After a case study, return to the building block that was hardest to explain. Review that component, then attempt the same case again without the reference diagram.