Episode 06: Intro to Architecture and Systems Design Interviews

[@alexsavul]

"if you get rejected it means you were at least at the front door of that place. just keep going". this motivates me quite a lot. thanks

[@Alistair]

me too. I said "I haven't thought about this before" when the guy asked me about how to scale up database reads on my app, and he immediately moved on. I've since read about scaling up database reads and it's all very basic, common sense stuff that I had in fact kinda thought about before. Oops

[@atul6585]

Jis front door pe aap pahunche ho, use front door ke bahar to hamne apni 20s gujari hai.

[@liposoandrade]

This is probably the most "mature" systems design video I ever watched. No specifics, just handling different aspects and focusing on what's important for the outcome. Thanks for posting!

[@SohailSiadat]

Nice video. But the background music is annoying. It keeps interrupting the mind.

[@JacksonGabbard]

There's a link to a no-music version in the description.

[@SohailSiadat]

+Jackson Gabbard Thank you. Sorry, I saw it later.

[@SohailSiadat]

+Sohail Siadat Really useful video for me.

[@zdravkodonev4661]

The background music is actually helping me to concentrate on his words. Maybe it's a matter of taste. :)

[@abrarisme]

Danm I thought that was just me and I didn't wanna post a negative comment about it. But yes. So much good information. Such bad distracting music.

[@rakeshroy4338]

Motivating to say the least: "If you get rejected it means you were at least at the front door of that place. Just keep going." After getting rejected at 3 out of top 4 tech companies, feeling devastated. Thanks for this nice video.

[@gluxoff]

Remove music please!!!

[@slippinchillin]

I can’t agree enough on this!

[@dreabombea8057]

I wish you were still making videos. These have honestly been the most helpful and realistic explanations I have found to date. Well done. I'd love to see more about when you are working to actually level up your career. For example: devops (probably using AWS as an example since that seems to be what most use), a datawarehouse video on scalability, maybe even a video on choosing architectures themselves?

[@adamzerner5208]

That transition to the squeeky voice was brilliant. It made my day.

[@kunal_tanti]

One of the best take away "If you are going through hell, keep going."

[@lokesh2608]

This is just an awesome video! It really resonates with what I tell potential candidates and friends who ask me about how to tackle a design interview. Stuff that I liked about the video: 1. Why a design interview is conducted 2. What is the interviewer looking for 3. Whats the worst thing a candidate can do. 4. Breaking apart an example problem -> mentioning the caveats that you were pulling numbers out of thin air (sorta) 5. How to get good at this (not just for the purposes of passing an interview) So pretty much the entire 50 mins. Please continue to post!

[@kenx8833]

Watched this a couple years ago when I switched jobs and marked it "Good" and now stumbled upon it again. Still feel that the content is awesome. Great technical details, good suggestions of strategies / approaches, and the explanations on the mindset one should have going into these interviews / prepping for these interviews are absolutely on point as well. Respect for putting out such good content,

[@jackson-gabbard]

That really means a lot. Thanks for sharing this. You made my day.

[@AnkitKumar-rt4it]

Thank you Jack for the awesome video. I would say that this is one hell of video that mentions a lot of quality content about the interviews, architecture design and how to prepare them. Some best things discussed in the video were : 1) The person had 8 years of experience and still he was low on architecture design. May be you are not pushing yourself harder. 2) We all might not be working in the company that works on scaling the application. But we can still know what the company is doing by reading their engineering blogs. 3) You must be driving the interview and not the interviewer should be pushing every time. I was not pushing myself harder and it's better that I start pushing myself harder and start reading the blogs of big tech companies.

[@mustang6x]

This is literally the best thing what I've ever seen on youtube regarding the Architecutre Interviews. Thank you for sharing this!

[@liuminghao2919]

This is the true definitive guide to system design interviews. Very informative and really helpful. I wish I saw this much earlier in the process.

[@nagu1080]

Such a candid and down to earth video. I was not at all disturbed by background music. His voice was crystal clear

[@alexsalo]

That actually sounds like an interview that reflects a realistic day to day work :)

[@zerosandones701]

Great advice, great outlook, and great positivity. The only comment I would make is for the engineer with 8 years of experience -- I'm also self taught, and have been a SWE for 4 years: the first 2 of that was barely trying to stay afloat, and the last 2 were finally building cool things. Still not that good at architecture, but sometimes number of years alone don't tell the whole story

[@ElGalloUltimo]

I have watched and read almost every major video and written source on system design and this is by far the best I've seen. What you do better than the others is address the meta issues around the fact that you are making estimations and might not know everything but that the point is to keep going and keep exploring even though you don't know everything.

