Backend system design interview questions

These are the classic system design interview questions for backend, full-stack and generalist software engineers: the URL shortener, chat system, news feed, rate limiter, ticketing and payment systems that show up in interviews at product companies and big tech alike.

Each round gives you a realistic brief and scale to design for. You build the architecture on a canvas, explain why each component is there, and get a rubric-based review of your requirements, data model, scalability, reliability and trade-offs.