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System design: what to learn and when

For interns, new grads and engineers with 0 to 3 years of experience. Use it to find which design round your loop has, what to skip, and which plan to follow.

The six kinds of design round

Round What you do What you hand in Length Prep page
High-level design (HLD), usually just called "system design" Design a large system (URL shortener, chat, news feed) that serves many users Requirements, API, boxes and arrows, data model, trade-offs 45 to 60 min Framework, Problems
Product architecture (Meta's name for its product-track design round) Design a user-facing product with more focus on APIs, data models and client-server flow Same as HLD, with more API detail and less infrastructure scale 45 min Framework
Low-level design (LLD), also called object-oriented design (OOD) Design the classes for a contained problem (parking lot, elevator, LRU cache) Classes, interfaces, key methods, often some real code 35 to 60 min Low-level design
Machine coding Build a working, modular program from a written spec, then defend it in a code review Running code with a demo from a main method, no UI 60 to 120 min plus review Machine coding playbook
Project walkthrough ("reverse system design") Explain the design of something you built and defend each choice One clear diagram and the trade-offs you made 30 to 60 min Your own project
Front-end or mobile system design Design a client app or widget (news feed UI, autocomplete, chat screen) Components, state, client-server API, performance and offline trade-offs 45 to 60 min Front-end and mobile resources

Watch out: LLD and HLD are different interviews. Hello Interview's LLD guide says they have "almost nothing in common" (source). LLD is classes and state. HLD is services, data stores and scale. Ask your recruiter which one you have.

Who gets a design round (as of Oct 2026)

Three rules hold across most companies:

  • Most entry-level SWE loops have no system design round, "though there are plenty of exceptions" (Hello Interview). Interns usually get none (Tech Interview Handbook).
  • Design becomes common at mid-level and is the norm at senior, where it carries extra weight (same Hello Interview page).
  • At 1 to 3 years, the design round often sets your level. A weak round can turn a Meta E4 loop into an E3 offer (Hello Interview E4 guide), and Microsoft uses design to level you up or down (Aced Microsoft guide).

Level names below follow each company's ladder. For the cross-company map (L3, E3, SDE I, 59 and so on) see What jobs to apply for. Rows marked "reports" come from 2025 to 2026 candidate reports collected for the company pages; formats vary by team, so confirm with your recruiter.

FAANG and large tech

Company Intern New grad 1 to 3 years Source
Google None L3: none. Two 45-min onsite coding rounds; coding can include light class design. 2026 pilot (select US teams): the Googleyness round adds a design talk about a past project L4: no dedicated design round (Google keeps it for L5 and up); design may surface inside coding. Infra and AI teams may swap one coding round for a domain round HI L4, Aced L3, Aced pilot
Meta None E3: none. 2 coding (one may be AI-enabled) plus 1 behavioral E4: one 45-min round, either System Design (infra) or Product Architecture (APIs, data models). Ask your recruiter which one. Drawn in Excalidraw HI E3, HI E4, Meta prep page
Amazon Usually none SDE I: one OOD round is common (parking lot, Linux find API, pizza billing, package dependencies). Aced says not every loop includes it, so ask SDE II: "at least one question on software systems design" (official), 20 min of design scenarios in the OA, often an extra LLD round HI L4, Aced, Amazon SDE II prep
Microsoft Usually none 59: usually no HLD, but expect OOP or data-modeling questions. 60 with 1 to 2 years (India): an LLD round is common, sometimes with runnable code 61 to 62: LLD and HLD. The design round sets your level; questions come from the team's own product Aced, interviewing.io, reports
Apple Rare ICT2: rare; some India junior loops include an LLD-flavored round ICT3: team-specific design. Talk about reliability, privacy, on-device vs cloud interviewing.io, reports
Netflix A design round was reported for 2026 SWE interns: learn APIs, data modeling and caching Varies by team Design is the most important round. Bespoke prompts, sometimes security-only or reverse system design interviewing.io, reports
Nvidia Final 2 to 4 interviews can mix coding with system design or domain questions (CUDA, GPU, systems) Team-dependent Team-dependent Simplify Nvidia FAQ
Uber Not standard; some 2026 co-op candidates heard design may appear Aced: entry level gets a 1-hour round on simple high-level systems. US reports: often no standalone HLD. India SDE-1: a design round (messaging app with schema, or LLD of food delivery) L4: a 60-min machine-coding LLD with running code and tests, plus HLD. Leave the last 15 min of HLD for follow-ups Aced Uber, reports
LinkedIn India: none IC2 (the usual new grad level): full 60-min "Software Design and Architecture" round, HLD with LLD depth Same. One 2026 report says a below-average design rating alone caused a reject Reports
Salesforce Not reported AMTS: LLD and OOP (LRU then LFU as classes, library management) MTS: dedicated LLD round (Splitwise, LUDO) plus HLD inside the hiring manager round Reports
Adobe Not reported Light: a simple design plus OOP questions (India campus) MTS-2: dedicated LLD round plus HLD inside the hiring manager round Reports
Oracle Not reported IC1 campus: simple LLD (parking lot, library management) IC2: full system design round (US OCI) or HLD inside the hiring manager round (India) Reports
Walmart Global Tech Not reported SWE II (India campus): CS fundamentals instead of design SWE III: LLD in compiling Java plus often HLD. US loops include one design round Reports
eBay Not reported Not reported SE 2 with 2 years: full HLD round plus a hiring-manager design round Reports
Expedia Not reported None reported SDE II: LLD with working code more often than HLD Reports
Intuit Not reported No standalone HLD, but the Craft Demo probes design (schema, pagination, rate limiting) SE2: HLD discussion (CAP, ACID) plus design grilling in the Craft Demo Reports
PayPal Usually none Usually none; resume-based design questions possible 2+ years: conversational HLD round with payment scenarios Reports
Visa None None; project architecture questions instead HLD in a technical or hiring manager round (rate limiter) Reports
ServiceNow US: short HLD discussion with CAP IC1: one basic HLD or DB schema design IC2: same Reports
Cisco Light LLD tied to your projects Light LLD (design a router in Python) Light LLD; a DSA plus system design round from about 3 years Reports
Qualcomm Not standard LLD instead: LRU variants, custom malloc, circular buffer Same; AI teams ask ML system design Reports
IBM Rare Rare; design talk about your own projects HLD for experienced loops Reports
Palo Alto Networks Not reported Can appear: design discussion inside technical rounds (US), design plus core CS (India) Dedicated design round, networking and security flavor Reports