[@at_tap]

Great video, it was so interesting that after a while I stopped noticing the background music which was little distracting in the beginning. Thanks for such inflammatory film

[@gymothybumpkins]

I have an interview tomorrow (which I have a hunch will be on system design), and I gotta say you really helped out my confidence. Thanks. Fingers crossed for tomorrow 🤞🤞

[@99progers]

success?))

[@RaymondChenon]

Excellent, I watched till the end. Amazon is flying me for an on-site interview in 3 days ( 8 dec ). I'm a mobile developer . I failed at a similar company on the scalability interview but aced the coding. Your video helped to get the right attitude. I'm talking with the SREs and they are happy to share how they solved the black Friday issue. I will post how it went.

[@manoharkotapati9254]

Hi Raymond, If you don't mind, Can you please share your interview experience?

[@rajasubasubramanian9365]

Jackson Gabbard, Incredibly amazing content. When I just started this video i thought you would be giving some generic tips and tricks to crack the interview - but you went in breadth and depth at some places and covered end to end. It gives a clear picture of what happens in a system design interview. At the end summarizing, with haystack story and how to build or interact with the community who builds architecture that impacts large scale is simply superb. Thanks a lot for such wonderful content :)

[@Redspecialist300]

Thanks Jackson, I'm an incoming graduate looking at entry level positions with very limited industry experience, and I find your videos really helpful and lighthearted. Thank you very much for taking the time to make these!

[@itsmewaqar]

Thank you Jackson for this amazing video. Being a noob at system design, this video really helped me to boost my confidence to drive the interview rather than being driven.

[@scabbage]

Great video about general system design process. The concurrent connection analysis could go into some details on how you get concurrent users from throughput (68K user per sec). If every user stays for 1 sec and leaves, sure. You would have 68K concurrent users at any given point of time. But if visitors stay for 10 seconds on avg, then you would probably need to accommodate 680K concurrent connections (68K/sec * 10 secs) in total.

[@vishalmishra7018]

Thanks I was confused about this.

[@TheRealMartin]

Great video, but this background music really is too loud.

[@JDiculous1]

Can't thank you enough for making this, found it extremely helpful. Shame you stopped making videos!

[@mtrajano973]

I was able to understand you properly but decided to read the comments halfway through and saw a bunch of people complaining about the background music and then couldn't watch it anymore haha

[@avinashkharbanda957]

At 31:50 talking about PII & GDPR was awesome ;)

[@chrisbell8207]

Loved the video, you've earned my subscription. Super helpful as someone getting ready to leave their first job. MOAR!

[@MrSoloboii]

In contrast to what everyone else is saying about the background music, I thought it made the entire talk easier to listen to than without

[@jamess5330]

Very helpful! Study vidoes like this and then practice at Meetapro with mock interviews will help you land multiple offers.

[@TheDborgir]

Your video made me understand that I am never going to make it into a top-tier software company.

[@krutomjer]

Not with that attitude

[@hechen236]

The cup moves at 6:47. Magic happened!

[@getmeon4]

Thank You! Great piece of advice. I urge you to continue doing this. And that you walked through a problem and ways to approach it in a real world-> that was the most useful part!

[@alanrice9935]

thanks for sharing. architecture is way less discussed since it's more open ended but imo shows a developer's experience much more. the bass line of the background track is also very funky

[@zhidazhang4018]

I really love your intuitive way of explaining stuff! Thanks very much!!

[@MrW3iss]

Laf. Had me there for a minute with the pitch correction. Was thinking "wtf is wrong with this guys balls" 😂 Thanks for the videos, man!

[@capcapTap]

I was already watching this at 1:25X and you went flash at 32:00

[@sandipanhaldar8609]

"If you are going through hell, keep going. That's a lot like architecture interview" - Nice

[@harsandeep]

one of the best videos on system design interview

[@amirziarati7693]

that was awesome jackson. happy I found this piece of valuable video. nothing helped me more than this to know what a intrviewer wants me in a system design interview.

