How to correctly study for your system design question
What’s the best way? I’ve got my FB on site in about 16 days… and I haven’t cracked the way to study for those. So I went over grokking system design and so the repeating pattern where we clarify the requirements, estimate scale, and start going through our design including DB and apis whilst justifying one approach over the other. But what’s next? Each problem has its catch: Proximity server or Yelp uses quadtree or data grid Source control uses MySQL as the queue for CICD tasks Dropbox uses SQL for acid properties and manage updates by chunk But what’s next? What is it I really need to take from each Question I read. Should I memorize key points? I’d definitely never be able to come up with detailed requirements as they do in those examples whilst being interviewed #interview #facebook
Be prepared to be asked to design something you’ve worked with
You should not use mysql as a queue, unless you have to design the broker itself. Use a proper queue otherwise.
Where to learn about fancy words like quad tree etc? I took data structures and algo class in my college but I don't remember hearing such words. Also I read ddia and I don't remember seeing this word. Now I wonder what other fancy words and concepts I don't know. Essentially I don't know what I don't know even if I want to Google
Ahah
Read system design primer
Knowing what to use is first step. Take example of quad tree, you cab say quad tree but you need defend that choice. Why quad tree, why cant you use any other structure. Also bit more depth on these topics will definitely help. Like how to use it. What will you store, what is your key how will you compute for every record etc