Software Engineer System Design Interview Questions

Practice 1,082 real System Design interview questions for Software Engineer roles. From companies including Meta, OpenAI, Amazon, Anthropic, Google.

1.1k Questions 223 Companies08.16.2026
Showing 20 results
Role
Airbnb logo
Airbnb
Hard
Software Engineer Locked

Design a real-time chat system with hot groups

This question evaluates system design and real-time distributed systems skills, including designing scalable chat architectures that support 1:1 and g...

System Design
77
0
535 people solved
Jan 22, 2026
Bytedance logo
Bytedance
Medium
Software EngineerSenior+

Design a Real-Time Auction Platform

Design a real-time online auction platform. Users can browse an auction, submit bids, and see the current highest bid and bid history update live. Tra...

System Design
2
0
42 people solved
Apr 14, 2026
Applied Intuition logo
Applied Intuition
Hard
Software Engineer

Discuss productionizing event-timeout detector

Discuss productionizing event-timeout detector System Design: Production-Ready Event-Timeout Detector You are designing a production service that dete...

System Design
15
0
212 people solved
Jul 17, 2025
OpenAI logo
OpenAI
Hard
Software Engineer

Design an in-memory database

Design an in-memory database System Design: In-Memory Database Engine (Single-Node Core, Scale-Out Aware) Context Design the core of an in-memory, sin...

System Design
31
0
388 people solved
Aug 4, 2025
Attentive logo
Attentive
Medium
Software EngineerNew Grad

Design Robust Large-Input Processing

The string-reduction algorithm above is now part of a backend service. Each job reads a text object from S3-compatible storage, applies the transforma...

System Design
10
0
97 people solved
Apr 13, 2026
DocuSign logo
DocuSign
Medium
Software Engineer

Design a multi-level parking system

Design a multi-level parking system System Design: Multi‑Level Parking System Context Design the backend for a multi‑level parking facility. The syste...

System Design
11
0
143 people solved
Aug 1, 2025
Uber logo
Uber
Hard
Software Engineer

Design real-time driver heatmap system

System Design: Real-Time Driver Heatmap and Top-K Hottest Cells Context You are building a real-time driver heatmap for a ride-hailing platform that v...

System Design
88
0
948 people solved
Aug 1, 2025
Salesforce logo
Salesforce
Medium
Software Engineer

Design a Concurrent Car Reservation Service

Design a Concurrent Car Reservation Service Prompt Design a car reservation service. A customer searches for an available car for a location and time ...

System Design
2
0
26 people solved
Jan 18, 2026
Salesforce logo
Salesforce
Medium
Software Engineer

Design a 911 emergency calling service

System Design Prompt Design a 911 emergency calling service (or emergency call routing platform) that allows users to place emergency calls from mobil...

System Design
14
0
214 people solved
Oct 18, 2025
Anthropic logo
Anthropic
Medium
Software Engineer

Describe a Python design-and-coding approach in Colab

Python Coding-and-Design Exercise in Google Colab You are given an open-ended coding-and-design exercise to complete in Python, and the interviewer re...

System Design
36
0
400 people solved
Sep 6, 2025
Rippling logo
Rippling
Hard
Software Engineer

Implement a minimal local HTTP server

Build a Minimal Local HTTP/1.1 Server (No Frameworks) Context You are asked to implement a minimal HTTP/1.1 server from scratch using only the standar...

System Design
22
0
205 people solved
Sep 6, 2025
Anthropic logo
Anthropic
Hard
Software Engineer

Design production-ready dedup service

System Design: Production-Ready File Deduplication Service Context Design a multi-tenant cloud service that stores files and achieves space savings vi...

System Design
25
0
444 people solved
Sep 6, 2025
Roblox logo
Roblox
Hard
Software Engineer

Design real-time game matchmaking service

Design a Real-Time Game Matchmaking Service Context You are designing the matchmaking subsystem for an online multiplayer game that supports multiple ...

System Design
38
0
287 people solved
Sep 6, 2025
Google logo
Google
Hard
Software Engineer

Design distributed log storage service

Design a Distributed Append-Only Log Storage System You are asked to design the storage layer of a distributed, partitioned, replicated append-only lo...

System Design
12
0
93 people solved
Sep 6, 2025
Google logo
Google
Hard
Software Engineer

Design line-preserving file chunker pipeline

System Design: Pack Text Lines into Exact 100 MB Output Files Design a data pipeline that reads many text files of varying sizes and emits output file...

System Design
7
0
108 people solved
Sep 6, 2025
Chime logo
Chime
Medium
Software Engineer

Design multi-tab browser history and trade-offs

Design: Multi-Tab Browser History Context: Extend a single-tab browser-history component into a multi-tab manager that supports opening/closing tabs, ...

System Design
32
0
326 people solved
Sep 6, 2025
Snowflake logo
Snowflake
Hard
Software Engineer

Design a concurrent web crawler

Web Crawler System Design (Onsite) Problem Design and implement a concurrent web crawler that: - Starts from a given URL. - Uses a provided interface ...

System Design
27
0
192 people solved
Sep 6, 2025
Anthropic logo
Anthropic
Hard
Software Engineer

Design a scalable, reliable system

System Design: Global Photo/Video File Storage and Sharing ("CloudDrive") Context Design a scalable, highly reliable consumer service where users uplo...

System Design
34
0
338 people solved
Sep 6, 2025
Turo logo
Turo
Medium
Software Engineer

Design trip booking REST API and schema

Design a RESTful API for a guest to book a trip. Include: - Core endpoints (search availability, create booking, view/cancel booking, payment/confirma...

System Design
10
0
116 people solved
Feb 12, 2026
Salesforce logo
Salesforce
Medium
Software Engineer Locked

Design a scalable coffee ordering notification system

This question evaluates a candidate's ability to design scalable, real-time distributed systems with emphasis on order lifecycle management, reliable ...

System Design
8
0
139 people solved
Feb 12, 2026

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