[@senthilandavanp]

Thanks for sharing the knowledge with us.I think i need to watch twice to understand

[@mannepalliutube]

Too good and you are a great communicator of your ideas. Just loved it.

[@CODcanbefornoobs]

eyy you're still with us! please don't leave.

[@AkshayPsCET]

Watching 28:30 in 2021 from a small town in India on my 300Mbps JioFiber connection which only costs $20 a month :D phew.. time flies.

[@jackson-gabbard]

Haha! Indeed -- that part of the video definitely did not age well. 🤦🏻‍♂️

[@staypositiveru]

Jackson, thank you for such an amazing video advice. It's super motivating.

[@brianblackie9434]

Such a good talk.. cheers. I have an interview tomorrow so this has helped.

Super good tips and mindset for approaching such interviews. Thanks!

[@poosanth]

Great content thank you! Wish there was a way to remove the music track.

[@xiangni3923]

I am going to interview with facebook. The system design interview advices you gave are very helpful! Thank you vm for the fantastic video!

[@radkan1440]

I liked the saying "If you are going through hell, keep going!" Although I don't agree to a few things like even if in your current job, you didn't get exposure to architecture etc. but there are so many courses out there and people do really well after taking those courses so then it's not really about your experience because it's something you can learn and ace the interviews. There are blogs of people who did exactly that and after failing initial interview took the courses like grokking the system design, etc and then were hired eventually

[@kevinyang9094]

Amazing Video! Thanks Jackson. Gonna interview at FB next week, wish me good luck. : )

[@ligeialovelace]

This was very helpful, thanks. Although it's a very depressing message that people stuck in crappy jobs after school will be unlikely to ever get a chance to join the "A-list" companies.

[@Yan-rv8mi]

Update: please disregard my following comment. I just saw you mentioning level 5 (at Facebook) is a "comfortable" level to stick with. It kind of shocks me when the Facebook director refuses to hire that 8-year experienced person. I was expecting that he would still get hired, but just be offered a lower level of job since he's architecture skill is at that level. I don't know if it's just Facebook or a norm in FANG companies that would harshly expect a person to grow to a certain technical level in a certain amount of time (years). I am under the impression that there's a sweet sport in these large companies. For example, in my company (a well-known Bay Area tech company), it only expects the engineers to progress in a certain timeline for the first to IC levels. But when an engineer reaches level 3, it's at their own discretion whether they want to push themselves forward to the next level (level 4 is probably tech lead kink of role). I am thinking after level 3 (some company would have a different threshold), the company would hire people based on their skills which corresponds to how much value of work they can deliver, regardless of how fast they have been progressing in their career.

[@opkarthik]

I was going to add a comment about the background music, but then i see a bunch of those already here. No more music please and thank you!

[@math23ab]

This is probably the most impactful video I've ever seen about interviews and tech

[@Retrosenescent]

"Companies like Facebook don't give system design interviews to new graduates" BOY is that wrong! I'm doing one tomorrow :'D

[@ANJANI4986]

Nice video. I made the playback speed as 2X as I usually do to understand any videos and it was such an amazing rap with music.

[@WOOOWOOO2326]

Conclusion: 1. There is no correct answer for architecture qs. 2. Performance at system design decides the final ROLE and OFFER 3. Your solution should be BROAD and DETAIL. 4. Practice by solving and thinking about real-life system that we use. 5. Find out the challenges in a given design question. 6. Breakdown the problem into smaller chunks(back of the envelope, capacity estimations etc) 7. Think about implementation details in client/server-side, different devices etc. 8. Don't let FAILURE stop you. 9. Read about tech talks and articles provided by other tech companies.

[@Leersam]

Thanks Jackson, great video! However, the music was as loud as your voice and it made me drift away from what you were saying at times. Maybe lower the musci volume next time? Best of luck in the future!

[@jackson-gabbard]

If you look in the description, there's a link to a version of the video with no music.

[@SohailSiadat]

+Jackson Gabbard thanks

[@bohuang2]

Awesome. That's what I need:)

[@robertdalin]

This is phenomenal, thanks for making this video

[@megichejanovsky3967]

It took me whole two minutes to see you implemented a recursion into your video. hilarious!

[@user-nu2zq7rv8x]

DItto the music comments, turn music off or lower it quite a bit. Thanks for taking the time to put this together.

