Systems Architecture Interview: Clarifying the Question

In this miniseries, we'll dive deep into the mechanics and best practices of systems design and systems architecture interviews. The advice here is based on the interview processes at companies like Google, Meta, Amazon and many others.
For this first episode, we'll go over a real-world example interview question. We'll talk about how to start off on the right foot in these interviews. Many people trip up in the opening minutes of these interviews because they don't approach it systematically. Watch this video to find out what the best practice is.

[@megaman2016]

Wow you are back! Your content was way way ahead of its time

[@jackson-gabbard]

Aw thanks! Really appreciate the kind words!

[@poosanth]

Interviewers are super villians. This makes sense. Thank you! :)

[@balticspirit3082]

Your videos are pure gold! I learn so much about interview process also from the hiring side perspective. Thanks!

[@seanmister66]

Excellent video! Great words of advice, transferrable to a variety of careerpaths.

[@chkhd]

Thanks so much for making content again! your videos are the ones I recommend the most!

[@anuj3089]

Thanks alot for your Behavioral Interviews helped me go with right mindset , having honest discussions. Best wishes for new series!

[@NS-cs3wp]

Great advice and excellent example of all the ways you can expand on even the simplest of pieces of information.

[@NimrodPriell]

Learned a couple of things here - great video!

[@mayankketkar3450]

Love your thought process!

[@rdwash]

Fantastic once again Mr Gabbard!

[@paulsagar]

Great to see you back! Eagerly waiting to learn from you.

[@jackson-gabbard]

Thanks so much for the kind words! It's good to be back. ❤️

[@charlescai]

This is great content Jackson, have been following you for years and thank you keep going help others like me to grow. (Best wish for your new company too. )

[@farmeda446]

Very interesting and informative, thanks

[@Anonymous-rl2it]

This is an amazing explanation of how to define the scope of the system design problem. Keep up the good work. If you could make similar video for coding interview to guide how to navigate through it. It would be really helpful. Thank you.

[@nifalconi]

Thanks to you I got a better job with twice the salary. Great to see you back! Your best video is the one about Behavioral Interviews

[@jackson-gabbard]

That's amazing to hear! I'm sure you put in the work and found yourself the better role though.

[@amitkumargupta-]

Holy Shit, Didn't know you'll be back! WB

[@user-xx1ex9hb6l]

Thank you) Careem HR sent your channel to me like a one of guidelines)

[@RomanKurbangaliev]

Thanks for great video!

[@koftunka]

Jackson, thank you for the great content. I've been following you since your "original" date of starting the channel. Glad to see you back. Now, it's been 2 months since the announcement of the Systems Architecture miniseries, sooo.... where is the next video?!?!?! ;))))

[@jackson-gabbard]

Hi @koftunka! Sorry to keep you waiting. I'm actually planning to shoot the video next week. You won't have to wait much longer for the next episode!

[@hxrayful]

great episode thanks a lot

[@expeditiontoabyss3597]

mate, please keep doing this crazy good content, I bag you!🙂

[@itayerlich2568]

Great video

[@jackson-gabbard]

Aw, thanks! Great to hear you enjoyed it.

[@RickDkkrd]

8 months forward after the first episode we, the subscribed folks, still really want to hear more about system desing interviews.

[@AndreTiconaRollano]

Great video! I got one question, what do you consider the right amount of time to dedicate to clarifying requirements? I've had interviews where I felt I was overthinking the problem while the clock kept ticking and then I felt like I rushed rest of the time I had left.

