Systems Architecture & Distributed Systems Topics
Large-scale distributed system design, service architecture, microservices patterns, global distribution strategies, scalability, and fault tolerance at the service/application layer. Covers microservices decomposition, caching strategies, API design, eventual consistency, multi-region systems, and architectural resilience patterns. Excludes storage and database optimization (see Database Engineering & Data Systems), data pipeline infrastructure (see Data Engineering & Analytics Infrastructure), and infrastructure platform design (see Cloud & Infrastructure).
End-to-End Feature Design and Development
The integrated "build a complete feature" interview format: taking one feature from user-facing flow through API design, backend logic, data model, and storage in a single coherent walkthrough. Tests the ability to connect the layers and make consistent trade-offs across them, rather than depth in any single layer.
Architecture Documentation and Communication
Making an architecture legible to others: architecture decision records (templates, alternatives and consequences, lifecycle, supersession, tagging and discoverability), diagramming and visualization (C4, sequence, deployment, data-flow and trust-boundary diagrams, notation conventions), and communicating designs to technical and non-technical stakeholders. Covers capturing rationale, documenting what a system does under failure, load and consistency trade-offs, recording observability, SLO and security content, running design reviews, keeping docs and diagrams current, and presenting a system clearly under time pressure. The communication skill that separates a good design from an understood one.
IoT and Edge Device System Architecture
Designing systems for large fleets of connected devices: device connectivity and provisioning, telemetry ingestion at scale, edge-versus-cloud processing splits, intermittent connectivity, and firmware/config rollout. Covers the constraints of constrained devices and the ingestion pipeline behind them. Distributed architecture where the edge is physical hardware.