Amazon System Design Interview Questions

System design is defining the elements of a system, the different components of those elements, and the data of the system to satisfy specified requirements. System design round in the interview means scalable system design problems. Companies like Amazon use system design rounds in the interviews for tech roles. Many candidates consider the system design interview to be the most complex and most difficult technical job interview.

Well-preparation is a ‘must’ if you want to crack the system design interview and land a job offer in this top tech company. Otherwise, without good preparation, system design interviews are tough to crack.

See also:

• Amazon SDM Interview Process
• Solution Architect Interview For Amazon
• Are you ready for Amazon

System design interview questions are broad and require fundamental system knowledge. They have multiple answers, also we cannot predict every question that may be asked, but the good news is that the interview process is fairly structured and that makes the interview process easy to prepare.

What is exactly a system design interview?

System design interview tests the ability to analyze problems and create a system that can solve a company’s or client’s problems. This interview measures your effectiveness and efficiency for solving a complex specific problem conveniently.

System Design is a key aspect at Amazon

Amazon focuses on hiring employees who can stay smart, innovate for customers, make fast decisions, and remain nimble. Amazonian build reliable, scalable, and cost-optimal performance systems.

System design is mandatory to prepare for interviews for all experienced candidates, with 2+ years of experience. Freshers are not asked system design questions, because it is something experienced folks are supposed to know. With 2 years of experience, you’ll be asked Low-level System Design questions, and after 4 years of experience, companies do expect you to know high-level system design.

Amazon system design interview process

The System Design round of Amazon takes place in the later stages of the Amazon interview process. This company conducts system design interviews after the phone screening round, which lasts for about 40 to 60 minutes in a video format mainly. The interviewer will be a hiring manager, or someone else of the same level of the role you’re applying for, who will ask more in-depth questions about your resume.

In this round, prepare for answering system design questions, as well as coding questions.

Here’s how the System Design round looks like

This round should always start with

1. A detailed discussion about the requirements and which all stuffs our system supports and which all stuff we can ignore
2. After the requirement, it’s better to give the interviewer a fair idea about the estimation of how many people going to use the system
3. Discuss the API (REST API) Involve in the System through which users access our service
4. Try to draw End to end the flow of High-level Design of the design
5. Think and come up with system components involved in the system and also the flow between the system components
6. In the end, come up with a Low-level design of the system

How to prepare?

The system design preparation process lasts typically 2-3 months for total beginners. Follow these steps as part of the learning process for interview preparation:

• The problem scope should be specified and understood. Make sure you understand the requirements of the system.
• Create a design for the interface of the problem product.
• Before you get started on paper or your PC, get an idea of how the design should look in your head.
• Design the high-level models and the data models.
• It is now time to move on to the details.
• If you are given a problem, consider alternative solutions or improvement opportunities.

Tips for system design interview

• Communication

  • Ask clarifying questions
  • Communicate in a structured way

• Designing to scale - design high-level then drill down

• Practice with example questions

• Read books

  I recommend:

  Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture by Martin Fowler, and

  Designing Data-Intensive Applications by Martin Kleemann

• Do mock interviews.

  Join InterviewHelp today

Amazon system design interview questions

• Design Instagram.
• Design Tik-Tok
• Design twitter
• Design Uber
• Design What’s up
• Discussion and designing LRU cache.
• Design a garbage collection system.
• Design a system to capture unique addresses in the entire world.
• Design a recommendation system for products.
• Design a toll system for highways.
• Design URL Shortener.
• Design Instant Messenger.
• Design Elevator system.
• Design distributed caching system.
• Design Amazon Locker Service.
• Design Amazon Best Seller Item Service.

You should practice a lot for coding and design interviews and get to experience a practice interview before the real thing. The mock interview will help level up your skills and calm your nerves. I recommend you to use our peer-to-peer mock interviews platform for LeetCode and System design preparation. With proper preparation and some practice, system design interviews can be much easier than people expect.