[@jackson-gabbard]

Ah, this is a good question! The ace move here is to figure out questions that reduce the complexity by as much as possible with each question. Say, for instance, you start by asking "What programming language should I write the code in?" Then, you haven't really narrowed down the complexity by much. Many programming languages can be used to solve the same problems. So that detail doesn't help you. You want to make sure you're asking the most thoughtful detail-clarifying questions you can. As to how many to ask -- if you're going on for more than about 5 minutes, you've probably overdone it. These interviews are generally 45 minutes long. 2 or 3 minutes are usually taken up with intros. Then they try to give you 5ish minutes for questions at the end. So, that leaves ~37ish minutes of time to dig into the content. If you take 10 minutes for clarifying questions, you've dramatically reduced the time you have to actually solve the problem. If you were trying to be a top-tier interviewee, you'd be trying to find the fewest questions you can possibly ask that get you clarity. I'd expect you'd have a hard time doing that with fewer than at least 4 or 5 follow-up questions.

[@ambrishverma4097]

Hi Jackson, Why you are not making more videos on system Design? Please create more content on it.

[@emily_online]

One of your videos helpfully pointed out that progress > perfection. I still find system design challenges to be overwhelming and have a hard time making progress after clarifying requirements. I have a hard time translating a problem with such large scope into concrete components, especially if I haven't had exposure to that domain. If anyone has advice for overcoming this, I'd appreciate it.

[@jackson-gabbard]

You're certainly not alone in facing that part of the challenge. I'm happy to share that the very next video in the miniseries is titled "Breaking the Problem Down" and focuses on exactly this part of the challenge. Hopefully it's helpful for you.

[@emily_online]

@@jackson-gabbard much appreciated. Thank you!

[@TheLudoboss]

Such a fantastic video! Content and presentation are on point (and above)! Thank you for doing this. 🙇 One additional benefit of clarifying the question: - it is the first easy win of the (~day~) interview. It is like making your bed when you wake up, it helps make you feel good and confident for the rest of the interview. Also, I think you missed a very important point in that question's instance catalog. From the question presentation, it is clear there is already a back-end, and one that handle 50millions users! 💥 I'd totally ask what are the drawbacks and limitations of their current back-end. Do you restart from scratch, or try to patch a sinking overloaded ship? Maybe the question is not even fictional and they actually are struggling to scale? My fear is that it could be seen as trolling or a bit to confrontational.

[@jackson-gabbard]

That's a great point. If you asked me in an interview, it would be a strong indicator that you're the sort of thoughtful teammate I'd love to work with.

[@ebragimovic]

Great video, Jackson! I have an issue here, I’ve been working as a software engineer and a leading engineer for many years already, now trying to make my move towards the architecture side but literally getting no responses from any job I’m applying for, not sure the what’s the problem is, is it because of the previous job titles were lead engineer rather than architect? Or something wrong with my CV itself, I tried my best to demonstrate my related experience but no luck so far. If you can mentor me in this critical stage of my career I’d be very glad

[@jackson-gabbard]

Hi Ebrahamovic! Without more context, it's hard to say. Can you send me your CV? jg (at) jg.gg. I can probably tell you something useful from there.

[@postman12]

This is a great channel with a great usage of the language!! Thanks for the best effort. However, why should I subscribe to the channel where 3 videos are published yearly :D, (I am a subscriber though :D)

[@js-ko]

Hi nice to meet you

[@jackson-gabbard]

Nice to meet you, too! Hope you enjoy the video!

[@js-ko]

It said iw will start 4 o clock😢

[@jackson-gabbard]

Sorry you missed the premiere! The video went live at 2:30pm.

[@js-ko]

Lol

[@vchabal]

or your interviewer will say "skip that QnA, and dive into architecture", and showing that i have some questions doesn't help. (edit: interviewers should be educated as well, not only the interviewed ones)

[@jackson-gabbard]

If they do say that, you at least know you've gotten the most information from the interviewer that you could. It's better to ask and be told, "No, please just solve the problem," than to *not* ask and potentially be solving the *wrong* problem.

[@vincentlequang2]

Do you have any social media, like a twitter/X account where we can stalk you? You're making good videos, but it's been 5 months since that last one. Maybe you need a bit of encouragement to not drop the ball...

[@erikamartin5484]

😴 Promo'SM