Your Complete System Design Roadmap: Beginner to Pro

Master the art of building scalable, reliable, and high-performance systems through structured design knowledge and real-world architecture principles.

Basic overview

What is System Design?

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Why Learn System Design?

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Estimated time commitment for the roadmap.

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Phases of the System Design Roadmap

Phase 1: Basics of System Design

What is System Design?

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System Design vs Software Design

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Types: High-Level Design (HLD) vs Low-Level Design (LLD)

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Components of a Scalable System

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Functional vs Non-Functional Requirements

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Phase 2: Fundamentals You Must Know

Client-Server Architecture

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Load Balancers

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DNS and CDNs

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Databases (SQL vs NoSQL)

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Caching (Redis, Memcached)

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API Design & RESTful Principles

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Networking Basics (IP, TCP, HTTP/S)

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Phase 3: Designing for Scale

Vertical vs Horizontal Scaling

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Database Replication & Sharding

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Statelessness and Session Management

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Consistency, Availability, Partition Tolerance (CAP Theorem)

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Rate Limiting & Throttling

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Phase 4: Data Flow & Storage Systems

Data Modeling for System Design

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File Storage vs Object Storage (e.g., S3)

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Blob Storage

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Message Queues (Kafka, RabbitMQ)

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Logging, Monitoring, and Analytics

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Phase 5: Key Concepts in Distributed Systems

Distributed System Basics

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Microservices vs Monolithic

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Event-Driven Architecture

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Consensus Algorithms (Paxos, Raft)

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Idempotency & Retry Mechanisms

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Phase 6: High-Level System Design Problems

Designing URL Shortener

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Designing YouTube or Video Streaming System

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Designing Twitter/Instagram Feed

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Designing an E-Commerce Website

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Designing Ride-Sharing (Uber, Ola)

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Designing Chat System (WhatsApp, Slack)

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Phase 7: Low-Level Design (LLD)

Class Diagrams & Object-Oriented Design Principles

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SOLID Principles

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Design Patterns (Factory, Singleton, Observer, etc.)

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UML Diagrams

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Phase 8: Scalability, Fault Tolerance & Optimization

Asynchronous Processing

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Redundancy & Failover Mechanisms

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Circuit Breakers

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Service Discovery

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Rate Limiting Algorithms (Token Bucket, Leaky Bucket)

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Phase 9: Security & Best Practices

Authentication vs Authorization

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OAuth 2.0 / JWT

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HTTPS, SSL, TLS

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Encryption at Rest & In Transit

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Securing APIs and Microservices

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Phase 10: Real-World System Design Architectures

Netflix Architecture

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WhatsApp Architecture

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Facebook Messenger Design

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Google Docs Collaboration System

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Design for High Traffic Events (e.g., IPL Live Streaming)

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Phase 11: Tools & Learning Resources

Tools: Draw.io, Lucidchart, Excalidraw

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Books: Designing Data-Intensive Applications, System Design Interview

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