High-growth tech

Company Intern New grad 1 to 3 years Source
Stripe Usually none L1: usually none L2: about 1 hour, payment-flavored (idempotent APIs, ledgers) Reports
Databricks Some loops added a design or debugging round L3: one low-level system design round (caching file ranges, thread-safe writers) L4: Architecture round plus a System Programming round on concurrency Reports
Snowflake Usually none Not reported IC2: infrastructure and data-systems design Reports
Atlassian Not standard P30: Code Design round (LLD in your own IDE with tests, including an AI-enabled version) plus about 20 min of rapid design scenarios in the Karat screen P40: one 60-min system design round where questions "ladder" up or down Atlassian engineering interviews
Airbnb Not the focus G7: light or absent G8: 60-min design screen plus 60-min onsite design Reports
DoorDash None E3: none (2 coding plus values) E4: 60-min design paired with a project walkthrough Reports
Lyft Rare; one intern-level crawler prompt reported T3: some 2025 to 2026 loops included a 60-min design; prepare basics T4: expected Reports
Spotify Sometimes "system design basics" (US) Engineer I: part of full-time loops Same Reports
Pinterest None IC13: none IC14: 1 to 2 design rounds Reports
Snap Not reported SWE: unconfirmed. ML new grads report ML system design 1-hour design round Reports
TikTok Not standard 1-2: backend fundamentals instead (REST, WebSocket vs SSE, SQL vs NoSQL) 2-1: full design round Reports
Coinbase Not reported IC3: none reported IC4: one or two 60-min rounds on financial infrastructure Reports
Robinhood Not reported L1: lighter design; prepare the job scheduler L2: backend HLD with financial correctness Reports
Instacart Not reported Unknown; prepare inventory reservation design One design round, used for leveling Reports
Rippling Not reported No HLD; LLD or machine coding is the design signal SWE II: 60-min HLD used for leveling Reports
Cloudflare A scaling discussion attached to pair programming May be a design walkthrough of your own resume project Full design round Reports
Roblox Not reported IC1: mostly coding IC2: design is core Reports
Palantir Not reported Decomposition round: break an open-ended problem into components and a plan Formal design in most experienced loops Reports
Tesla Appears even for interns (an API to store metrics, a user table) A 2025 new grad loop had 2 design interviews Practical API, data and UI design for the team's product Reports
Waymo None reported Appears in non-senior onsites; domain-specific (fleet data, simulation) Same Reports
Anduril Not reported One 2026 new grad final round had no design One design or OOD round in general SWE onsites Reports

