System Design Interview Tips for Engineers | ClavePrep Blog

Why system design matters

System design interviews test how you think about scalability, reliability, and trade-offs. They're common for senior and staff engineering roles. Even if you don't design distributed systems daily, showing structured thinking and the ability to discuss APIs, data flow, and bottlenecks will set you apart.

How to approach the question

Clarify requirements – Ask about scale (users, QPS, data size), must-haves vs. nice-to-haves, and constraints. A "design a URL shortener" question can go many ways; narrow it with the interviewer.
Start high-level – Draw a simple diagram: clients, load balancer, app servers, database, cache. Then drill into one or two areas (e.g. how you'd shard the DB or generate short codes).
Discuss trade-offs – Every choice has trade-offs. "We could use a SQL DB for consistency or NoSQL for scale; here's why I'd pick X for this use case." Show you can reason, not just recite.
Estimate when useful – Back-of-the-envelope (storage, bandwidth, QPS) shows you think about real-world limits. Practice rough numbers for traffic and storage.

Practice with ClavePrep

Use ClavePrep to practice explaining your designs out loud. You can run through system design prompts and get feedback on clarity and structure—the same skills that matter in a live interview.

Why system design matters

How to approach the question

Clarify requirements – Ask about scale (users, QPS, data size), must-haves vs. nice-to-haves, and constraints. A "design a URL shortener" question can go many ways; narrow it with the interviewer.
Start high-level – Draw a simple diagram: clients, load balancer, app servers, database, cache. Then drill into one or two areas (e.g. how you'd shard the DB or generate short codes).
Discuss trade-offs – Every choice has trade-offs. "We could use a SQL DB for consistency or NoSQL for scale; here's why I'd pick X for this use case." Show you can reason, not just recite.
Estimate when useful – Back-of-the-envelope (storage, bandwidth, QPS) shows you think about real-world limits. Practice rough numbers for traffic and storage.

Practice with ClavePrep

Use ClavePrep to practice explaining your designs out loud. You can run through system design prompts and get feedback on clarity and structure—the same skills that matter in a live interview.