14-Day Study Plan
A structured 2-week plan to prepare for system design interviews. Check off tasks as you complete them.
Day 1: Foundation: Numbers & Structure
Learn the interview framework and key numbers
Tip: Master the 45-minute interview structure first. It's your roadmap for every interview.
Day 2: Databases & Storage
Understand SQL vs NoSQL, sharding, and replication
Tip: Most interviewers expect you to justify your database choice. Practice explaining WHY, not just WHAT.
Day 3: Caching Deep Dive
Master caching strategies, eviction policies, and distributed caching
Tip: Cache invalidation is one of the hardest problems in CS. Understand the trade-offs of every strategy.
Day 4: Load Balancing & Networking
LB algorithms, CDNs, and real-time communication
Tip: WebSocket vs HTTP is a common deep-dive question. Know the trade-offs cold.
Day 5: Message Queues & Async Processing
Kafka, RabbitMQ, and async architecture patterns
Tip: Message queues are the answer to 'how do you handle X asynchronously?' in every interview.
Day 6: API Design & Microservices
REST, gRPC, API gateways, and service decomposition
Tip: In interviews, always start with a monolith and explain when you'd break it into microservices.
Day 7: Week 1 Review
Review everything from week 1 and identify weak areas
Tip: Day 7 is for solidifying knowledge. Focus on areas where you felt weakest during the week.
Day 8: Social & Feed Systems
Fan-out, news feed, social graph, and recommendation
Tip: The fan-out problem is asked at every major tech company. Master the hybrid approach.
Day 9: Search & Autocomplete
Trie data structures, Elasticsearch, and search systems
Tip: Search is very common in FAANG interviews. Understand both trie-based autocomplete and inverted index search.
Day 10: Video & Media Systems
Video upload, transcoding, streaming, and CDN integration
Tip: Video systems are about understanding the processing pipeline. Focus on transcoding and delivery.
Day 11: Location & Real-Time Systems
Geospatial indexing, ride-sharing, and maps
Tip: Geospatial indexing (geohash, quadtree) is a common deep-dive topic. Know at least one approach.
Day 12: E-Commerce & Payments
Inventory management, payment processing, and consistency
Tip: Payment systems require understanding idempotency and distributed transactions. These come up a lot.
Day 13: Infrastructure & Monitoring
Metrics, monitoring, crawlers, and observability
Tip: Always mention monitoring in your design. It shows you think about production systems, not just happy paths.
Day 14: Final Review & Mock Interview
Full mock interview simulation
Tip: You're ready. Trust your preparation. In the real interview: clarify first, draw second, explain always.