[@bluberrryhill]

I like you. Please make more videos. I also really liked your behavioral interview video. I'll definitely be using your advice, and recommend you to tech friends who are interviewing. Thank you so much!

[@fireystella]

Really enjoy the way you talk. So COHERENT! 🤑🤑

[@ningoo]

Thanks, very helpful video! I really like the logging service example in the video, very thought-invoking

[@ageenppz]

This is awesome, man. I'm totally into it and didn't notice the music at all. :)

[@NathanMartins]

Man, this video is so motivating. Big thumbs up

[@matthcw8745]

Really, really good insights, thanks Jackson!

[@markganus1085]

background music sounds like battletoads

[@lynxArul]

Amazing video! Learnt a lot. I liked the background music it didn't bother me too much. Please do keep up these videos coming in. I just wish you had more videos love it!

[@yerbolatyeskaliyev7341]

duude... inspiring, funny and veeeery useful... even with background music!

[@FroL_Onn]

Oh, god! What a nice video! Thanks a lot! Please, keep up!

[@zakharbondia1647]

Wow! Great talk. Much inspiration

[@meganlee5897]

love the talk！weirdly I really love the bgm too.

[@dhanvantaritilak]

Very nice content! Thanks for sharing... I also slowed down the video speed for the portion that was fast-forwarded 😃

[@asbearful]

Hey Jackson, this is the best tip video for the system design interview. Really appreciate it. Would it be even nicer to have the background off 😊 - oh I found your comment about no-music version!

[@daleprather3026]

Very motivating. Love your videos. You're great at this. Why'd you stop?

[@AlissonSiri]

I really enjoy your videos, thank you so much for sharing your experience with us.

[@AlbertoCamposR]

Thanks Jackson for uploading this video. It's really helpful!

[@flixbuf2850]

Heck, you nailed it dude! What killer video it is... Great enlightenment... Keep rocking! Another fan in your funnel :)

[@boot-strapper]

I have an interview at Facebook on Monday. I'm terrified.

[@andriirubtsov5404]

How was it?

[@supremepancakes4388]

same

[@tungtop]

you passed?

[@kaushikdas417]

This is gold! All of it.

[@beetroot99]

I have a systems design interview for my first software engineering internship... Wish me luck. Ill try my best!

[@bharattejwani4993]

Hey Jackson, it was an awesome video to watch and learn something new. I would like to request you to make some videos on real scenarios of system design, which may include the basic requirements that an entry level graduate should know at least. Thanks

[@nem035]

Great video! Thanks for all the awesome insights

[@connections2190]

Very inspiring, enjoyed every part.

[@yunlianghuang4629]

Thanks Jackson, it is a great video! Could you try to share some video about how to approach a detail system design question with drawing something, from frontend to backend, distribution system etc?

[@yonglongd.4730]

Thanks Jackson. Great video, very helpful.

[@booleangray2225]

I'm going to create a cheat sheet with these points to unstick myself if need be. capacity estimation peak traffic breakdown client side implementation on different platforms "server side implementation - components - technology" how we are updating network traffic of log compressed encrypted what protocol to use between client and server do we log on wifi or mobile network "long term storage -3 days / 7 days / 30 days" how many people needed to build how long to build how much cost to build operational cost how to access logs hadoop/hive to query the logs? retention user privacy - GDPR

[@yasmin_jsmn]

Thanks for the information you provided in your video, but the music in the background was load a little bit and keeped distracting me :(

[@AlexanderOnTube]

Man this is awesome and super useful!

[@koeber99]

Great and useful video. Please keep them coming .....However, the background music should be played at a lower volume !!

[@seanjcan]

Great video! Have one of these coming up and this helped a lot.

[@karthick6891]

auto generated captions between 31:30 and 31:57 will be my interview

[@algoseekee]

Man, that's just hilarious. What could be better than "we go to his lungs we're gonna need sensors to my dance" 😂

[@jhillyt]

Jackson, awesome session! Thank you.

[@markoshivapavlovic4976]

Dude your videos are awesome.

[@deathbombs]

The user facing questions seems to be more a Product system design, than backend architecture design?

[@manishkankani]

Best 49 mins spent today.

[@ConstantineGavriluk]

Awesome, thanks!