Mastering the System Design Interview: Insider tips for your system design interview from a former Amazon hiring manager – plus 6 mock interviews for practice!

by Frank Kane

Ace your next system design interview! Get tips, tricks, and practice interviews with a former hiring manager from Amazon, who interviewed thousands of software engineers and hired hundreds. Frank Kane will share the secrets of what your interviewer is looking for and the technologies you’re expected to know. Practice makes perfect, so you’ll also get six mock system design interviews with real-world interview questions from the biggest tech employers.

A technical interview loop is a demanding process, and the system design part is often the most challenging. This course gets you prepared, and maximizes your odds of landing a new job that could change your life.

This book will cover what you need to know before starting your next

Techniques for scaling distributed systems and service fleetsDatabase technologies and “NoSQL” solutionsUse of caching to improve scalability and performanceDesigning for resiliency and handling failuresDistributed storage solutionsA review of algorithms and data structuresProcessing big data with Apache SparkAn overview of cloud computing resourcesInterview strategies for structuring your system design interviewSix full mock interviews with real-world system design interview questionsGeneral tips and tricks for a successful technical interviewThis book is for experienced software engineers who need some extra preparation prior to a challenging system design interview. With this book, you’ll have every advantage going into your next tech interview!

254 pages, Kindle Edition

Published November 5, 2021

About the author

Frank Kane, Brooklyn-born and a lifetime New Yorker, worked for many years in journalism and corporate public relations before shifting to fiction writing. At the time he was selling crime stories to the pulps he was also sustaining a career writing scripts for such radio shows as Gangbusters and The Shadow.

In addition to the Johnny Liddells, Kane wrote several suspense novels, some softcore erotica, and (under the pen name of Frank Boyd) "Johnny Staccato", a Gold Medal original paperback based on the short-lived noir television series, starring John Cassavetes, about a Greenwich Village bebop pianist turned private detective.

Reviews

[Florin Cristian Macicasan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good content, nice mock interviews. Wanted to try the virtual voice narration on some familiar content. It was acceptable, might try it some more in the future especially on tech content.

[Shamim Hafiz · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book is AI narrated, but the tone and content flow is lively. As with any AI generated narration, not having a human entity feels a bit like being in a dystopia. The other flaw is referencing to view diagrams which obviously isn't applicable to audiobooks.

On the better side, gives good introductory discussion on fundamental design concepts. The mock interviews also discuss critical system design concepts.

[Eswara · Rating 5 out of 5]

Best systems design book I have read so far

Loved the bottom up approach followed by mock interviews. The best systems design book I have read so far. Looking for other books by Frank Kane

[jo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great tips and sample questions!

A great read for someone who may not have experience building things at scale or who wants to catch up on the newer tech stacks.

[Laszlo Lazuer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book with great practical insights for System Design interviews.

[Barney · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an excellent book for preparing for a system design interview. The mock interviews are the most valuable part of the book. Amazing that something this useful is included in Kindle Unlimited.