Top 5 System Design Interview Cheat Sheets for Developers

Durgesh Sharma
8 min readJan 17, 2024

--

image_credit — Educative

Hello guys, if you have been preparing for Software Developer or Software Engineer interviews then you may know how important they are but you may not know that that System design also plays a crucial role in building robust and scalable software applications.

It involves making critical decisions regarding architecture, components, scalability, and performance. To help engineers navigate the complexities of system design, several System design cheat sheets, RoadMaps, and templates have emerged as valuable resources.

In the past, I have shared best System Design courses, books, websites, and even popular System design questions and In this article, we will explore three notable system design cheat sheets worth reading: the System Design Cheat Sheet from Educative, the System Design Template from DesignGuru, and the System Design RoadMap from Love Sharma on Medium.

Let’s dive in!

And, if you have not read yet, here are my previous articles on System design which you can read now

21 Software Design Pattern Interview Questions and Answers

Design patterns are important topic for Java interviews, here are common design pattern questions you can prepare for…

medium.com

Top 10 Free System Design Courses and Tutorials in 2023

These are the best free online courses and tutorials you can use for System Design Interview and Excel it.

medium.com

How to Crack System Design Interviews in 2023? Tips, Questions and Resources

Your guide to crack System design interview and get into FAANG

medium.com

5 System Design Cheat Sheet and Guides for Interviews

Without wasting anymore of your time, here are three of the best System Design cheat sheet, RoadMaps, Blueprints, and Templates you can find online:

1. System Design Blueprint by Love Sharma and ByteByteGo on Medium

This System design blueprint is created by

Love Sharma

, a tech enthusiast and experienced software engineer in collaboration with ByteByteGo, one of my favorite places to learn System Design.

This System Design blueprint offers a practical and insightful approach to system design. This template provides a step-by-step guide to designing scalable and fault-tolerant systems.

It covers various aspects, including DNS, Load Balancing, Scalability, system requirements, architecture, data storage, communication protocols, and performance optimization.

Love Sharma’s System design blueprint also includes lot of useful information on sections including best practices and explanations, helping readers understand the practical application of system design principles.

If you are preparing for System design interview, you can also checkout ByteByteGo, one of the great platform for System design interview preparation by Alex Xu author of popular System Design Interview — An insider’s guide Book, I have read both volume 1 and 2 and they are truly awesome, I highly recommend to anyone who want to learn System design irrespective of interviews.

Also, here is the System Design blueprint I was talking bout, this is definitely worth reading and printing to stick on your desktop:

and here is the full article you can read on Medium itself

System Design Blueprint: The Ultimate Guide

Developing a robust, scalable, and efficient system can be daunting. However, understanding the key concepts and…

medium.com

2. System Design Interview Cheat Sheet by Educative

Educative is renowned for its comprehensive technical courses, and their System Design Cheat Sheet lives up to the platform’s reputation. This cheat sheet provides a concise overview of the key components and considerations involved in system design, which are critical for any System design interview.

It covers topics such as data partitioning, load balancing, caching, database choices, and communication protocols. The cheat sheet offers clear explanations, diagrams, and examples, making it an excellent resource for beginners and experienced engineers alike.

And, if you want, more you can checkout Educative’s awesome Grokking Modern System Design for Software Engineers & Managers, one of the most up-to-date, and comprehensive course for System design interviews.

Grokking Modern System Design Interview for Engineers & Managers — Learn Interactively

System Design interviews are now part of every Engineering and Product Management Interview. Interviewers want…

www.educative.io

Also, here is the amazing System Design Interview cheat sheet by Educative which is definitely worth reading and printing:

You can either join this course alone or get an Educative subscription to not just get access to this course but also more than 500 course on all kind of programming and development technologies, including interviews.

Educative Unlimited: Stay ahead of the curve

We’ve heard your feedback. You can now pay just once and get full access to every course on Educative.

www.educative.io

3. System Design Template from DesignGuru

DesignGuru’s System Design Template is a comprehensive and structured approach to system design. This template guides engineers through the entire system design process, from defining requirements to evaluating trade-offs.

This template is created by

Arslan Ahmad

, founder of DesignGuru. It covers essential aspects such as system architecture, data modeling, scalability, fault tolerance, and security.