AI labs

Company Intern New grad 1 to 3 years Source
OpenAI Project walkthrough round 2025 new grad loop: coding plus behavioral, no design reported 1 to 2 design rounds in Excalidraw with deep questions on how each component works inside Reports
Anthropic Fellows: research discussion instead No new grad SWE track One design round, often LLM-flavored (serving LLMs with batching and queuing) Reports

Finance and trading

Company Intern New grad 1 to 3 years Source
Bloomberg Not reported US: usually none. London and Europe grad loops often include a full design round Standard Reports
Goldman Sachs None reported Analyst Superdays: a "Software Design and Architecture" round is common for some US loops (HLD plus LLD) Same Reports
JPMorgan Chase Not reported SEP: usually none, but a design question can appear (payment system, 2026) HLD round, sometimes LLD Reports
Capital One Technical plus case instead Power Day: design a banking app or card portal Same, deeper Reports
Morgan Stanley Not reported Little or none; OOP and LLD possible India Associate: LLD plus HLD Reports
Citadel Not reported Not a formal round; design-flavored coding Latency and market-data design Reports
Two Sigma Not reported Can appear as an OOD exercise (Connect-7 game) Heavier HLD Reports
Jane Street None No separate round; API and class design inside coding A design round is possible Reports
D. E. Shaw LLD with class diagrams LLD with class diagrams (furniture shop, chat app) HLD for experienced hires Reports
Hudson River Trading Systems fundamentals (OS, networking, memory) Systems fundamentals; some onsites add a design discussion Low-latency design discussion Reports

India and Asia product companies

Company Intern New grad 1 to 3 years Source
Flipkart Not reported SDE 1: usually no full design; light LLD or DB schema inside a coding round SDE 1 lateral and SDE 2: machine coding (90 to 120 min) plus a design round that is often LLD and schema-centric Flipkart SDE prep doc, reports
PhonePe Not reported No dedicated design round; light HLD can appear in the hiring manager round 0 to 3 years: machine coding is the design signal. SDE 2 (3 to 5 years): HLD Reports
Agoda Appears even for interns (chat app plus SQL schema) Platform round plus a system design round Same Reports
Nutanix Not reported Campus loops can include a design concepts round MTS 1: HLD. MTS 2: combined LLD and HLD Reports
Swiggy, Ola, Cred, Razorpay Not reported Machine coding as the first onsite round Same workat.tech (written a few years ago)

What you can skip

If your loop is Skip Do instead
Any intern loop, except the ones that report some design: Tesla, Agoda, Nvidia, Databricks, ServiceNow, Cloudflare, Spotify (US), Netflix (2026), D. E. Shaw (LLD) and Cisco (light LLD) System design prep Coding and behavioral. See Intern interviews
Google L3 or Meta E3 only Full HLD prep, papers, DDIA Spend 2 hours on Hello Interview's introduction and delivery framework. Fill the project template for your best project
Amazon SDE I Web-scale HLD LLD: parking lot, Amazon Locker, LRU cache. Then Leadership Principles
Flipkart, PhonePe or similar SDE 1 Distributed systems depth, papers Machine coding practice, patterns by name, DB schema design
Quant or HFT new grad Web-scale HLD OS, networking, memory, C++, and the low-latency list from Jugal's HFT post: multithreading, locks and mutexes; TCP vs UDP; kernel bypass (DPDK, RDMA)
Meta E4, Amazon SDE II, Microsoft 61 to 62, LinkedIn IC2, Airbnb G8, DoorDash E4 Nothing. Design sets your level The 6-week plan

Step 1: Find out exactly what your loop has (15 minutes)

  1. Write down your target level at each company. New grad is usually Google L3, Meta E3, Amazon SDE I or Microsoft 59 to 60. One to three years is usually L4, E4, SDE II or 61 to 62 (level map).
  2. Look up each company in the tables above. Write one line per company: "HLD: yes/no. LLD: yes/no. Machine coding: yes/no."
  3. Email your recruiter with the script below. Formats change by team and by quarter, so the recruiter's answer beats any table.
  4. Pick a plan from the table in Step 2.
Hi [Recruiter name],

Thanks for scheduling my interviews for [Role], [Job ID]. To prepare well, could you share
which rounds my loop includes?

1. Is there a system design, product architecture, object-oriented design or machine coding round?
2. How long is each round, and is design part of a coding round or separate?
3. Which tool will I use to draw or code (Excalidraw, CoderPad, my own IDE, a shared doc)?

