The Insider's Guide to System Design Interviews: A Comprehensive Guide to Acing Your Second Edition Interview

Antonio Silva: Nice, but I'd say that the second volume is better structured.

Spain on Nov 11, 2023

Chen Wu: Intro to system design interview. Good for starter.

United States on Oct 14, 2023

Aaron: The content of the book is pretty good. It's a decent walkthrough of high level concepts. But it is painful to read sometimes. Partly because the author can't decide whether he wants to go in-depth or surface on a topic; the depth level is all over the place. But also because the author is obviously not a native English speaker, and the book is riddled with errors. Examples:

"Communicate with your interview" (should be interviewer)
"Give the high-level design first then drills down" (should be "drill")

There's a couple of these on every single page of the book, which spoils both reading speed and enjoyment.

The copyright page lists an editor, but I don't know what editing they actually did.

United States on Oct 05, 2023

Sahil Mishra: Must read for system design interviews. Lot of useful resources at the end. Planning on re-reading before interviews. On to part 2

United States on Oct 05, 2023

NIRAJ KUMAR SHAW: This book is amazing for even beginners like me. This gave me a boost of confidence to continue on my journey with system design. Definitely recommend it

India on Oct 05, 2023

Quinn Brock: So, I got my hands on "System Design Interview – An insider's guide" by Alex Xu, and I've got to say, it's a pretty solid book if you're gearing up for a tech interview, especially the tricky system design stuff.

What I really liked is how Alex breaks everything down. Instead of making you wade through a sea of jargon, he walks you through each concept, bit by bit. It's like he's right there, guiding you, which is really cool for beginners like me. Plus, there's a bunch of real-world examples, so it's not just theory—you actually see how it works in practice.

The best part? Alex doesn't just teach you system design; he gets you into the mind of the interviewer. It's not just about getting the right answers; it's about understanding what the interviewer is looking for. Trust me, that stuff is gold!

But hey, it's not all sunshine and rainbows. If you're already a pro at system design, you might find this book a bit on the simpler side. Don't get me wrong, the basics are covered really well, but I wished there was more for the advanced folks.

Also, I had a bit of a tough time with some of the technical lingo. Even though Alex tries to make things...

United States on May 23, 2023

Bobby: If you are preparing for an interview or want to expand your system design knowledge, it's a good read.

The printing quality is good, but not as flashy as the books published by O'Reilly, for example.
The book is quite lengthy and thick but it reads fast. There are lots of pictures and diagrams and the font is quite big so don't be discouraged by the size. Getting through it will probably take you about 8-10 hours of reading.

That being said, if you are planning to interview for a senior+ position L5, L6 I'd say this book is not enough. But every chapter has a list of references for the information, usually tech blogs of known companies such as AirBnB and Netflix. So, if you want to ace a System Design interview I would strongly encourage you to go through the book AND read all the reference materials.

Overall it's a good book but not as thorough and technical as Designing Data-Intensive Applications (also a very good read)

Germany on May 05, 2023

H.P.J.M.: Overall this is a decent attempt at going over system design concepts.

The author talks about the "building blocks" of systems (e.g. caches, load balancers) then offers a 4 step framework for answering questions about system design. What follows is analysing various system design questions such as "How to build a web crawler".

There are plenty of diagrams and references for deeper details, and in general the content is clear. However, there are numerous typos and I think this could be edited better. In addition, as other reviewers have noticed, some parts really need to go into more technical detail or explain things better.

That said, it shows you the "lay of the land" in terms of systems. I'd recommend supplementing this with other great books like "Designing Data-Intensive Applications" (which is also recommended in this book).

United Kingdom on Mar 18, 2023

Christophe Baldy: The book gives good general advice for system design interviews and goes straight to the point, without adding unnecessary lengths.

France on Oct 13, 2022

M Carmen Trevino: The book is pretty good. It’s easy to read. There are lots of design diagrams. If you are a visual person, you will love the book. It helped me pass the system design round at FANG.

I read the book twice and take notes. I read all the reference materials mentioned in the book. Reading those extra materials help me a lot with topics I’m not familiar with.

Highlights:
+ The book has a good set of questions.
+ Lots of diagrams and clear explanation.
+ You will learn something new by reading the book regardless of your experience.

Drawbacks:
- I wish the reference links are footnotes instead of being at the end of chapters. That way, it’s more accessible.
- Some topics are not talked about too much like security and stream processing.
- It’s tailored towards junior and semi-senior engineers. Some chapters are not deep enough. For example, I wish the author would talk more about feed ranking and caching in the designing news feed chapter.

Overall, it’s a masterpiece in system design books. However, no book can cover everything in system design. No one knows every system. Here are some of my other recommendations:

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United States on Nov 07, 2020