The template provides a systematic framework that ensures engineers consider all necessary aspects while designing robust and scalable systems.

And, if you want more, you can also checkout Grokking the System Design Interview course, one of the most popular System Design course online on DesignGuru. It was earlier available on Educative but now its only available on Design Guru.

Grokking the System Design Interview | The #1 Online Course

Grokking the System Design Interview is a comprehensive course for system design interview. It provides a step-by-step…

bit.ly

And, here is the System Design Template from DesignGuru which is another great resources to learn bout System Design concepts:

DesignGuru also offers Mock Interviews for Coding interview and System Design interview, if you are serious about your preparation for FAANG interview, I highly recommend you to go for Mock interview or 1 to 1 session with Arslan or one of his team members.

They have worked on FAANG and also take interviews so whatever they share is truly valuable. Also, you are not going to get interview chances on Google and Microsoft everyday, so make sure you give your best shot and use all the resources you can to crack the interview on first attempt.

AI Mock Interview — Design Gurus

Purchase your mock interview or 1-on-1 session. Schedule your interview or session whenever you like. Meet your…

www.designgurus.io

4. System Design Cheat Sheet by ByteByteGo

This is another System Design Cheat Sheet which is designed by ByteByteGo, one of the best place to prepare for System design interview.

This system design interview cheat sheet encapsulates crucial concepts related to ensuring high availability, high throughput, and high scalability in a system.

Addressing the need for “4 nines” uptime (99.99%), the cheat sheet delves into redundancy strategies such as hot-hot, hot-warm, single-leader, and leaderless clusters, emphasizing fault tolerance through data replication. To tackle high throughput, it advocates employing caching mechanisms, optimizing thread utilization, and identifying and alleviating performance bottlenecks, with asynchronous processing as an effective tool for isolating resource-intensive tasks.

High scalability considerations involve both horizontal and vertical extensions, with response time monitoring guiding decisions on system scaling.

The cheat sheet serves as a comprehensive visual aid, highlighting the critical role of redundancy, caching, and efficient scaling mechanisms in fortifying system resilience and responsiveness. This sheet effectively complements ByteByteGo System design course which is one of the valuable resource for system design itnerview.

ByteByteGo | Technical Interview Prep

Everything you need to take your system design skill to the next level

bytebytego.com

Here is the System Design Cheat Sheet you can print:

5. System Design Interview Cheat Sheet by Exponent

This is another awesome System Design Interview Cheat Sheet you can refer to learn key System design concept before interviews. This System design cheat sheet cover interview frameworks, API Design Choices, and Scalability concepts.

It’s is designed by Exponent , a dedicated websites for tech interview preparations which I accidentally found while looking for system design interview resources.

Renowned for its specialized courses like System Design Interview Course, Exponent stands out as a valuable resource for those seeking to enhance their skills in areas such as system design, engineering

Other System Design Resources for Interviews

If you are preparing for interviews then here are few more System Design resources which are worth their salt:

Conclusion

That’s all about the 5 best System Design cheatsheets, roadmaps, guides, and templates you can review before your tech interviews. System design is a critical skill for software engineers, and having reliable resources at hand can significantly enhance the design process.

The System Design Cheat Sheet from Educative, the System Design Template from Design Guru, and the System Design Template from Love Sharma on Medium are three valuable resources that offer different approaches to system design.

Whether you prefer a concise overview, a structured template, or a practical step-by-step guide, these cheat sheets provide valuable insights, examples, and best practices to improve your system design skills.

By leveraging these resources, you can not only enhance your ability to design scalable, efficient, and robust software systems but also do well on interviews.

Other Programming Articles and Tutorials you may like

Thanks for reading this article so far. If you know any other excellent online resources like websites or programming platforms to learn System Design and Software Designing, especially for beginners, which you think complements these two websites, then feel free to share. Everybody loves great resources and happy learning System design.

P. S. — If you are looking for a best online course to learn System Design in depth then I also suggest you to checkout Frank Kane’s Mastering the System Design Interview course on Udemy. Frank is an ex-hiring manager and know what it takes to crack System design interview of those big FAANG companies .

--

--