Thank you,
[Your name]

Step 2: Pick your plan

Your situation Plan Time
Google or Meta new grad, no design round 2-hour primer (skip table above) 2 hours once
Amazon SDE I, Uber new grad, Atlassian P30, Salesforce AMTS, Databricks L3, D. E. Shaw, Oracle campus 4-week plan 1 to 1.5 hours a day
Flipkart, PhonePe, Swiggy-style SDE 1 or SDE 2, Rippling SDE-1, Walmart SWE III India Machine coding track, run alongside DSA 2 to 4 weeks
Meta E4, Amazon SDE II, Microsoft 61 to 62, LinkedIn IC2, Uber L4, Airbnb G8, DoorDash E4, Stripe L2 6-week plan About 1.5 hours a day
Front-end or mobile roles Week 1 of the 4-week plan, then the front-end and mobile resources 2 to 3 weeks
ML engineer or AI engineer roles Add the ML and AI add-on to either plan 2 extra weeks

Run system design alongside coding, not instead of it. For the full weekly hour budget across sections, see Start here.

4-week plan (new grad, SDE I, LLD-heavy loops)

About 1 to 1.5 hours a day. Draw every practice design in Excalidraw, the free whiteboard Meta uses and the most popular choice at Amazon.

Week 1: fundamentals

Week 2: key technologies and 3 easy problems

Week 3: low-level design

Week 4: medium problems and mocks

6-week plan (0 to 3 years, HLD round)

About 1.5 hours a day. Every problem is timed at 45 minutes with the whiteboard skeleton.

Week 1: fundamentals plus distributed data

Week 2: key technologies

Week 3: five classic problems, one per weekday

Week 4: five harder problems

Week 5: company prep

Week 6: mocks and review

ML and AI engineer add-on (2 weeks)

Entry-level ML roles usually have no ML system design round; it becomes common at mid-level (Hello Interview ML design). Add these 2 weeks if your loop has one, or if you may be asked to design an LLM product.

More ML and LLM design resources are on Resources.

What Jugal's posts say about design rounds

  • Scope for SDE I: Jugal's Amazon roadmap gives entry-level design two days and says you are designing a parking lot or library system, not Netflix (post). His focus list: break the problem down, ask "What's the scale? How many users?" first, keep the architecture to client, server and database, and understand load balancing, caching and sharding as concepts.
  • What to know for that round: client-server architecture, SQL vs NoSQL, caching (Redis, Memcached), load balancing, REST API design and message queues (same post). His video walks through the plan: How I cleared Amazon Technical Interview, DSA + System Design, 4 week plan.
  • Where people freeze: his 30-day plan puts System Design Lab in week 3 "if your role needs it" with three rules: start with the fundamentals track, actually run the simulations, and practice saying your reasoning out loud (post).
  • Startups test practical trade-offs: be able to say why you would pick S3 over GCS, or when to use a queue like SQS (post).
  • Defend your own architecture: Jugal writes that Google's behavioral round now includes a design conversation about your prior work (post). Aced reports the same from an internal Google document: a 2026 pilot for junior and mid-level roles on select US teams (Aced). Google has no public page on it yet.
  • Explain a project properly: "explain the user problem, the architecture, how you evaluated the output, what tradeoffs you made, and what you would improve in the next version" (post).
  • Meta new grads: design is for E4 and up; E3 may get another coding round instead (Jugal's Meta and Amazon guide).
  • Netflix: Jugal went through Netflix's loop and saw how much it cares about system design even for IC roles (post).
  • Apple: Jugal's late-2025 Apple interview was "surprisingly systems-heavy with a strong focus on clarity of thought and edge cases" (post). For Apple, name the failure cases and edge cases of every component you draw.

Myths that waste prep time

Myth Reality
"New grads never get design rounds." True for Google L3 and Meta E3. False for Amazon SDE I (OOD), Uber, Atlassian (Code Design), LinkedIn IC2 and Indian product companies (machine coding).
"I need to read DDIA cover to cover first." The 2nd edition (March 2026) is 670 pages. Read only the chapter that fixes a gap, and read the rest after you land the job.
"Hello Interview is all free." As of Oct 2026, numbers-to-know, DB indexing, all 7 pattern pages and 16 problem breakdowns are premium. The free set is still enough for this plan.
"The System Design Primer is by Alex Xu." It is by Donne Martin (repo). Alex Xu wrote the ByteByteGo books.
"More boxes look more senior." Hello Interview says the most common reason mid-level candidates fail is not delivering a working system. Build simple first, then add caches and queues.
"Memorize the leaked questions." interviewing.io says Google retires leaked questions (guide). Learn the method on Framework.

Checklist

  • I know which design rounds each of my target companies runs at my level.
  • I emailed my recruiter and got the format in writing.
  • I picked a plan and put it in my calendar.
  • I set up Excalidraw and drew one practice design in it.
  • I can explain one of my own projects with a diagram and two trade-offs.

Next: System design fundamentals