System Design Roadmap

Learn system design step by step. Read the concept, then practice with real problems.

Getting Started

Learn the fundamentals of system design and get comfortable with the platform

What is System Design?

Beginner
3 min read

Understanding the basics of designing scalable systems

Components and Connections

Beginner
7 min read10 min problem

Learn about system components and how they communicate

Understanding Scale

Beginner
4 min read

What does it mean to scale a system?

Data Storage

Master different approaches to storing and retrieving data

Databases: SQL vs NoSQL

Beginner
8 min read10 min problem

When to use relational vs non-relational databases

Data Modeling

Intermediate
10 min read

Designing efficient data structures for your system

Caching Strategies

Intermediate
9 min read

Speed up your system with smart caching

Load Balancing & Distribution

Learn how to distribute traffic and workload across multiple servers

Load Balancing Basics

Intermediate
7 min read25 min problem

Distribute traffic across multiple servers

Communication Patterns

Understand how different parts of your system communicate

Synchronous vs Asynchronous

Intermediate
8 min read10 min problem

When to use blocking vs non-blocking communication

Message Queues

Intermediate
12 min read15 min problem

Decouple your services with message queues

Event-Driven Architecture

Advanced
10 min read

Build reactive systems with events

Advanced Patterns

Explore sophisticated architectural patterns for complex systems

Microservices Architecture

Intermediate
4 min read15 min problem

Break down monoliths into smaller, manageable services

System Reliability

Advanced
10 min read25 min problem

Design systems that handle failures gracefully

The CAP Theorem

Advanced
8 min read

Learn a fundamental tradeoff concept in system design

Data Pipeline Design

Advanced
15 min read20 min problem

Process and analyze large amounts of data

Ready to Start?

Begin with the fundamentals and work your way up. Each concept builds on the previous ones.