Your learning path

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Pick where you are. Follow the path. Show up to interviews knowing the why behind every decision.

SDE-1 Target
Landing your first role
0–2 years. New grad or early career targeting product companies.
  1. Core Concepts — availability, reliability, CAP theorem
  2. Back of Envelope Estimation
  3. Unique ID Generator — Snowflake, UUID, clock skew
  4. URL Shortener — caching, sharding, hot keys
SDE-2 Target
Moving up to mid-level
2–5 years. Targeting SDE-2 roles at mid-to-large companies.
  1. Complete SDE-1 path first
  2. Storage & Databases — ACID, indexing, sharding
  3. Notification System — Kafka, retry, DLQ
  4. Pastebin — async uploads, expiry, CDC
  5. Rate Limiter — distributed enforcement
Senior / Staff Target
Targeting senior or staff
5+ years. Targeting senior, staff, or principal roles at top companies.
  1. Complete SDE-1 + SDE-2 paths first
  2. Caching — distributed caching, Redis internals
  3. KV Store — leaderless replication, LSM trees
  4. WhatsApp — WebSockets, offline delivery, ordering
Interview in 7 Days
The 7-day sprint
Interview locked in. No time for everything. Hit the highest-signal topics fast.
  1. Day 1–2: Core Concepts + Estimation
  2. Day 3: Unique ID Generator
  3. Day 4: URL Shortener
  4. Day 5: Notification System
  5. Day 6: Rate Limiter
  6. Day 7: KV Store final design review
30-Day Deep Mastery
The full roadmap
30 days to go from basics to confidently handling any system design round.
  1. Week 1: All Concepts — Core, Storage, Caching, Estimation
  2. Week 2: Foundation — Unique ID Generator + URL Shortener
  3. Week 3: Ascent + Expedition — Notification, Pastebin, Rate Limiter
  4. Week 4: Summit + Battleground — KV Store + WhatsApp